belafonte

Harry Belafonte has called on men to join in helping to end violence against women.

Belafonte delivered the call to action during his keynote speech at Phi Beta Sigma’s “Centennial Founders’ Day Gala” in Washington D.C. The civil rights activists was also inducted into the fraternity as an honorary member. 

From The Washington Post:

“My contribution as a new member of the fraternity is to sucker all of you into coming with me and man up and stand up. When the time comes, we will be in touch and you will be informed to join us in the this movement in the 21st century,” Belafonte told a crowd of more than 1,000 people. “Let us use this century to be the century where we say we started the mission to end the violence and oppression of women.”

[…]

Activists are “gathering now to say, ‘Man up. All men who are stepping into this moment to say, ‘We will accept the responsibility for what we have done in the abuse of women and we acknowledge that abuse and we are here to declare ourselves as the tenders to the future to never, ever let our children be the abusers to women in our lifetime.’ ”

Read more at The Washington Post

During his acceptance of admission into the fraternity as an honorary member, Belafonte urged those in the crowd to join “the 21st century mission to focu on the plight of the savagery and brutalizing of women in some parts of the world — not only the brutalization of those in war but the brutalization of domestic application brutalizing women continually. It is men who created violence against women. It is men who should end the violence against women.”

Members of Phi Beta Sigma accepted Belafonte’s challenge.

How can Belafonte and other activists encourage men to stand up to acts of domestic violence?

Why isn’t domestic violence viewed as a community issue like other problems such as gun violence and drugs?

Sound off below!