Isolation Cannot Heal Isolation: One Survivors Response to Sexual Assault

As a survivor I’m told that prisons are there to protect me. Keep me safe. My deepest desire is supposed to be incarceration. I’m supposed to want him to suffer, to pay. But I never wanted that. I wanted some healing. For me and for him. But you aren’t supposed to say that. You aren’t supposed to say that you love the person who harmed you. You get accused of loving him more than you love yourself. Like you can’t do both. You are silently asked to choose. Your heart and your history, or your healing. You are told that healing means seeing him for what he really is, a rapist. But I knew him. I knew how much more he was. I loved him still. He was my friend, and being his friend meant I knew the ways he had already suffered. I wanted him to finally get the support he needed. I wanted to make sure this never happened again.

*****

It was five years after. I had just started talking about it. I was exploring my options. But everyone said I needed to file a police report. They said it wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about my politics. It was about keeping other girls safe. And what I heard, and what a few people had the gall to say, was that if he raped another girl then it would be my fault. So I went.

I went to the town police station hoping nobody I knew had a parking ticket to pay that day. I took my mother with me. We were estranged, separated by our own legacy of violence, but I had nobody else to ask. We went to the window, a sheet of bulletproof glass between me and the female officer. I told her I wanted to report a rape. She was taken aback. She asked when it happened. I told her five years ago. She said she may not be able to help me. She’d have to look up the statute of limitations. A big book got thumbed through and closed. Six years, she said.  Just in time.

We walked through the heavy grey door to meet the detective. A man. He sat casually on the corner of the desk. He asked me why I waited so long. Asked if I wanted to file a report. I said I wanted to know about the process. He said something like, file a report, the alleged perpetrator is notified, press charges, it goes before a judge. It is unlikely to go to trial, he said. You waited too long. And if it does, you are unlikely to win. I asked if I could just put something on file. Something on record so that if another woman filed a report there would be precedence. She would be more likely to be believed. She could call on me. No, he said. Everyone has a right to know if they’ve been accused of a crime. He asked again if I wanted to file a report. Suggested I should. Seemingly unaware of what that would mean in that smallish Ohio town. I told him I was unsure. He gave me the form and I stood to leave.

***

He was a year older than me. I could not imagine him in prison. Yet another privilege of his white skin and mine. He grew up working class at best, maybe poor. It was just him, his mother, his sister. He was never as tough as the other boys. Too tenderhearted, too sensitive. It was what I loved about him. A working class sense of loyalty and responsibility had been bred into him. You never hit a woman, you never snitch on a friend, and you always lend a hand when someone is in trouble. He held true to all these codes. Another thing I loved about him. But no matter how much heavy metal he listened to his smart, nerdy, thin framed version of boy never stacked up to the only masculinity he ever saw modeled. A masculinity rooted in the lie of white supremacy and patriarchy. A lie that says white men are more capable, more deserving. The lie that white men are naturally more powerful. Better. In his mind it was his greatest fault. He was not strong enough. He could not fight and he could not pull his mother and sister out of poverty. No matter how much he tried. So he joined the air force, determined to be a better man.

A few months later he came home. He broke down during boot camp and got sent to psych. A failure. And while he was there he made a friend. A boy like him. And a few weeks later he found that boy in a bathroom stall. Dead. Boys like him were too weak to live.

He told me that story the day before he raped me. His eyes glazed over, his muscles rigid. A friend and I gave him a beer and put him to bed. She and I slept in the next room over. I woke with a start in the middle of the night. He was standing in the doorway watching us. Numbly he said, I just wanted to make sure you were still alive. I got up and walked him back to bed. Crawled in with him and held him as he cried. Because I loved him and that is what you do when a person has been shattered.

The next night I had a party. He drank too much and kept trying to kiss me. It was sad, to see a friend so undone. I kissed him a few times, rejected him more. All our friends watched.

As it was happening I could see the way he was grasping for power, for some sense of control over his life. Part of me wanted to give it to him. The rest of me wanted to run. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t for all of the reasons that only a person raped by someone they love can understand. Shock, terror, fear, shock, shame, pity, shock, pain, embarrassment, shock, politeness, love, care, shock, disbelief, disbelief, disbelief.

***

After leaving that police station I knew. I knew that the police, prison, a judge would never help me find what I was looking for. I would never be allowed to be a full person. And neither would he. We would both be blamed. And that blame could never move to accountability. The process would be painful and neither of us would get what we deserved. So I threw the police report out.

***

I always wondered if he knew what he’d done. I wanted to believe he didn’t. There had been nothing mean and calculating about him before. I resolved to write him a letter. A letter letting him know exactly what his actions were and what they had cost me. It was meant to be a gift to him. A truth for him to confront. Something to propel him towards help. For me it was meant to be a telling. A naming. A request for accountability. I struggled with the letter for months. Never knowing exactly what to say. How to say it. Wanting to hold his humanity and mine. It felt impossible.

One October night I drove down to Kent to see an author speak. I had gotten the idea for my letter after reading one of her books. At the end of her lecture I went up to talk to her. I thanked her and told her about my planned letter. She scoffed. Don’t write him a fucking letter, she said. He isn’t worth it. I was shocked and tried to explain my position. She said, How many hours have you spent thinking about this letter? I paused. How many hours do you think he’s spent thinking about you? My breath caught. She said, Don’t give him any more power over you. If you want to write a letter, write one to someone who deserves your time and energy. Someone who deserves the heart you will put into it. Write his mother, his sister. We talked for an hour or more. She was right about many things and wrong about others.

That night I drove home, my hands entirely numb with fear. I had to drive with my forearms and elbows. I wrote the letters that night and reconciled a few things. One, I would always believe he was worth it. Two, I deserved as much support as I wanted to give to him. Three, it was not my job to take the lead in his healing. Letting go of that responsibility was the hardest. Letting go of his process meant focusing on mine. It meant letting go of my own false sense of control. It meant letting go of the rationalizations that had protected me from the magnitude of harm done. From the truth. He was one of my closest friends and he raped me. It was a choice. And no harm done to him in the past could excuse or explain it away.

That night I wrote him a letter. I also wrote to his mother and sister. I laid out what had happened, what he was responsible for, and I also told them that soon I would be writing a letter to all our mutual friends. I told them I was going to post these letters publicly. I waited for a backlash that never came. I expected him angry at my front door. I expected some sort of explosion, but there was nothing. There was silence. I never heard from him again.

***

I began to feel like I’d made a mistake. I’d given him too much credit, been too naïve. He didn’t care. He could discard the letter entirely, take no action. I hadn’t warned anyone. Hadn’t helped to prevent another assault. So a month later I did what I had promised. I wrote a letter to all of our mutual friends and told them what he’d done.

That’s where I found the backlash, though never as much as expected. I lost some friends. Got called some names. I stopped getting invited places. But I also got letters of support. I got thanked. I got notes from people telling me they loved me and cared about what happened to me. Sadly too many of those notes also included disclosures of their own violence. A too easy thing to bond on. An unexpected weight to carry.

***
I don’t regret it. It was a choice that honored my own dignity and his. But it was not perfect. It was hard and ugly and devastating. It was also incredibly powerful. I didn’t get the accountability I’d hoped for, but I learned. I grew.

I noticed patterns and coping skills. I watched the harm caused by my own isolation and over responsibility. I grew up working class, the girl child of a single mother struggling with addiction. I learned early about responsibility. My life, my mother’s life, depended on it. By three I had been put into foster care after the violence of her boyfriends hand was no longer ignorable. I learned to be silent but strong. I made myself invisible and never questioned my ability to survive alone.

And in the end that was most damaging. Doing it alone. Believing it was all my responsibility. Not the assault. But the healing. The justice. The protection of nameless other girls. I leaned heavy into the skills I learned as a child. Over responsibility, independence, sharp analysis, and self sacrifice. Which meant I never asked for the support I was so desperate for.

Because what I needed, maybe more than his apology, was a community of people who could help me hold and honor all the stories that led to this one. Who could help me uproot the layers of silence learned through too much violence. I needed to be asked what I wanted, what I was hoping for. I needed someone to help me craft those letter, someone to remind me that I could list expectations. Someone who was going to sit with me through the fall out. Someone who could read the responses people sent me and tell me to wait before reading them myself. I needed someone beside me to reflect the ways my own trauma, old and new, was informing the process. I needed someone who could show me love that was deeper and more nuanced than just hating him.

***

The violence of poverty, racism, addiction, assault, they are woven together. No court can ever pull them apart. A prison can never protect me. Isolation cannot heal isolation.


First posted on Everyday Abolition

Our Revolution

Growing up working class I watched my Mother hate herself. Not in any sort of obvious way. First because of her addiction and later because of her inability to 'get it right'. No temp or deli counter job ever seemed to bring in enough to feed us, clothe us, house us. A fact she never needed to tell us to hide. So often we went hungry. Or more to the point we learned to do without, expect little and make it work. I ate peanut butter on slices of deli turkey she'd steal from work and my brother got used to macaroni and cheese made without any trace of milk or butter. This is not to say that my mother was weak or sad or fragile. Quite the opposite. Her quick wit, strong shoulders and brave voice made her powerful. Made it near impossible to see the self loathing. To see her deep longing for love. Made it near impossible for me to know that love was something I could want.

In the course of 50 years my working class Grandparents had managed to buy a home, own a car and feed themselves. They did everything right by capitalist standards by working late, doing whatever was asked of them, and minding their manners. They played it straight. Their reward was the ability to climb a few rungs on the class ladder...but it cost them their daughter. They lost her first to the work that prevented them from spending any formative time with her. Second, to the addiction she developed to cope with deep loneliness and neglect. Third, to the shame that came after she got clean and was still unable to properly care for her children. A punishment, it seemed, for being incapable of being as 'good' as my Grandparents.

In my family, worthiness of love is tied to self sufficiency. A contradiction that still ripples through my life on the daily. Well before the age of 10 I had internalized the idea that I should be able to provide for myself and my loved ones without the support of others. To succeed meant earning self respect and the respect of others, which loosely translated to love. To fail meant to stay steeped in the shame of needing to work harder and be better before letting anyone see you.

When I was younger this meant we went without dinner while my Grandparents ate less than a mile away from us. This meant trying to keep my Grandmother out of our kitchen when she would come visit. This meant lying to her when she asked if we needed anything. This isolation, these lies, were important to us. They were how my Mother was supposed to win my Grandparents respect and therefore their love. Love and care were simply commodities to be earned by putting your head down and getting to work. And if you didn't have them then it was your own failing. I helped maintain the illusion because supporting my Mother and striving to meet my own needs seemed to be my best shot at getting the same kind of care she was searching for.

Nothing has been so formative as this early isolation, this early quest to meet my needs, this early lesson about love. I have learned to do without, expect little and make it work. This dynamic has played out in my relationships where I have stayed with partners who had little to offer me, didn't love me or met me with violence. And I am not alone. This is a cycle. A generational wounding that I have seen seep into even the smallest corners of our communities.

The recent economic collapse is nothing compared to the emotional collapse that has been present for decades. And the two are not unrelated. It is unreasonable to think that people can exist within a system that treats them as if they were expendable, worthless and insignificant without internalizing those same messages. It is unwise to ignore the devastating impact this has had on our ability to form connections that nourish and sustain us.

The Occupy Movement means so much more to me than wealth distribution or the state of the economy. Yes let's rally under the banner of the 99% because we have lost our homes, our education, our health. But let's also rally because we have lost each other. Our loved ones. Our ability to connect. These wounds are not just economic, they are emotional. They are wounds that tear at our ability to form full and vibrant relationships with one another. That encourage shame and shutting down and shutting up. They are wounds that sustain the system which creates them.

The power of this movement is not in it's ability to effect economic change. The power of this movement lies in it's ability to shatter our isolation. It is powerful because it has created a moment where the streets hum, you are not alone. Not in your trying, not in your failing, not in your inability to protect the little that is precious in this life. You are not alone. You are not broken. The system is.

We have been told that we are only worth what we produce, what we are able to make for ourselves. So for those of us with access to little raw material, capital, resources, it means believing somewhere under the layers of fierce resistance that perhaps we aren't worth much at all. For me this moment is about more than defending public protest space or shutting down banks. It is claiming my worthiness to be loved. It is about making an internalized struggle public, finding unity and breaking down the barriers to intimacy that have cost me my Mother. My family.

It is about believing that we are worth so much more, knowing we have the numbers to fight for it and saying to the person beside you in the street, you are not alone. There is our revolution.

What Having a Job in a Domestic Violence Agency Means (for me)

• It means sitting with the violence in my own life everyday. Consciously or subconsciously.

• It means living in childhood coping mechanisms again just to get through a meeting.

• It means choosing to notice my defense strategies, name them and struggle to learn when it’s appropriate to let them go.

• It means knowing why I go to work everyday.

• It means work doesn’t feel like work. It feels like family. Family in all the wrenching and life giving ways family can be.

• It means no longer being able to name something as triggering. Not because it isn’t true but because the word itself feels too violent.

• It means trying to shed the stories that lay flat in office filing cabinets so that I can look at families on the street and not wonder.

• It means thinking of Pearla Ann Louis' body folded into a suitcase when my housemate doesn’t come home and isn’t answering hir phone.

• It means that’s my first thought. Not that she’s working late and hir phone is out of battery.

• It means wrestling with what I really believe about love and why we want it.

• It means changing.

• It means side stepping self-righteousness and failing. Daily.

• It means learning how to listen and hold what I would rather speak away.

• It means not embracing the feeling that I am inadequate just because I don’t know how to respond. Those responses shouldn’t have to come so easily.

• It means seeing how it’s possible to work through/with trauma.

• It means watching people transform their lives.

• It means gaining some perspective.

• It means trying to say all these things even though I’m told it’s not ‘professional’ to feel them.

• It means cultivating better boundaries.

• It means “this is not about you” has become a temporary mantra.

• It means listening to people tell you they could never do your job. Even though they already do.

Holding Him Accountable

I've been thinking about this letter alot lately. Maybe it's the fall, the work I do, the brisk smell of change in the air, or the anniversary that just rolled by. It's hard to say, but the story this morning of a 15 year old girl being assaulted by multiple people as others stood by and did nothing was too close to home. Because I can still feel that quiet terror in me, the ache in my body. I can still remember how everything around me swirled, tore and distorted. So this is for hir, and for me. It's not perfect, but it was a step towards something that felt like justice.

In 2001 one of my closest friends raped me. In 2003 I began to call it that. And in 2006 I sent a letter to his mother and sister, our friends and to him.

Tristan,

I’ve been putting off writing this letter for about 5 years now. I can never seem to come up with the right thing to say. I can’t help but remember all the good times we had together and what good friends we once were. I can’t help but remember all the times that you’d helped me pick myself up and put myself back together and how many times I tried to do the same for you. I’ve tried to remember the funny, loving, gracious, kind, Tristan I once knew. I’ve tried to hold onto my memory of him so I wouldn’t have to face the damage that you’ve done to me.

It’s been years since we’ve talked and we both know why. We both know why there were no more phone calls or casual hellos or laughs. Maybe you’ve chalked it up to bad sex, I know I tried to, but it wasn’t bad sex Tristan….it was rape. Maybe you tried to convince yourself otherwise but that’s the point of this letter, to rid you of all possible doubt. To make absolutely sure that you know what you’re responsible for. You raped me. Maybe while it was happening you tried to convince yourself that I wasn’t crying or that I was screaming out of pleasure and not pain. Maybe you assumed it was my inexperience that made me so stiff and withdrawn. Well let me clear it all up for you. I wasn’t wet because I didn’t want to have sex with you. I pulled away because I was scared. I screamed because you were hurting me. After you went to sleep, I sat in my bathtub for nearly two hours trying to rinse off the blood and get the swelling down. You did this Tristan. You are responsible for raping one of your closest friends. Maybe you tried to forget all this. Maybe you tried to forget the part where I said maybe we should take things in steps. Maybe you tried to forget all the horrible things you said while it was happening. Maybe you tried to forget it ever even happened. But I haven’t. I’ve lived with it every day and I remained silent because I didn’t want to believe that my friend that I loved so dearly was capable of such violence.

You have ruined every good memory that we ever had. It took me a long time to come to terms with what you did and it took me even longer before I could speak it. But I’m done with that. My silence does nothing but hurt me and leaves others at risk. I’m not protecting you anymore. From now on I’m using your name when I talk about this and I will be sending a letter to you mother, sister and all our mutual friends telling them what you’ve done. I can’t even begin to tell you the pain you have caused me. I can’t begin to tell you how much it hurts me to accept that a persin that I once loved and cared for, a persin that was once such an important part of my life has so negatively affected how I view myself, my body and the world around me.

You are responsible for your actions Tristan, and your actions have permanently scarred somebody that you once called a friend. I would hope that you might sit down and spend a lot of time thinking about what that means and one day have the courage to take responsibility for that action.

Blyth

We Will Not Be Silent

I worked as a peace keeper for this action. It was so, so, so amazing.

Friday, Nov. 7, thousands of California residents took to the streets in San Francisco at 5:30pm to protest the passage of Proposition 8 in Tuesday's election, that banned same-sex marriage, which had been legalized earlier this year. Queer, trans, and straight allies all joined the march to express outrage over Prop 8 taking people's equal rights away.

After the main march began, a small affinity group took action, joining hands and blockading Market Street at 9th, holding a banner reading "WE WILL NOT BE SILENT: REPEAL PROP 8".

Hundreds of supporters remained along the streets and sidewalks, chanting together, "Say No to Hate: Repeal Prop 8!", "What Do We Want? EQUAL RIGHTS! When Do We Want It? NOW!", and many others.

The group had already blocked traffic for over two hours, when the main march (which had proceeded to Dolores Park), heard about the action and marched all the way back to 9th and Market to join the street blockade.

The energy was high, and chanting was endless. After a brief sit-in behind the line of blockaders, the crowd collectively decided to push past the line of police lined up opposite the blockaders, and marched to City Hall, pouring onto the front steps and taking up the whole street in front. After about 30 minutes of the whole crowd chanting, and several impassioned speeches, the original affinity group led the crowd back to Market Street, and up to the Castro District. It was an unbelievable mass of energy, with thousands literally taking over San Francisco's streets. Diners in restaurants curiously came out to the sidewalks, with many supporters joining in the march, to a chorus of "Whose Streets? OUR STREETS! Whose Rights? OUR RIGHTS!"

When the march reached 18th and Castro St. around 9pm, marchers sat down to occupy the
intersection well into the night, listening to many individuals who became inspired to speak up.

Read CBS Channel 5's account of the protest and watch their news broadcast videos here: http://cbs5.com/local/proposition.8.protest.2.859454.html

Getting ready to lock down the intersection.

Our baner, holding strong. I'm off playing peace keeper somewhere.

My view from the steps of city hall. One of the most amazing moments of my life.

Guilt is a Revolutionary Emotion

It’s been awhile since I’ve written. In fact I realized that I haven’t written anything really delving into my life, exploring systems of power, in months…basically since I’ve moved out here. It’s funny how quick I begin to take things for granted, friends, food, weather, community, passion, access to inspiration. I’ve only been out here a few months and it all feels common place. And shouldn’t it? Don’t we all deserve it? Isn’t it what we’re fighting for? But at the same time is it just to lose myself in a bubble of comfort and pleasure knowing that it’s the exception? Knowing that the rest of the world, my family, my friends, are still struggling? Still waking up everyday searching for something that they more than likely will never find? Is it just to remain in this false utopia knowing that? My first thought is no, my second is that I’m completely unwilling to leave.

I’ve been dating someone new for about a month now and I spend most of my free time with hir. I enjoy it, in fact I crave it, but I am left feeling acutely aware that time spent with hir is time neglecting other parts of my life. Mainly friends, roommates, the community center, and various other forms of self reflection. Part of me doesn’t care. Part of me is loving waking up with hir and kissing hir and pushing aside all the bullshit that weighs so heavy on my heart. But at the same time I’m left feeling guilty. So guilty I can hardly breathe sometimes.

Now it seems that many people in my life have a great deal to say about how I interact with the world and internalize the pain and struggle of those around me. In fact someone once said that they simply don’t have the energy to feel guilty about as much as I do. Don’t get me wrong I understand where this is coming from, and perhaps it is true that at times I take on too much guilt, but I would like to think that the guilt that settles in my chest and makes me quiet or angsty from time to time is something alive. It is not some dead weight that pushes me down or hardens me, instead it nourishes me and grows into accountability. It pushes me to reexamine my values and make changes, it urges me to be a better friend or lover, but mostly it reminds me that the only thing I control are my own actions, and that is a huge responsibility and a very serious one.

There are many people in my life who have done things that sadden me, things worthy of horror and protest, but they are my family and they are my friends and actions (good, bad or otherwise) do not happen in a vacuum. It is worth it for me to look at their actions and try to decipher my role in enabling them. And taking responsibility for that is an important step towards building a world where those actions aren’t tolerated. It is worth it so that, hopefully, I will not make that same mistake again. And there is good reason for me to feel guilty about making injustice easier. Because when I do not take responsibility for my actions, or my role in the actions of others, that is precisely what I am doing, it’s shifting blame, it’s silencing, and it’s counter productive.

There is reason for me to feel a pang of guilt when a man who sleeps on my street serenades me with a gospel song and 5 minutes later I open my door, pay a delivery man $15 dollars for one meal and lock my door behind me. There seems to be some sort of notion, even within radical communities, that we “deserve” things. I “deserve” to kick up my heels and enjoy that $15 dollar meal. But does that mean that Rex, the man who sleeps in my alley, “deserves” to go without? That $15 dollars could have bought food for both Rex and I for a week, it wouldn’t be vegan general tso’s chicken but it would have filled our bellies and fueled our bodies. And is there really a difference between deserving something and entitlement? And isn’t entitlement another product of privilege?

Perhaps we let ourselves off too easily. The individualism that fuels our society tells us that the individual, and only the individual, is responsible for their own actions. But that’s not true. We keep holding out for some big change, some new law, a new president, a circle A in the sky; we keep holding out for something better and focusing our attention elsewhere, whether that be the new fall line at the Gap, or a campaign to get gender identity included on ENDA, but rarely do we ever pause to think how we might change the ways we exist in this world. Because we know there is much to be done, but we also know we would have to sacrifice and for those of us bathed in privilege those are scary words.

So yes I feel guilty for many things right now, but that’s not my trouble, the trouble is my unwillingness to move. I’m stuck and self indulgent, but more than anything I’m terrified that someday I will become content with that.

Angela

Yesterday I met a woman named Angela. She was screaming on the street below our window as Kristina and I made some Hangover Potatoes. We glanced down like we often do, expecting to see a man piss on a wall or vomit on his already stained and worn shoes. There is a detox center on the corner of our street (coincidently run by St. Vincent de Paul, the organization I now work for) and things like that aren’t so uncommon. People lose their minds from time to time, detoxing off this drug or that, and sometimes things can get loud or volatile. But when we looked down today a woman was slashing at her wrists with a piece of dull metal.

Not knowing what to do we ran down the stairs. A woman who worked at the detox center reached her before I did, grabbed the woman’s arms and slammed her wrist against the wall forcing her to drop the piece of discarded metal that she had been stabbing at her wrists with. I was frozen. I didn’t know what to do. The woman from the center was a professional, she knew what she was doing and I didn’t want to get in the way. I didn’t want to make things harder for her. I asked her how I could help and she asked me to call 911 but all I had was my cell phone and that wasn’t going to work. She looked at the woman crouched in front of her and she held her arms firmly with concern, trying her best to keep her from clawing at her own skin. She looked at her and said, “Angela, shh shh shh, it’s ok. You’re going to be ok. You’re going to do this. We’re going to get you some help. Shh shh shh Angela”. I offered to find someone inside to call, but I could tell that wasn’t what she needed. So I sat down next to Angela, put my arm around her back and held onto her. The two of us sat there, listening to Angela wail about how she couldn’t do it any more, how she had tried so hard to get clean, and how he was coming for her. He was coming for her. He was coming for her. She threw her head onto my shoulder and her hands flew up to try to scratch at her face and quickly I pulled them down into her lap, close to her body, where they would be safe.

It had occurred to me that she might be dangerous, that she might try to hurt me. But as she sat screaming, arms tugging at my restraint, I realized the only person she wanted to hurt was herself. I was holding her on my own now, her face pressed into my chest, my hands wrapped around her wrists spotted with blood as she cried. The other woman took the opportunity to go inside and call the paramedics and I sat alone with Angela, huddled in a doorway. She returned with another woman that I knew. Her name is Michelle, I had met her when I’d taken a tour of the facility on my first day of work. Michelle and the other woman talked in calm ordinary voices, trying to convince Angela that she was safe and that she could do it. She could be ok. They said, “You know honey, maybe it needed to get this far, maybe this is it, you can do it. I know it’s hard, but you can do it”. Angela responded by calling them bitches, screeching at them to shut the fuck up, leave her alone, all the while holding tighter to all of us.

I sat mute, not knowing the woman in my arms, not knowing anything about what she was going through, not wanting to say anything inappropriate or insensitive. Meanwhile Angela ranted incoherently about getting out of prison, going back to her mothers house and the father that had raped her since she was a young girl, “He’s coming for me. He’s coming for me. How could she let him do those things to me? I tried to be a good little girl. I tried. I tried. I can’t do it no more. He’s coming for me.” We whispered that she was good, that she was going to be ok. Michelle assured her that help was coming and we all waited.

The woman I didn’t know wiped Angela’s tears away with a napkin and held the same napkin so she could blow her nose. Tears filled my eyes and then quickly dissipated. I remembered all the people in my life that use/used drugs to bury deep painful truths. I remembered being a young girl and watching my mother detox in the corner of her room, biting down on her lip so hard that it bled. I remembered every person that has tried to convince me that “junkies” weren’t people, that they didn’t feel or care. And I remembered all the woman I know in my life that have been beaten, raped, assaulted. The woman in my arms was just barely hanging on. She was in a place so raw and so humyn that it seemed impossible to do anything but love her and hold her.

Over time police started to show up. Two men with guns, then four, then six. Michelle reassured Angela that they were only there to help, that they weren’t going to hurt her. For the most part they left us alone as we waited for the paramedics. They stood across the street, talking to one another, laughing about something that had happened earlier in the day, completely detached from what was happening right in front of them. Angela panicked at the sight of them and we did our best to console her as she thrashed her arms around. We were still holding her, doing our best to pin her arms down with our hands and knees when one of the officers came over to ask us if we wanted her cuffed. “No!”. He walked away. The paramedics arrived and Michelle and I did our best to stand her up so that she could walk over to the gurney. But as we lifted her up, after having sat with her for the past 20 minutes listening to turmoil spill out of her, we were told by an old white man who had arrived in his own separate car to leave her alone so that he could do his job. So we stepped away and a swarm of men laid her down and strapped her to a board. First her feet, then her wrists, then her torso. As they wheeled her towards the ambulance I waved to Michelle and the other woman and turned around to go back into my house.

Shaken I walked up the stairs to the bathroom sink and washed small smears of Angela’s blood off my arms and chest. I washed my hands several times, knowing full well the risk of HIV and other diseases, feeling guilty for thinking her blood might be contaminated. I had held her, listened to pieces of her story and then did my best to scrub her off of me.

I moved on with my day, finally eating those potatoes, taking a nap, steaming some artichokes for dinner. I don’t know what happened to Angela, I never will. I hope she received the care she deserves, that someone took the time to try and understand what it might have felt like for her to get strapped down to that board, or be driven so insane by memory that she would try to take her own life, but I know that many do not receive even the most basic of care. I’m still not sure how to articulate what it was she taught me. But I know it was a lot. And once again, I am grateful.

Turning Fear Into Action

This past week at church the pastor asked us to consider what we were “afraid to know”, what we were pretending to be ignorant of in order to avoid action. This question has been on my mind for the past week. I just got in a big argument with one of my best friends for his unwillingness to step up and help stop something he knows is wrong. His silence will in the long run hurt alot of people but he is still unwilling to sacrifice any of his persinal comfort in order to help. It made me angry to think that someone I love so much could be so selfish and cowardly.

I sat and thought alot about it and I realized that alot of my anger came from knowing that I have done the same. For the past 5 years I have known the name of the persin who raped me. And by not speaking it I have protected him and left him with the opportunity to hurt others, and I know he has. It is not my fault that he raped other womyn, he is responsible for that action, but it is true that I made it easier for him. It is true that my silence has made me somehow complicit. It's hard not to feel hopeless about this.

It's so hard to know what to do when we know how racist, classist, degrading and unjust the so-called justice system in this country is. How can we turn anyone over to it?
- Laurel Paget-Seekins

I don't trust the judicial system and I don't like the idea of giving the police or the government any extra control over my life, but I'm not sure what else to do. I have always planned on writing him a letter and telling him exactly what he has done to me, but that letter can't serve as warning to the people around him. Part of me wishes that I could just sit down with him and talk to him about it, ask him if he has any understanding of what he did...because I'm not sure he does. I wish things could work that way. The reality is, they can’t.

Tomorrow after church I am going to go to the police station and ask them what the process is for having him charged. It has been a long time so I'm not sure what my options still are. After that I will figure out my next move.

What am I afraid to know? His name.

The Courage To Be Accountable

The sermon at church today was about fear and accountability. The question was posed "what are you afraid to know"?

We pretend not to know about all kinds of shit. About war, poverty, oppression, addiction, violence. We pretend not to know because we are afraid someone might ask us to step up and work to stop them. We're afraid because once we know, we become accountable.

But it's not just the big things. We pretend not to know we are hurting a friend or ignoring someone who needs us. We pretend not to know the people who've hurt us or how to stop them. We pretend not to see the self destruction of the people we love.

What could we do anyway?

Action is scary. It makes us vulnerable and insecure. Often times it makes us the target of harsh criticism, cruelty and malicious intent. We weigh the pro's and con's and often the con's win out. We opt to remain safe and comfortable, after all who would blame us? So we remain silent...complicit. We fool ourselves into believing that we can't change anything.

But in our hearts we know that's bullshit.

We have the power to change everything by changing ourselves. By owning up to the choices we do and do not make. By being accountable for the things that we know.

Today I was given the option of helping to put someone in prison. Someone who has caused irreparable harm to this town and myself. The prison industrial complex is fucked, but this person is pretty fucked as well. What are my options here? Say nothing and watch this person destroy the lives of others? I don't think I can do that anymore. I've done that for far too long.

I've got alot to think about.

From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded. (Luke 12:48)

My Confession

The idea of leaving Berea feels a little sad today. Everything is so familiar here. I’m sitting in the library right now and I can tell you stories about at least 10 of the people standing around me. On the way home from church I saw people I know going to the grocery store, walking their dogs and grabbing a cup of coffee. I went to that same coffee shop about an hour later and everyone knew my name and thought of me fondly. I’m going to miss the recognition that comes with a small town.

I suppose I can build this same familiarity somewhere else but it’s going to take so long and to be honest, I’m not sure I can give it that much effort. I suppose I’ll have to. But deep down I know that I’m not a big city girl or a country girl, as shameful as it is to admit I’m a small town suburban kind of girl. It took a while for me to come to terms with this but it’s a hundred percent true.

Those in the radical community tend to talk a lot of shit on the suburbs but if we step back and start being honest with ourselves, that’s where the majority of us come from. Why is it that we are so quick to turn our back on our own communities so that we might be able to force ourselves into communities that don’t belong to us? Why do so many talk about the shame of the role they play in gentrification as if they have no choice? We keep trying to clean up the mess that systematic oppression leaves behind but we runaway from the source. We runaway from the suburbs, the country towns, the South, the Midwest. Helping the oppressed, though necessary, is not going to end oppression. Racisim, sexism, transphobia, heterosexism, xenophobia, etc will never disappear unless we work with the racists, the sexists, the transphobic, the homophobes, the xenophobic. That is where change needs to be made. That is where there is work to be done. And who ever started the ugly rumor that privilege was such a good thing anyway?

Privilege is easy but it’s not nurturing. And there are a rare few who are privileged across the board. In fact I can’t help but believe that the reason we hold so steadfastly to our privilege is because of our oppression. That illusion of power makes up for what we feel we lack. It’s a tricky thing to articulate but systematic oppression hurts all of us, the privileged and the oppressed.

I look at my working class town and I am sometimes taken aback by the racism, sexism and homophobia. But then I wonder to myself, why is the youth of this seemingly quaint suburban town dying in record numbers? Why are so many people so desperately unhappy? So hopeless? And I think it is our privilege. We are widely, white, heterosexual christians. We are supposed to be the chosen people in this country, the powerful. Yet we still seem to have little control over our lives. We are still working in factories that care very little about our health. We are still struggling to feed our families and pay our bills. Still our legacy seems to be that of endless work with little reward. We are taught to dream big but are unable to bring those dreams to fruition. And the only thing we are left to believe is that it’s our fault. That we are failures, after all look at all of our privilege.

Of course none of this is an excuse for racism or any of those other horrible ism’s but perhaps it could help to give us some perspective. I wonder what our world would look like if we radicals with suburban roots returned home and fought from there. I wonder what it would look like if we didn’t have the resources to run from our oppression. Would we actually start trying to change our communities? The communities that widely cause the heartache in this country? Or would we just fizzle out? After all I’m running again. I can’t make it here. Perhaps it’s the lack of solidarity that pushes us out. The isolation and the harm we’ve suffered under all those ism’s. But is that really an excuse? Perhaps that’s the true down side of privilege, it makes it so much easier to run.

So what if instead of moving to San Francisco, Brooklyn, Madison, Asheville, Chicago, we set up communities in towns like Berea or one of the other thousand suburbs in this country. What if we gathered there and got to work?

I’m leaving Berea now, but I’ll be back. And hopefully I can bring some friends with me. Because my dream location isn’t San Francisco, it’s Berea. It’s Berea with Viva, Madeleine, Kristen, Kristina, Brittawnee, Beth, Chris, Caitlin and all the other amazing friends I’ve made along the way, because I know what a huge change we could make here. I know that we could help to save this town. Help save my friends and my family. I know that all of us together could make it better. And that’s all I want, to make it better. Having all of them here is something I’ve wanted for so long but have never admitted. Because really, who would want to live here? And who am I to ask them to make such a sacrifice? But there you have it, that’s my dirty little secret, if I could I would drag all of you here and beg you to help. Beg you to see how important it is. Because in reality the only community I want to save is my own.