What I Saw

It’s been a week.

Most of us watched something this week that traumatized us in some way.

Whether we saw a brave woman, terrified as she described what happened to her when she was fifteen years old, or whether we saw an angry, belligerent man, terrified at being accused of something he has no way to conclusively disprove, or whether we saw a group of politicians trying to score points against each other, or whether we saw some of all of those things, it wasn’t easy to watch.

Personally, I’ve seen too many women who have not been believed when they screwed up the courage to tell someone what happened to them, or possibly as bad, women who have been believed and told that they should just keep quiet, that other things are more important. And I’ve seen too many men who either knew they were guilty or did not want to believe they had done such harm fight and belittle and lash out to defend themselves. And that all came very present to me this week.

Something else came present to me as well, the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas hearings that I watched twenty-seven years ago. It was a different time, a time when we hadn’t been talking about sexual harassment as clearly or as long. Dr. Hill’s allegations were confusing to a lot of us. We had trouble seeing and understanding the power dynamics at play. And for a young woman from a very conservative context who only knew what pornography was because of how I had heard it condemned, the details sounded like something from a farce more than real life.

But I remember Anita Hill’s calm relating of even the most demeaning details, and I remember Clarence Thomas’s calm declaration that it was all a race-based attack on a black man who had risen too high.

Both were unerringly composed.

They had to be.

Both had a lifetime of experience in not being believed, in being dismissed or discredited or thought dangerous if they freely displayed emotion (and often even if they didn’t). Both knew that even (especially) the truth would require great care and deliberation from them.

I though about that as I watched the hearings this week. As I saw Dr. Ford’s careful preparation, deliberate words, and attempts to keep her emotions in check.

And I thought about it as I watched Judge Kavanaugh give his anger and frustration free reign, with little regard for protocol or maintaining order.

Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill, Christine Blasey Ford – none of them expected to be believed simply as a matter of course. Their experience had taught them not to expect that.

In America, only a white male would be incensed that he is not believed as a matter of course, as Brett Kavanaugh clearly was. Only a white man can afford to be incensed about it. We may all be angry and frustrated when the truth we tell is ignored or dismissed or denied, but only a white male can so readily display that he is incensed and offended and belligerent and expect that he will continue to be taken seriously.

It’s the American way, after all. Every right American citizens have was originally granted only to white men. As others have gained formal access to those rights, they (we) still have to fight for what white men have ready access to, because the whole experiment was constructed to work exclusively for them.

Part of the work of patriotism is to change that, to work to see the promises of America fulfilled equitably for all. It’s hard work, and made all the harder by those who, like Judge Kavanaugh seems to, take advantage of every advantage they already have, in the full belief that they have earned that right.

May we all be given eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to respond to to reality, however much it is not what we would like it to be.

And for the record, I believe her.