Patrick Stewart: Star Trek captain Patrick Stewart speaks out on domestic violence

Star Trek's Captain says "End Domestic Violence"

Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard - Paramount Home Video

A friend of mine shared this with me over the weekend. It's an essay by Patrick Stewart best known for his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: the Next Generation. He writes about an evil more terrible than a Romulan plot to destroy Starfleet: domestic violence.

When he was a young boy, he experienced domestic violence first hand. In the piece he wrote for The Guardian he relates what it was like to live in a home with an abusive father:

"He was an angry, unhappy and frustrated man who was not able to control his emotions or his hands. As a child I witnessed his repeated violence against my mother, and the terror and misery he caused was such that, if I felt I could have succeeded, I would have killed him...For those who struggle to comprehend these feelings in a child, imagine living in an environment of emotional unpredictability, danger and humiliation week after week, year after year, from the age of seven. My childish instinct was to protect my mother, but the man hurting her was my father, whom I respected, admired and feared."

Read more after the jump!

The story he tells is - quite sadly - no different here in the United States as it is in the UK. Domestic violence is a problem that has been both ignored and - in some cultures - endorsed as part of the norm. To have someone of Stewart's stature speak out against this unconscionable form of violence should make us in the 'geek' and 'nerd' community take notice.

We are often criticized for going on flights of imagination and living in fantasy worlds. And yet, it was those very flights of imagination that ultimately gave us the ability to land on the moon.

The imagination can be a powerful thing. Can we use it to create a world where domestic violence is a thing of the past, where a young child can grow up in a loving home, not living in fear of a parent?

The Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) has a list of resources that victims of domestic violence (and their friends) can use.

You can also call the City of Chicago DV Help Line @ 1-877-863-6338

If you are in immediate danger, call 911.

There are resources out there and help for those who need it.

We can imagine a world without domestic violence.

Let's make it so.

Share this entry