I don’t think some people realize how an act of abuse ripples out. A person misuses their power, abuses and exploits the people around them, that person has harmed those people directly. The harm continues, though, as it sits on the victim/survivor(s). The weight carried is a harm. If and when victim/survivors choose to speak up, they can lighten their load. But the response after speaking up rarely turns into accountability, and the harm continues.
When a person who has abused others and has taken no accountability for their actions is given a platform, or is allowed to retain their platform, that is a harm to every victim/survivor who recalls the platforms their abusers have been offered, the platforms they have been denied. These harms are amplified for minoritized communities, against whom certain kinds of harms were, and still are, normalized through generations of repeated damage. When I know a person who has abused their significant other is rewarded in our field, I ask myself what my life would’ve been like if my abusive ex had been in our field as well. It is easier, it seems, to be taken seriously as a victim/survivor when the perpetrator is someone who can be easily dismissed, an outsider. I think of the man who lived in my building and would get me alone in the elevator so he could ask me intrusive questions or show me his genitals; if he were a prominent member of my academic field, would I be able to say so much in a blog post? But then a prominent member of my academic field – more than one, I have no doubt – sexually harasses my peers, and I am reminded of our precarity, our disposability, when the perpetrator is not someone so easily demonized or cast out. It hurts me. I am mad at myself for being thankful that the people who have directly harmed me have little to no power over me, and I feel the pain of being cornered, I feel the weight of harm, when the platform is occupied by my peers’ abuser.
0 Comments
When powerful people, especially those with some celebrity status, are revealed to be abusive, harassing, exploitative, or otherwise complicit in the harm of others, I sometimes see others ask, “why are you surprised?” I’ve asked this myself; why were people surprised, for example, that Katy Perry – who wrote songs joking about gay people self-harming and equating queer love to meaningless play, who has used black and brown and queer bodies as props – sexually harassed and assaulted people she had power over?
Though I may ask why others are surprised, I have to admit I am still often surprised when I learn of the harm that people use their power for. And maybe I shouldn’t be – the status quo allows for the powerful to abuse that power; indeed, the status quo encourages the powerful to abuse their power. Police murder with impunity, billionaires and their policy-making friends collaborate to ensure the continued upward movement of money, and white people feign victimhood when they’re asked to do the smallest things in the name of racial justice. These harms, from the microaggressive to the atrocious, are harmful in no small part because our society is structured in a way that permits and encourages them. If harms are part of what is happening, they should not surprise people. And many are not surprised. Sometimes I am not surprised. I was not surprised to learn about the ways William Strampel, former dean of one of my alma mater’s medical colleges, abused women. I was disgusted, but not surprised. I was not surprised when a friend shared that a mutual acquaintance had been harassing younger graduate students on dating apps. I was disappointed, but not surprised. Why did it surprise me, then, when I learned last week that a senior scholar in my field has been cultivating a toxic environment, particularly targeting people of color? Why did it surprise me that a white woman who studies issues confronting communities of color was directly harming individuals in the same communities? At first, I chalked my surprise up to white privilege; this line of thinking was, I saw her white skin and assumed innocence. This line of thinking: Her whiteness bought her the benefit of the doubt, my whiteness clouded my judgment. As I’ve thought over the last week, the presence of whiteness remains part of my calculus, but I’m no longer sure that’s all. I keep wondering: am I surprised because I hope? Because I hope that those who have power will do good. Because I hope that people will commit themselves to solidarity, vulnerability, and justice over self-promotion and damage. Is my hope foolish? Maybe. Is it from white, patriarchal socialization that tells me the powerful can heroically do right, save others, and still retain power? Maybe. I don’t totally know. Perhaps hope is a mechanism of self-defense; if I do not hope for at least the occasional reprieve from the damage of the powerful, then I cannot bother to leave my home in the morning. By hoping for solidarity, I may find some; by hoping for justice, I can work toward it. I am surprised, pulled up, taken aback when my efforts are interrupted, not entirely because I am foolish but because I hope some of these powerful people may be possible collaborators, co-conspirators in transforming our field, our academy, our society. My being AMAB and fem has meant that my participation in "women's" activities has been a mixed bag. I have groups of women friends I turn to as confidantes and with whom I get drinks and gossip, but it was only recently that I felt more "one of the girls, sort of," rather than "gay best friend." Also recently, I have come to learn the value and commonness of whisper networks.
The institution from which I will receive a PhD is, as I write, infamous for its constant, callous mishandling of sexual violence. This is a fact that haunts me, and a fact that had me considering leaving my PhD program. At some point I made peace with how close I am to finishing my degree and began to align myself with those in the MSU community who have chosen to stay and fight the status quo. I hope that doing what I can with what I have - in my case, reading and writing about sexual violence – can be helpful to victim/survivors and our communities. What I have not known exactly how to write about – or if I should write about – are the words and stories of sexual harassment, of abuses of power, of relationship violence that spread through informal networks. These are the whisper networks, a vehicle for knowledge that women and fems rely on when it is potentially dangerous to name abusers outright. Since a senior graduate student sexually harassed me a few years ago, and I decided to talk about it, I learned about that person's predilection for being, shall we say, pushy with other GBQ novice grad students and undergrads. When a beloved professor in my field was pushed out of his position, I learned through ladies' nights and behind-closed-door chats the beloved professor's abuses almost certainly stretched beyond what was covered in press. Behind-closed-door conversations also illuminated for me the violence of MSU faculty – including William Strampel, who women had been complaining about for years – as well as other faculty who continue to be on the university's payroll. It is apparently dangerous to speak publicly about these faculty (as it was probably dangerous to speak ill of Strampel or Larry Nassar before their names became dirt), but whisper networks afford women and fems some solace in speaking and living our truths without risking our careers and well-being. Knowing and sharing names of unrepentant harassers and abusers with one another binds us and creates space where our truth is real and affirmed. I recently had the pleasure of reading Andrea Long Chu's account of Avital Ronnell, a New York University professor who sexually harassed a graduate student who studied under her. So much of the article resonated with me; it is worth reading if you haven't yet. A line that especially stood out to me was this: "It is simply no secret to anyone within a mile of the German or comp-lit departments at NYU that Avital is abusive. This is boring and socially agreed upon, like the weather." Knowing something like this comes from personal knowledge distributed via whisper networks but naming it would have been dangerous. (How do I know naming Ronnell's abuse is dangerous? I direct you to the case of Nimrod Reitman, the graduate student who spoke up against her and has since faced harsh backlash, including a letter signed by several powerful scholars denouncing Reitman and questioning his credibility. I also would point you to so, so many other cases where people, especially women, have named their abusers and been criticized and threatened as a result.) It speaks volumes to me that there were already whisper networks functioning that warned people of Ronnell. One may argue that whisper networks function to keep dangerous people in power. After all, they are made up of whispers, not legal actions. However, Ronnell has now faced consequences (even if those consequences may have been tempered by the letter written by her powerful friends). So have William Strampel and Larry Nassar here at MSU. Where consequences have been minimal (as Roxane Gay argued they have been in the case of Louis C.K.), we can speak out for serious attention to justice and accountability. The "we" I indicate are those of us who are connected via networks they we have used to survive. These whisper networks that allow us to exercise a modicum of agency, to try to protect our friends and name our truths, are also our own way of organizing. Perhaps this is part of why #MeToo is so powerful and constant; we've been whispering it for years. |
AuthorI am a higher education professional and sporadic blogger. I have opinions and tell puns. Archives
May 2020
Categories
All
|