I do have a point I want to make, now that I've made it clear that I am not calling for a different verdict. From the very beginning, the defence painted Macsyna King as guilty, and they emphasised again and again what a bad mother she was. They talked of her going out with her sister, leaving Chris Kahui alone with the twins. This is from the summing up:
The twins were not victims of a one-off assault but had historic injuries, and it was "suspicious" their mother was not aware of these.I don't think this defence would have been used or useful if the genders had been reversed. If hypothetical-Macsyna had been standing trial for their murder, then she would have not been able to use the fact that hypothetical-Chris had gone out partying all night, abandoned previous chidren and not noticed previous injuries to portray him as guilty. What is almost unforgivable in a mother, is almost acceptable in a father.
The Crown had accused Kahui's defence of blackening Ms King's reputation, but Mrs Smith said Ms King, through abandoning her other children and her drug use, had done that all by herself.
* I want to remind people that Chris Kahui spent several months in jail, while he was unable to get bail. During this time he was in physical danger, and so was kept in segregation, which would have meant 23 hour lock-down. The prominence, and swiftness, of the 'not guilty' verdict, doesn't seem to have led to a discussion about how he has already been punished.
** That is, which person inflicted the injuries. Because capitalism and colonialism played a large part in those babies deaths.
7 comments:
A brave post! It is very hard to imagine insinuations against a father based on his being out partying or being inattentive to his babies' health. There have been many other insinuations about the Kahui family - based on their race and beneficiary status - which have done nothing whatsoever to shed light either on this specific case, or the broader issues around the abuse of children.
I'd say the fact that she was blamed and he wouldn't be is because we have a social bias to view women as responsible for children, or as the "real parent". It's actually one of those convergence issues though, because while it leads to women being blamed as victims, it also denies men paternity to their genetic children in some cases.
Of course, try to reverse that trend and suddenly you're attacked as not valuing motherhood... =/
...we have a social bias to view women as responsible for children, or as the "real parent".
That's actually a very good bias from the point of view of children's safety. And I certainly do feel free to make moral judgements about men and women who litter the planet with children they won't look after and expect me to pay for - the term for this is not "prejudice," but "discernment."
...capitalism and colonialism played a large part in those babies deaths.
Actually, a distinctly minor part. Capitalism and colonialism can raise the statistical likelihood of members of a social or ethnic group abusing their children, but individual acts of abuse still come down to individuals choosing to act. Either or both of the parents, or one of the other waster scumbags hanging around the place, killed these two people - not because of capitalism or colonialism, but because of their own moral incapacity. Capitalism and colonialism can increase the kinds of pressures contributing to that moral incapacity, but the bottom line is that individuals are responsible for their actions.
I am so in agreement with this post. When the defence' argument basically boiled down to, "Chris Kahui is only guilty if you believe Macsyna King, whose children are dead therefore making her automatically a failure as a parent, and therefore EEEEEEEEEEEVIL", I just thought, "this trial cannot have any kind of "good" conclusion".
On remand and segregated, Chris Kahui would not have been on 23-hour lock-down. He would have been in with other segregated remand prisoners on a normal regime for remand prisoners. These people are innocent until proven guilty and would never be locked down 23-hours / day unless there were serious staff shortages or facilities for recreation were unavaialbe for some reason. I worked at Manawatu prison for a year. We had people accused of murder on remand alongside people accused of pretty much every other crime going. Unless they are violent, they are treated as innocent, but in detention. The remand prisoners at our prison even got evenings out in the yard, which no other group of convicted prisoners got unless they were deemed to be low security status and / or due for release soon.
(Not a major part of your excellent post, but I hope that helps clarify this one point.)
Many people are conflating correlation with causation.
We have redneck idiots saying welfare caused the deaths - if a rich man kill his kids, did he do it because he was rich? If a poor man kills his kids, did he do it because he was poor?
If someone on welfare kills their kids, did they do it because they are on welfare?
The fact is, no one knows why these poor babies were killed.
Colonialism and so forth is pure speculation.
Pyscho milt- sorry? I wasn't referring to anything to do with "people who litter the planet with children they won't look after and expect you to pay for". I was referring to social views on men and women.
Ruth- Are you seriously trying to deny that poverty influences (ie. is one of many factors determining) quality of parental care and likelyhood of abuse? While correlation doesn't guarentee causation in every event, strong correlations can show that a trend is sometimes the cause of a problem, or that both factors are caused by the same third factor, and thus alleviating one will alleviate the other. We don't necessarily need to figure out what the real cause is with complete certainly in order to address the problem.
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