el Don /SANTA ANA COLLEGE • MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2014/eldonnews.org
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el Don /SANTA ANA COLLEGE • MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2014/eldonnews.org
REMEMBERED / Kesha Curtis’ daughters, colleagues Vera Holder and Bonnie Jaros hang paper cranes on a cherry tree planted in her honor. It was Curtis’ favorite. / Liz Monroy / el Don
4
WHEN LOVE BECOMES DEADLY
Three years ago SAC
professor Kesha Curtis
was killed by her husband
BY MARTIN SYJUCO / Special to el Don
Beside a solitary cherry tree growing in
the garden on the northeast end of campus gathered a beloved professor’s family,
colleagues and friends.
Her two daughters, now closer to womanhood than the last time she saw them,
clung tightly to their grandparents, Diana
and Michael Smith.
At the end of May, as the semester
wound down, Kesha Curtis’ life was
celebrated with a posthumous certificate
from a rigorous teaching program she
never had the chance to see through.
Curtis died three years ago, a victim of
domestic violence.
By the time Curtis decided to break free
from an unhappy marriage, it was too
late. Her daughters were orphaned in a
murder-suicide that rocked the Santa Ana
College community.
The recent high-profile fallout from a
shocking video of NFL player Ray Rice
knocking his then-fiancée Janay Palmer
unconscious with a vicious punch, revealed from surveillance footage obtained
by TMZ, has forced a crime inflicted on
at least four women each day into everyday conversation.
Domestic violence is dominating
the headlines.
Once again, Americans confront spousal
abuse, triggered by graphic images that
have shocked, enraged and saddened
the nation.
“When you simply read text of an incident, it’s black and white, void of emotion.
But when it is visual or audible it affects
us emotionally and sears into our consciousness. It’s visceral,” said C.W. Little
Jr., chair of the communications and
media studies department. “Whether it is
the assassination of President Kennedy,
the devastation of 9/11, or the video of a
mother weeping over the loss of a child,
we are confronted with reality and that
evokes intense reactions that, absent these
images, tend to be more passive,” said
Little, who teaches a course on media,
race and gender. The class analyzes how
popular media distills complex identities
into digestible generalities.
“Sadly, categorizing and stereotyping
is easy and journalists fall prey to oversimplifying just as the general population does, often ignoring the individual
behind their reporting,” Little said.
The heaviness of spousal abuse is a
subject most people do not want to deal
with on a daily basis, Little said. Media is
consumed as much for entertainment as
it is for information, he added.
“Domestic violence is a reality that too
few are willing to confront. The insidiousness of this incident is that people
were not outraged when the first video
revealed Rice dragging Janay from the
elevator. What did they think happened
before the doors opened?” Little said.
Reactions to Rice’s crime have been
both encouraging and discouraging.
Keith Olbermann, an ESPN anchor,
Next
Professor Kesha Curtis
LIFETIME
The daughter of four-time
Pro Bowl receiver Isaac
Curtis, Kesha Curtis was
nearing completion of @One,
a rigorous online teaching
certification program before
falling victim to domestic
murder-suicide.
She was a professor
and department chairperson
for the communications
department.