About ten days ago, I sat down to write a blog post about white supremacy and this election. And then, our President-elect appointed a man who is chief architect of white supremacist propaganda news to his Cabinet, and then he chose another infamous racist, and another. And so, my strategy changed. What you see below is different than what I began with, and I have more to say on this in the days to come. I firmly believe that white supremacy is a driving force behind our recent election results, and to those who argue it was not the intended consequence, I argue that the emboldening of white supremacy is surely a consequence of it all the same.
I am not here to argue about all the myriad of things that fed into this outcome besides white people's need to be white above all else. I am an intelligent person and I understand the complexity of reality. But I believe that, even as liberals bemoan corporate interests and Wall Street, calling for a socialist revolution that they may or may not believe in themselves, a crucial truth is overlooked. All highly functioning democracies include profitable industries and a centralized system to manage money. Ours, however, has the unique attribute of being entirely founded on a platform of race-based chattel slavery and genocide. The irrational and paranoid belief in a white manifest destiny is not an artifact of who we used to be, it is at the very core of who we are. We can say the so-called "alt-right" are a fringe sector of our society, but white nationalism and white supremacy both have a long and accepted history here that relies on white people's continual denial that they exist. And so, we as a country elected a man to be our leader who has spent years viciously attacking the most internationally beloved and accomplished President in my lifetime, and he did it by saying, in essence, show me your papers, and, even, go back to Africa.
We have come such a short way.
Today I do not want to get bogged down into an intellectual debate over who is really at fault, and empathy, and understanding. I do not want to argue with progressives, or white women, or anyone, about capitalism, or misogyny, or the system. I want to bear witness to something. I am here to simply give some examples of what white people say online when they think only other like-minded white people are listening, or when they cease to care who is listening, because they have been given asylum and the assurance of freedom from consequences. On social media, with their names unhidden and pictures of their families included, white people say things about black people. I am not talking about on Breitbart, or in white supremacist pages and sites. I am talking about things that white people say, especially now, after this election, on social media pages that ostensibly have nothing at all to do with politics or race. Here is a little snapshot of what I have seen white people say, about black people in particular, and I am not even privy to anything resembling the worst of what is out there.
"Turn the hoses on them!"
"Crack babies with no conscience."
"This is a racist neighborhood because we're not stupid."
"We don't have the right to be white anymore."
"Calling them animals is actually an insult to the animal species."
"Why respect their dead? Animals!"
"They are a complete subculture and a cancer to our society."
"Something has to be done to keep them from our neighborhood."
"No more mercy, time for the old skinhead ways."
"Half-breed!"
"You're a coal-burner."
"These mooks will not destroy another neighborhood."
"It's BS these apes can come here."
"Not to be racist, but black men scare me."
"Ask the Jews how backing down worked out."
"There's no more peace, it's race war time."
"I'll fly a proud rebel flag."
"Tear gas them all."
"A bunch of chongos."
"Black people are uncivilized."
"Keep those roaches out."
"I'm sure everyone on here has used the N-word."
"Animals go home."
"These animals need to be found and hung."
I am a cancer survivor and I can say this. America has a metastatic disease. You can cut out the solid tumor by targeting the "establishment" or any other given thing, and the microscopic cells of white supremacy that have invaded the rest of our body remain. And so, if you tell me that I need to find empathy or understanding, that I need to come together with these people in a show of unity and peace, if you tell me anything about acceptance, I will say that no, love never cured a cancer, but there are tools at our disposal (social, political, legislative, and activist tools) that have, and so we should be relentless in our commitment to using them.
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Beach Reading
I have never had ordinary taste in leisure activities. There are many examples of this, but one that sticks out in my mind is the fact that for as long as I can remember, I have sought out books to read in my spare time about genocide. There are a variety of reasons for why this is the case, but the reasons aren't relevant. While as a society we seem to collectively admit to one event when describing genocide--the Holocaust--(of course, there are vocal segments of our collective that deny the existence of that one as well), I personally am interested in the whole of what we have named as modern genocides, including genocides in Armenia, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur. Our own history of genocide of Native and African Americans, while not considered "modern" (perhaps incorrectly) provides important context and can be related directly to these state-sanctioned tragedies around the world. There are other massive atrocities that killed millions but for specific reasons we do not refer to as genocide, though they used many of the same tactics and the same precursors can be seen in them, such as the regimes of Stalin or Mao or the past thirty years of rule in North Korea. I like to read about those too. While others could be found on the beach reading romance novels or mysteries, I might be reading a book on reconciliation policies in Rwanda. It's an eccentricity, I suppose. And this habit does not in any way make me a scholar or an expert, but it allows me to see patterns across the worst moments in human history.
It is easy to ask "how could such a thing happen" and equally easy to say "never again." It is harder to look at these events, which seem so different on their face, and find the precursors, the commonalities, that encompass the calm before the storm. In order to be considered genocides, these events cannot simply be "wartime" atrocities or the collective brutality of neighbor against neighbor, but must include an express state-sanctioned decision to rid the culture of a specific type of people. This inevitably involves exalting one religious, ethnic, racial, or other social group (such as the peasant class) above all others. But that is definitional; I'm interested in the tactical. From what I--again, I am no expert--can tell, modern genocides have several preceding factors in common.
1. A charismatic leader more interested in loyalty than policy. It's arguable that many of the genocides that have happened in modern history did not happen because the leader or group in charge of ordering the genocide was personally committed to the cause. Rather, genocide can be used as a tool to create and maintain absolute power in the hands of one or a few. Genocidal leaders know the worst sins of their followers--their deep prejudices against others based on race or religion--and use them to their advantage by creating complicity among the populace.
2. A split from the old ways of governing. Genocides are usually preceded by popular uprisings. Individual leaders or groups of leaders, such as what we see with military coups that lead to genocide, are plucked from unlikely places and seek to erase the culture built by the old established order. If elected, they are rarely elected by a majority (Hitler had 33% of the vote), and if unelected, they are rarely experienced governors. The regimes that build genocidal societies are uninterested in governing per se, they are interested in controlling, and in upholding their own unquestioned authority.
3. It might seem small, but many regimes that eventually lead genocides wear some type of uniform to identify themselves in a "you are for us or against us" play. The uniform might be brown shirts, "country" dress, certain types of hats, or some other form of self-identification not normally found in an open, democratic society. Of course, in strictly race- or ethnicity-based genocides, the supposed physical attributes of the ruling class have been used against those who are about to be oppressed: not having a certain skin color, hair color, nose or head shape, or having a physical disability can be an immediate sign of being "other" and therefore worthy of targeting. Language can be a uniform of sorts, as those not speaking the "dominant" language or those with "undesirable" accents are targeted as well.
4. Related to the above, in pre-genocidal societies see an increase in attempts at "passing" as people begin to be aware of the brutality to come. Vulnerable people who are able to "pass" attempt to hide their race, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, educational background, sexual preference, or other "mark" of the coming oppression.
5. The government in power keeps a list of the enemy. Modern genocides all rely on lists of enemies of the state or the race. Lists can be actual, or symbolic. They can include forced registries of people based on religion, nationality, or ethnicity. This was extremely effective in leading to the genocides of the Third Reich and Rwanda, for example. They can include things like forcing certain groups to identify themselves in public (stars of David) or forcing citizens to provide papers, even when providing such papers might be impossible (the current treatment of Haitians in the Dominican Republic). Lists are gleaned from the places the soon-to-be oppressed gather: universities (Cambodia) Lists of "enemies of the state" that are not based on ethnicity or race or religion are imperative to pre-genocidal regimes as well. No genocide is effective without keeping tabs on sympathizers of the oppressed and silencing, persecuting, or executing them as well.
6. A remarkably consistent way of dehumanizing the target of the genocide in speech. This is something that personally astonishes me: no matter the time in history, the continent, or the type of genocide, the language used to describe the group to be exterminated is the same: people are referred to as animals, or insects (apes, cockroaches), reduced to perceptions of their inherently criminal nature (savages, crooks, rapists), seen as unwholesome burdens on good society (a cancer, a blight, a pox) or considered inherent enemies of the state simply by nature of being who they are (traitors, terrorists). Further, the oppressors flip the language, forcing words that should be used to describe their actions onto the oppressed. Those who oppose them are "unreasonable," "racist," "totalitarian," "liars," and, even "genocidal."
7. Threats against political rivals. Before beginning to assassinate or imprison the opposition, a crucial aspect of pre-genocide seems to be the threat of doing so. This helps to normalize it once it happens. Political opponents are threatened with jail or legal action or are ousted from their positions, and opposing political parties are deemed illegitimate. This goes hand in hand with the focus of genocidal leaders on putting real power in the hands of a very few people, often family members. Truly dangerous demagogues rarely have a solid group of close advisors they can trust, because on some level, they know that most people know they are extraordinarily dangerous and unfit. While here we focus on family political dynasties (The Bush, Clinton, Kennedy families as example), that is a different problem than the leader in power at the time ensuring or attempting to ensure that family members are given state secrets and clearance and are put in positions of high power...because no one else can be trusted.
8. Repression or takeover of the press. While having a casual conversation over scotch the other night, my husband declared that every new form of telecommunications had a corresponding genocide, and we have yet to see one directly related to the Internet or social media age. I say that as a simple aside. Anyway, persecution of reporters and a dismantling of any press other than propaganda for the ruling regime might seem like obvious ploys of authoritarianism. There are other subtle ways to destroy the ability of the country to get accurate information, however. Some are related to the above tactics. Media outlets can be threatened with lawsuits or claims of "libel." Entire media industries can be labeled as corrupt ("Jew Media" is still a term used by white supremacists). Putting masters of propaganda in high political positions has been a precursor to every genocide named in the first paragraph of this essay. The radio was used so expertly in the Rwandan genocide that the entire venture took just 100 days. Other propaganda movements are slower burning, and some are total (North Korea, where no information is allowed to be transmitted in any way by almost anyone).
9. Criminalization of everyday activities. This sets the stage for what is to come. People are incarcerated for long periods of time for a variety of things that in ordinary circumstances would never be considered problematic: adults breaking state-sanctioned curfews; having jobs (depending on who you are or what you do); not carrying identification; being a drug addict (which is different than being arrested for possessing illegal drugs); having sex in certain ways or with certain people; the list is limited only by the imagination of those in power. I would include here the idea that every genocide carries with it a limit on reproductive freedom and the criminalization of those who do not comply. This can be done in extreme ways (mass rape as a form of genocide and population control or racial "cleansing," mass forced sterilization); or by forcing individuals to seek state approval to plan their families. I'm sure there are less obvious ways to criminalize reproductive rights, but I'm drawing a blank at the moment.
10. Normalization of genocidal and authoritarian language. While it has long been understood that there are three phases of genocide (attempts to exterminate a people, attempts to culturally exterminate or assimilate the survivors, and denial of the existence of the genocide), it seems to me that what we see in history is a denial that begins BEFORE the event itself. In every case mentioned, there were warnings and people willing to disseminate those warnings, sometimes for months or years beforehand, and in the case of Germany, for at least a decade. In every case, those people were brushed off as crazy, paranoid, unwilling to compromise, and, as, simply, wrong. All of the above are made normal through language, acceptance of policy positions and an intense focus on reiterating that the impossible will not come to pass. The denial continues through the genocide itself and is intensified once the event is over. This is what enables us in the United States to call our genocide of Native Americans a "war" and our genocide attempted through centuries of race-based chattel slavery an "economic condition of the South." It is what enables the world at large to give Turkey a pass and allow them to insist the Armenian genocide never happened, and the Armenians were in fact the oppressors. It leads to Holocaust-deniers, attempts to rewrite the history of what happened in Bosnia, a total erasure of Pol Pot from history books, and an insistence that Rwanda and Darfur were somehow "inevitable African problems." The denial wouldn't work if it didn't start early.
These are the types of things I think about on an abnormally warm and sunny day in November. Obviously, there are societies that exhibit all of the above and do not carry out mass exterminations, and there are numerous contextual things that make each genocide event unique. Comparisons that fail to take into account the specific place in time, socioeconomic factors, and corresponding world events might be spurious at best. I am no expert, obviously, and my interest in genocide is abnormal. It's an eccentricity, I know. It never seemed to serve much purpose but to make me aware of the worst possibilities. And so this essay is perhaps purposeless--it is just to say.
Today I sat down to write and I thought about this:
The years when I was single, before the intense love and corresponding terror that parenting wrought, when on a Saturday afternoon I would take public transportation through a troubled and diverse city to a beach in an historically gay neighborhood and lie on the sand and read a book or two on a subject that seemed out of place, on a day that seemed impossibly warmer and brighter than this.
This is just to say.
It is easy to ask "how could such a thing happen" and equally easy to say "never again." It is harder to look at these events, which seem so different on their face, and find the precursors, the commonalities, that encompass the calm before the storm. In order to be considered genocides, these events cannot simply be "wartime" atrocities or the collective brutality of neighbor against neighbor, but must include an express state-sanctioned decision to rid the culture of a specific type of people. This inevitably involves exalting one religious, ethnic, racial, or other social group (such as the peasant class) above all others. But that is definitional; I'm interested in the tactical. From what I--again, I am no expert--can tell, modern genocides have several preceding factors in common.
1. A charismatic leader more interested in loyalty than policy. It's arguable that many of the genocides that have happened in modern history did not happen because the leader or group in charge of ordering the genocide was personally committed to the cause. Rather, genocide can be used as a tool to create and maintain absolute power in the hands of one or a few. Genocidal leaders know the worst sins of their followers--their deep prejudices against others based on race or religion--and use them to their advantage by creating complicity among the populace.
2. A split from the old ways of governing. Genocides are usually preceded by popular uprisings. Individual leaders or groups of leaders, such as what we see with military coups that lead to genocide, are plucked from unlikely places and seek to erase the culture built by the old established order. If elected, they are rarely elected by a majority (Hitler had 33% of the vote), and if unelected, they are rarely experienced governors. The regimes that build genocidal societies are uninterested in governing per se, they are interested in controlling, and in upholding their own unquestioned authority.
3. It might seem small, but many regimes that eventually lead genocides wear some type of uniform to identify themselves in a "you are for us or against us" play. The uniform might be brown shirts, "country" dress, certain types of hats, or some other form of self-identification not normally found in an open, democratic society. Of course, in strictly race- or ethnicity-based genocides, the supposed physical attributes of the ruling class have been used against those who are about to be oppressed: not having a certain skin color, hair color, nose or head shape, or having a physical disability can be an immediate sign of being "other" and therefore worthy of targeting. Language can be a uniform of sorts, as those not speaking the "dominant" language or those with "undesirable" accents are targeted as well.
4. Related to the above, in pre-genocidal societies see an increase in attempts at "passing" as people begin to be aware of the brutality to come. Vulnerable people who are able to "pass" attempt to hide their race, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, educational background, sexual preference, or other "mark" of the coming oppression.
5. The government in power keeps a list of the enemy. Modern genocides all rely on lists of enemies of the state or the race. Lists can be actual, or symbolic. They can include forced registries of people based on religion, nationality, or ethnicity. This was extremely effective in leading to the genocides of the Third Reich and Rwanda, for example. They can include things like forcing certain groups to identify themselves in public (stars of David) or forcing citizens to provide papers, even when providing such papers might be impossible (the current treatment of Haitians in the Dominican Republic). Lists are gleaned from the places the soon-to-be oppressed gather: universities (Cambodia) Lists of "enemies of the state" that are not based on ethnicity or race or religion are imperative to pre-genocidal regimes as well. No genocide is effective without keeping tabs on sympathizers of the oppressed and silencing, persecuting, or executing them as well.
6. A remarkably consistent way of dehumanizing the target of the genocide in speech. This is something that personally astonishes me: no matter the time in history, the continent, or the type of genocide, the language used to describe the group to be exterminated is the same: people are referred to as animals, or insects (apes, cockroaches), reduced to perceptions of their inherently criminal nature (savages, crooks, rapists), seen as unwholesome burdens on good society (a cancer, a blight, a pox) or considered inherent enemies of the state simply by nature of being who they are (traitors, terrorists). Further, the oppressors flip the language, forcing words that should be used to describe their actions onto the oppressed. Those who oppose them are "unreasonable," "racist," "totalitarian," "liars," and, even "genocidal."
7. Threats against political rivals. Before beginning to assassinate or imprison the opposition, a crucial aspect of pre-genocide seems to be the threat of doing so. This helps to normalize it once it happens. Political opponents are threatened with jail or legal action or are ousted from their positions, and opposing political parties are deemed illegitimate. This goes hand in hand with the focus of genocidal leaders on putting real power in the hands of a very few people, often family members. Truly dangerous demagogues rarely have a solid group of close advisors they can trust, because on some level, they know that most people know they are extraordinarily dangerous and unfit. While here we focus on family political dynasties (The Bush, Clinton, Kennedy families as example), that is a different problem than the leader in power at the time ensuring or attempting to ensure that family members are given state secrets and clearance and are put in positions of high power...because no one else can be trusted.
8. Repression or takeover of the press. While having a casual conversation over scotch the other night, my husband declared that every new form of telecommunications had a corresponding genocide, and we have yet to see one directly related to the Internet or social media age. I say that as a simple aside. Anyway, persecution of reporters and a dismantling of any press other than propaganda for the ruling regime might seem like obvious ploys of authoritarianism. There are other subtle ways to destroy the ability of the country to get accurate information, however. Some are related to the above tactics. Media outlets can be threatened with lawsuits or claims of "libel." Entire media industries can be labeled as corrupt ("Jew Media" is still a term used by white supremacists). Putting masters of propaganda in high political positions has been a precursor to every genocide named in the first paragraph of this essay. The radio was used so expertly in the Rwandan genocide that the entire venture took just 100 days. Other propaganda movements are slower burning, and some are total (North Korea, where no information is allowed to be transmitted in any way by almost anyone).
9. Criminalization of everyday activities. This sets the stage for what is to come. People are incarcerated for long periods of time for a variety of things that in ordinary circumstances would never be considered problematic: adults breaking state-sanctioned curfews; having jobs (depending on who you are or what you do); not carrying identification; being a drug addict (which is different than being arrested for possessing illegal drugs); having sex in certain ways or with certain people; the list is limited only by the imagination of those in power. I would include here the idea that every genocide carries with it a limit on reproductive freedom and the criminalization of those who do not comply. This can be done in extreme ways (mass rape as a form of genocide and population control or racial "cleansing," mass forced sterilization); or by forcing individuals to seek state approval to plan their families. I'm sure there are less obvious ways to criminalize reproductive rights, but I'm drawing a blank at the moment.
10. Normalization of genocidal and authoritarian language. While it has long been understood that there are three phases of genocide (attempts to exterminate a people, attempts to culturally exterminate or assimilate the survivors, and denial of the existence of the genocide), it seems to me that what we see in history is a denial that begins BEFORE the event itself. In every case mentioned, there were warnings and people willing to disseminate those warnings, sometimes for months or years beforehand, and in the case of Germany, for at least a decade. In every case, those people were brushed off as crazy, paranoid, unwilling to compromise, and, as, simply, wrong. All of the above are made normal through language, acceptance of policy positions and an intense focus on reiterating that the impossible will not come to pass. The denial continues through the genocide itself and is intensified once the event is over. This is what enables us in the United States to call our genocide of Native Americans a "war" and our genocide attempted through centuries of race-based chattel slavery an "economic condition of the South." It is what enables the world at large to give Turkey a pass and allow them to insist the Armenian genocide never happened, and the Armenians were in fact the oppressors. It leads to Holocaust-deniers, attempts to rewrite the history of what happened in Bosnia, a total erasure of Pol Pot from history books, and an insistence that Rwanda and Darfur were somehow "inevitable African problems." The denial wouldn't work if it didn't start early.
These are the types of things I think about on an abnormally warm and sunny day in November. Obviously, there are societies that exhibit all of the above and do not carry out mass exterminations, and there are numerous contextual things that make each genocide event unique. Comparisons that fail to take into account the specific place in time, socioeconomic factors, and corresponding world events might be spurious at best. I am no expert, obviously, and my interest in genocide is abnormal. It's an eccentricity, I know. It never seemed to serve much purpose but to make me aware of the worst possibilities. And so this essay is perhaps purposeless--it is just to say.
Today I sat down to write and I thought about this:
The years when I was single, before the intense love and corresponding terror that parenting wrought, when on a Saturday afternoon I would take public transportation through a troubled and diverse city to a beach in an historically gay neighborhood and lie on the sand and read a book or two on a subject that seemed out of place, on a day that seemed impossibly warmer and brighter than this.
This is just to say.
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
To the Fathers Who Responded to Brock Turner's Father
Dear Fathers:
I have read your words. I believe you are good men, that your hearts are in the right place. You do not engage in victim blaming. You believe in the concept of autonomy over one's body. You want to believe in justice even when you know it hasn't been served. You are disgusted and appalled by the rapist and his father's lack of remorse and accountability. I hear you. But no matter your eloquence, no matter your intentions, my problem lies in the fact that I hear you. I hear you speak about a young woman who has been raped. I hear you say that this crime is "unspeakable," that the woman will forever live with "unthinkable trauma," that she is "horribly altered." I hear you say that her rapist has "robbed her of her dignity, her self-respect, her self-worth."
In a rare moment, and one for which I'm grateful, the victim of this crime had an opportunity to actually say how she has been impacted by it. There is no reason for conjecture; we can read it in its entirety. If she says that she has been robbed of things as a result of being raped, it is our responsibility to hear her and to believe her.
But I want to take you out of this particular crime, this particular moment. When you describe the impact of rape, you are not speaking about its impact on one woman who has already eloquently laid that out for us. You are speaking about rape in general, and its impacts. You are speaking about trauma, and what it does to a person. You are saying that because of this, such horrible crimes should be punished appropriately.
And this is where I stray from you.
First of all, rape is not unspeakable. Speak about it. Women do, all the time--when planning their buddy systems with friends, when talking about the "bad experiences" of their youth. Rape is not unthinkable. Think about it. Women do, all the time--when they are walking to their cars, sitting with their boyfriends, brushing their daughter's hair into a ponytail.
People are raped and they think about it and talk about it. Sometimes, they feel that other things are worse, more unspeakable and unthinkable. It's possible. It's their right. Sometimes, I am left with the feeling that men believe rape is the worst thing that could happen because men feel that primacy over their bodies and sexuality is a mark of what makes them men, and therefore, of what makes them WORTHY. You cannot imagine, can you, that a person could be raped...and thrive, and feel comfortable with herself. You are arguing that rape is a horrible crime because of what it does to a person. I am arguing that rape is a horrible crime. Period.
I don't know why this bothers me so much, but I want you to understand this: People experience sexual violence and hold on to every single aspect of their dignity, self-respect, and self-worth. Being raped does not mean you cannot have those things. Rape is not a crime because someone is robbed of those things. Rape is a crime because rape is a crime, regardless of how the person who experiences it processes it or lives her life afterwards. People who do feel robbed of those aspects of themselves are always justified in their feelings. But fathers--it is simply not for you to say that that is how it IS. It is not even for you to imply.
I have experienced a decent amount of trauma in my life, though far less than others, and even most. I have also learned over the years that I have not processed these things "Correctly." I have never been bothered enough, sad enough, distraught enough, depressed enough, anxious enough, traumatized enough, and I have never, ever--not ever--been ashamed, not even a little. This extends beyond sexual violation and violence, but it's true for that too. And because of this odd aspect of my nature (people have told me that I must have a chip missing), I have learned something interesting over the years.
We--and by we I mean all of us, society as a whole--expect, and even perhaps require, penance from those who suffer. We expect people who experience trauma to be forever altered by it, or at least temporarily waylaid, or we don't believe the trauma is real. We don't believe in injustice unless those on the receiving end are broken by it. And so, we only prosecute injustice if we feel that grievous harm has been done, and even then, as in the case you find so repugnant, we don't dole out the punishment accordingly.
We should not require victims of crimes to suffer in order to see justice.
When someone placed a gun at my temple, I was momentarily terrified, wondering if my life would be snuffed out on a half-empty elevated train car. That did not happen, and all that I lost was the contents of my bag. And yet, when talking to the police, I knew what I was supposed to do. I could tell by how they looked at us in the rear view mirror of the squad car that they were suspicious of us. We were both calm and conversational. I was not crying, or asking my boyfriend to hold me, or leaning on his shoulder. I knew that if we wanted sympathy, I should do all of those things, but I could not do them. When my neighbor had the police personally escort her every day for two weeks to the train after a chain had been snatched off of her neck, I knew it was because she was young and small and white and she cried, and instead of sympathy I felt nothing but fury. The crime that befell all of us--every single person on that train car was robbed at gunpoint--was so much worse, and yet nothing was ever done about it, because everyone else on the train thought the police weren't worth the trouble (true, in this case) and I couldn't cry; I watched an action movie with my ex boyfriend the next day as therapy instead and got on the same damn train the day after that. I never felt traumatized, and I don't think my boyfriend did either. I didn't change my behavior or avoid trains.
But it was armed robbery all the same. The police should not have ignored it because of my, or his, personality.
I've had cancer, but sometimes people have thought I haven't REALLY had it, not the way other people do, or at least it doesn't BOTHER me, right? Death might be coming for me whether I cry about it or not, whether I keep on doing things the same or not. The disease doesn't care about my temperment, and neither should you. When a physicians assistant told me she could reconstruct my nipple so that I wouldn't feel sad when I looked in the mirror, so I wouldn't feel "bad about myself," I know I should have said thank you, but I could not. Instead I said, "Don't presume that about me. Don't assume that I feel bad about myself, that I feel sad." I know it takes some women a full year to look at themselves in the mirror after having one or both breasts cut off. I think that is completely understandable. But it doesn't make my breast any less amputated, my cancer any less real, for me to rip the hospital gown off right after I stopped puking up my breakfast the morning after surgery, lean on my husband for help getting to the bathroom, look at my beat up, scarred, disfigured chest and shrug and say "huh. that's not so bad."
The fact that certain memories from being 15 has led me to a life of almost physical repulsion of drunk men does not mean that I have been unhappy, or lonely. Drunk men aren't that interesting, or necessary to a happy life. The fact that I do not watch basketball games in public, that I can't stand to be the only woman in the room, does not mean that I am broken, does not mean I don't love sex, or that I am ashamed or lacking dignity.
It also doesn't mean a crime wasn't committed against me that night.
When I had epilepsy, I wasn't ashamed. I didn't feel like less of a person because my brain didn't always cooperate. I didn't feel lessened by being in a wheelchair and being unable to walk. But you know what, that was a crime too. I was hit by a car, and it changed my life, and the woman who did it was never punished. The fact that I was happy, content, busy, isn't relevant.
We should not require those who suffer to prove it through their actions, especially when the suffering is brought on by the action of another person. When we do this, we are being selfish. I am sorry, but yes I mean YOU. We want so badly to separate ourselves from those who experience trauma. After all, if you survive something "unspeakable," and then carry on laughing and living out the promise of your life, what is the purpose of the whole struggle anyway? Do those who have had bad experiences also get to have good lives?
Rape is not wrong because it is a crime. Rape is a crime because it is wrong. It is a crime regardless of how the victim remembers it or experiences it. If the victim in this case or any other was happy the next day, having sex with her boyfriend, going to yoga, eating steak, cracking jokes, or any other possible series of reactions, it is not for us to say that she is hiding something, or in denial, or behaving strangely. It is none of our business how she behaves at all, and it is only our business how she feels insofar as we are human and should feel empathy when the situation warrants it.
The crime should be treated the same because it is a crime, and everyone knows it, whether we apologize for it collectively or not.
One of my favorite heroes to come out of our recent focus on/failure to understand sexual assault and rape is a young teenager named Jada, whose rape was recorded and shared online a few years ago. She was outspoken about the crime. She said this: "Everyone has seen my face and my body, but that is not who I am or what I am." And she is right. Terrible things can happen to your body, and not impact your sense of who you are. It doesn't work that way for everyone, and that is understandable too. But it is entirely possible to be content with yourself, happy, proud even, and for your rape to be just as real and the rapist just as deserving of severe punishment. This is so important, fathers. Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?
There is an incident from my childhood I will probably never write about, because it took years for me to understand it as sexual abuse, until I was sexually active myself. I will not keep it to myself out of shame, or guilt. I will keep it to myself because I honestly did not experience any trauma or negative impacts as a result of it--because I did not understand it as sexual abuse at the time. Once I could contextualize it, I was not traumatized that this thing happened to me, but it did explain some things I had always questioned. I did not feel sad or upset. I felt angry, again, not that it happened, when I was so little, but that the bastard got away with it. And once I could think about it with an adult understanding, I realized something: I didn't know it was abuse, but HE DID. My response or lack thereof is irrelevant to the fact of his crime.
I say these things to you, fathers, because you might very well have daughters. You might have daughters who are led to believe, through everything down to your good intentions, that their worth is determined by their behavior, their purity, their bodies, their ability to control what happens to them. I am here to tell you that is false. People are valuable, people are worthy, people are entitled to dignity, because people are people; our common humanity entitles us to dignity, and worth, and value. There is nothing that can happen to a person that we should assume would take those things from them. It happens, and people feel those irrevocable losses. But don't concentrate there. Don't assume that people who suffer, or experience trauma, are broken, or lost.
I will leave you with two examples of what I am trying to say. My husband, who is a father who never had a father, had a strange upbringing, to say the least. As part of that, he spent some time in his youth hungry. He was not hungry in that trivial sense, but in the sense where his growth was stunted, and on some level he will always be the 13 year old boy who looked forward to the butter sandwich he got to eat that day. And here is my question: what of it? Is that sad? Is poverty sad, especially when it is so relative? I mean, he didn't have rickets, he didn't die. Today, he will eat everyone's scraps of food, even at a party, even if it's the food from someone else's kid. He will say things to our kids at the dinner table like "have seconds! you never know when you might eat again!" and then he will laugh at himself as they laugh at him. He was hungry, not horribly altered. Chronic hunger is a social problem that impacts millions, not a mark of shame or evidence of being a lesser person. We don't feel sad for him. We just pass the plates down his way.
And now to me. When I was a child, I had epilepsy. I had 100 seizures a day without medication. The medication worked, which was wonderful, but it also poisoned my liver and caused me severe pain. Every six weeks I had to go in for blood tests to gauge the level of the poison. I was tiny when I was six years old, barely 30 pounds. Nurses would place butterfly needles in my arm and take multiple vials of blood. I loved to watch the blood go into the tubes; I found it fascinating. After these tests, my parents would take me to 7-11 and allow me to get a candy bar and a slurpee for being such a "trooper." I understood even then what a trooper was--a person who did what she had to do, without complaining or asking questions. Being a trooper was neither good nor bad--it just was. And so, I would always look forward to my treat, and I always picked a Milky Way bar and a red-flavored Slurpee. It took me years to realize that my parents gave me those "treats" to bring my sugar up, to make sure I wouldn't pass out, as so much blood had been taken from my tiny body.
I didn't know that, and I didn't experience 7-11 as a consolation prize for my medical condition. That candy-slurpee combination remains impossibly perfect in my memory. The reason for it did not detract from its sweetness. Once this year, at age 40, I did something that until now I've kept a secret. While my husband was working, the kids were at school, and I was working from home, I drove to 7-11. I bought a Milky Way and a wild cherry slurpee, a combination I hadn't tasted in decades. I stood in the crowded parking lot and thought about all the things that have happened through the years, all the losses, all the hard things. I waited for the realization that the innocence or sincere happiness of my youth was gone.
I would have to wait a while longer. It was just how I remembered--how I always chose to remember. No matter what came before, the melted chocolate on my fingers tasted just as sweet. The ice in my throat still made me close my eyes and smile.
Dear fathers, remember that. You are there to offer consolation, not to tell her how it feels.
I have read your words. I believe you are good men, that your hearts are in the right place. You do not engage in victim blaming. You believe in the concept of autonomy over one's body. You want to believe in justice even when you know it hasn't been served. You are disgusted and appalled by the rapist and his father's lack of remorse and accountability. I hear you. But no matter your eloquence, no matter your intentions, my problem lies in the fact that I hear you. I hear you speak about a young woman who has been raped. I hear you say that this crime is "unspeakable," that the woman will forever live with "unthinkable trauma," that she is "horribly altered." I hear you say that her rapist has "robbed her of her dignity, her self-respect, her self-worth."
In a rare moment, and one for which I'm grateful, the victim of this crime had an opportunity to actually say how she has been impacted by it. There is no reason for conjecture; we can read it in its entirety. If she says that she has been robbed of things as a result of being raped, it is our responsibility to hear her and to believe her.
But I want to take you out of this particular crime, this particular moment. When you describe the impact of rape, you are not speaking about its impact on one woman who has already eloquently laid that out for us. You are speaking about rape in general, and its impacts. You are speaking about trauma, and what it does to a person. You are saying that because of this, such horrible crimes should be punished appropriately.
And this is where I stray from you.
First of all, rape is not unspeakable. Speak about it. Women do, all the time--when planning their buddy systems with friends, when talking about the "bad experiences" of their youth. Rape is not unthinkable. Think about it. Women do, all the time--when they are walking to their cars, sitting with their boyfriends, brushing their daughter's hair into a ponytail.
People are raped and they think about it and talk about it. Sometimes, they feel that other things are worse, more unspeakable and unthinkable. It's possible. It's their right. Sometimes, I am left with the feeling that men believe rape is the worst thing that could happen because men feel that primacy over their bodies and sexuality is a mark of what makes them men, and therefore, of what makes them WORTHY. You cannot imagine, can you, that a person could be raped...and thrive, and feel comfortable with herself. You are arguing that rape is a horrible crime because of what it does to a person. I am arguing that rape is a horrible crime. Period.
I don't know why this bothers me so much, but I want you to understand this: People experience sexual violence and hold on to every single aspect of their dignity, self-respect, and self-worth. Being raped does not mean you cannot have those things. Rape is not a crime because someone is robbed of those things. Rape is a crime because rape is a crime, regardless of how the person who experiences it processes it or lives her life afterwards. People who do feel robbed of those aspects of themselves are always justified in their feelings. But fathers--it is simply not for you to say that that is how it IS. It is not even for you to imply.
I have experienced a decent amount of trauma in my life, though far less than others, and even most. I have also learned over the years that I have not processed these things "Correctly." I have never been bothered enough, sad enough, distraught enough, depressed enough, anxious enough, traumatized enough, and I have never, ever--not ever--been ashamed, not even a little. This extends beyond sexual violation and violence, but it's true for that too. And because of this odd aspect of my nature (people have told me that I must have a chip missing), I have learned something interesting over the years.
We--and by we I mean all of us, society as a whole--expect, and even perhaps require, penance from those who suffer. We expect people who experience trauma to be forever altered by it, or at least temporarily waylaid, or we don't believe the trauma is real. We don't believe in injustice unless those on the receiving end are broken by it. And so, we only prosecute injustice if we feel that grievous harm has been done, and even then, as in the case you find so repugnant, we don't dole out the punishment accordingly.
We should not require victims of crimes to suffer in order to see justice.
When someone placed a gun at my temple, I was momentarily terrified, wondering if my life would be snuffed out on a half-empty elevated train car. That did not happen, and all that I lost was the contents of my bag. And yet, when talking to the police, I knew what I was supposed to do. I could tell by how they looked at us in the rear view mirror of the squad car that they were suspicious of us. We were both calm and conversational. I was not crying, or asking my boyfriend to hold me, or leaning on his shoulder. I knew that if we wanted sympathy, I should do all of those things, but I could not do them. When my neighbor had the police personally escort her every day for two weeks to the train after a chain had been snatched off of her neck, I knew it was because she was young and small and white and she cried, and instead of sympathy I felt nothing but fury. The crime that befell all of us--every single person on that train car was robbed at gunpoint--was so much worse, and yet nothing was ever done about it, because everyone else on the train thought the police weren't worth the trouble (true, in this case) and I couldn't cry; I watched an action movie with my ex boyfriend the next day as therapy instead and got on the same damn train the day after that. I never felt traumatized, and I don't think my boyfriend did either. I didn't change my behavior or avoid trains.
But it was armed robbery all the same. The police should not have ignored it because of my, or his, personality.
I've had cancer, but sometimes people have thought I haven't REALLY had it, not the way other people do, or at least it doesn't BOTHER me, right? Death might be coming for me whether I cry about it or not, whether I keep on doing things the same or not. The disease doesn't care about my temperment, and neither should you. When a physicians assistant told me she could reconstruct my nipple so that I wouldn't feel sad when I looked in the mirror, so I wouldn't feel "bad about myself," I know I should have said thank you, but I could not. Instead I said, "Don't presume that about me. Don't assume that I feel bad about myself, that I feel sad." I know it takes some women a full year to look at themselves in the mirror after having one or both breasts cut off. I think that is completely understandable. But it doesn't make my breast any less amputated, my cancer any less real, for me to rip the hospital gown off right after I stopped puking up my breakfast the morning after surgery, lean on my husband for help getting to the bathroom, look at my beat up, scarred, disfigured chest and shrug and say "huh. that's not so bad."
The fact that certain memories from being 15 has led me to a life of almost physical repulsion of drunk men does not mean that I have been unhappy, or lonely. Drunk men aren't that interesting, or necessary to a happy life. The fact that I do not watch basketball games in public, that I can't stand to be the only woman in the room, does not mean that I am broken, does not mean I don't love sex, or that I am ashamed or lacking dignity.
It also doesn't mean a crime wasn't committed against me that night.
When I had epilepsy, I wasn't ashamed. I didn't feel like less of a person because my brain didn't always cooperate. I didn't feel lessened by being in a wheelchair and being unable to walk. But you know what, that was a crime too. I was hit by a car, and it changed my life, and the woman who did it was never punished. The fact that I was happy, content, busy, isn't relevant.
We should not require those who suffer to prove it through their actions, especially when the suffering is brought on by the action of another person. When we do this, we are being selfish. I am sorry, but yes I mean YOU. We want so badly to separate ourselves from those who experience trauma. After all, if you survive something "unspeakable," and then carry on laughing and living out the promise of your life, what is the purpose of the whole struggle anyway? Do those who have had bad experiences also get to have good lives?
Rape is not wrong because it is a crime. Rape is a crime because it is wrong. It is a crime regardless of how the victim remembers it or experiences it. If the victim in this case or any other was happy the next day, having sex with her boyfriend, going to yoga, eating steak, cracking jokes, or any other possible series of reactions, it is not for us to say that she is hiding something, or in denial, or behaving strangely. It is none of our business how she behaves at all, and it is only our business how she feels insofar as we are human and should feel empathy when the situation warrants it.
The crime should be treated the same because it is a crime, and everyone knows it, whether we apologize for it collectively or not.
One of my favorite heroes to come out of our recent focus on/failure to understand sexual assault and rape is a young teenager named Jada, whose rape was recorded and shared online a few years ago. She was outspoken about the crime. She said this: "Everyone has seen my face and my body, but that is not who I am or what I am." And she is right. Terrible things can happen to your body, and not impact your sense of who you are. It doesn't work that way for everyone, and that is understandable too. But it is entirely possible to be content with yourself, happy, proud even, and for your rape to be just as real and the rapist just as deserving of severe punishment. This is so important, fathers. Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?
There is an incident from my childhood I will probably never write about, because it took years for me to understand it as sexual abuse, until I was sexually active myself. I will not keep it to myself out of shame, or guilt. I will keep it to myself because I honestly did not experience any trauma or negative impacts as a result of it--because I did not understand it as sexual abuse at the time. Once I could contextualize it, I was not traumatized that this thing happened to me, but it did explain some things I had always questioned. I did not feel sad or upset. I felt angry, again, not that it happened, when I was so little, but that the bastard got away with it. And once I could think about it with an adult understanding, I realized something: I didn't know it was abuse, but HE DID. My response or lack thereof is irrelevant to the fact of his crime.
I say these things to you, fathers, because you might very well have daughters. You might have daughters who are led to believe, through everything down to your good intentions, that their worth is determined by their behavior, their purity, their bodies, their ability to control what happens to them. I am here to tell you that is false. People are valuable, people are worthy, people are entitled to dignity, because people are people; our common humanity entitles us to dignity, and worth, and value. There is nothing that can happen to a person that we should assume would take those things from them. It happens, and people feel those irrevocable losses. But don't concentrate there. Don't assume that people who suffer, or experience trauma, are broken, or lost.
I will leave you with two examples of what I am trying to say. My husband, who is a father who never had a father, had a strange upbringing, to say the least. As part of that, he spent some time in his youth hungry. He was not hungry in that trivial sense, but in the sense where his growth was stunted, and on some level he will always be the 13 year old boy who looked forward to the butter sandwich he got to eat that day. And here is my question: what of it? Is that sad? Is poverty sad, especially when it is so relative? I mean, he didn't have rickets, he didn't die. Today, he will eat everyone's scraps of food, even at a party, even if it's the food from someone else's kid. He will say things to our kids at the dinner table like "have seconds! you never know when you might eat again!" and then he will laugh at himself as they laugh at him. He was hungry, not horribly altered. Chronic hunger is a social problem that impacts millions, not a mark of shame or evidence of being a lesser person. We don't feel sad for him. We just pass the plates down his way.
And now to me. When I was a child, I had epilepsy. I had 100 seizures a day without medication. The medication worked, which was wonderful, but it also poisoned my liver and caused me severe pain. Every six weeks I had to go in for blood tests to gauge the level of the poison. I was tiny when I was six years old, barely 30 pounds. Nurses would place butterfly needles in my arm and take multiple vials of blood. I loved to watch the blood go into the tubes; I found it fascinating. After these tests, my parents would take me to 7-11 and allow me to get a candy bar and a slurpee for being such a "trooper." I understood even then what a trooper was--a person who did what she had to do, without complaining or asking questions. Being a trooper was neither good nor bad--it just was. And so, I would always look forward to my treat, and I always picked a Milky Way bar and a red-flavored Slurpee. It took me years to realize that my parents gave me those "treats" to bring my sugar up, to make sure I wouldn't pass out, as so much blood had been taken from my tiny body.
I didn't know that, and I didn't experience 7-11 as a consolation prize for my medical condition. That candy-slurpee combination remains impossibly perfect in my memory. The reason for it did not detract from its sweetness. Once this year, at age 40, I did something that until now I've kept a secret. While my husband was working, the kids were at school, and I was working from home, I drove to 7-11. I bought a Milky Way and a wild cherry slurpee, a combination I hadn't tasted in decades. I stood in the crowded parking lot and thought about all the things that have happened through the years, all the losses, all the hard things. I waited for the realization that the innocence or sincere happiness of my youth was gone.
I would have to wait a while longer. It was just how I remembered--how I always chose to remember. No matter what came before, the melted chocolate on my fingers tasted just as sweet. The ice in my throat still made me close my eyes and smile.
Dear fathers, remember that. You are there to offer consolation, not to tell her how it feels.
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