I hear you. I want to hear you. I am trying to hear you. I am scratching at my ears to remove the noxious yellow wax that prevents me. We need to be shouting, articulately, forcefully, holding hands and yelling, together. I want this more than anything.
I cannot contain the flaming, molten, garbage that I am asked to contain, and neither should you.
In an appropriative move from one of the most esteemed heros on the planet ever, in the spirit of spreading her voice from sky to core, Audre Lorde tells us, “Your silence will not protect you.” And it does not. I cannot bring myself to believe in any other thing more than I believe in this.
“My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences.” (Lorde, Audre, et al. Your Silence Will Not Protect You. Silver Press, 2017.)
Gender studies degrees will not protect us. Waking up doesn’t spare us. Terminal degrees in articulating lived perspectives will not protect us. Police, politicians, judges, social workers, doctors do not protect us, not all of us, not all of them. The walls of a nightclub operated as a music-filled kissing sanctuary will not protect us. Living in the middle of nowhere will not protect us; habitation in the middle of the herd of a social, urban species will not protect us. We all get taken, hurt, destroyed. Not all by accident, chance, and fate. A lot of us with intention, malice, hunger and longing to see us fail to thrive.
I do not know what it is to all day every day wake up with a cancer diagnosis, not yet. I will never viscerally understand being constantly questioned and degraded for my skin color. I do not have schizophrenia. I have not been in a wheelchair or dependent on translators my entire life. I have not literally made ramen in a coffee pot, though I have been through free food kitchens and have sat willing noodles to soften in hot tap water.
I have been punched in the vagina, fisted while I screamed to get away, by the person sworn to be my other half. I have been bellered at that I have the stupidest ideas on the planet. I am seen as less for my gender, gender identity, sexuality, poverty level, mental health status, disability, haircut, hair color, lack of dental care, spoken accent, and region of origin. I listened to official worries about the fears of my abuser in court. I had bias win out over my curriculum vitae, education, experience, stately reference letters, and sworn, honest truth, to the point that I am now obviously, officially “hysterical,” “manipulative,” and “alienating” to a very sympathetic, pitiful, poor, poor wealthy, white, cis man who says, obviously, with no evidence needed, that I am “crazy.” Obviously. Like when I didn’t accept white, male students shouting the N, R, and C words in my classroom on election day 2016. All of the administrations like Them better, the ones who call us emotional snowflakes while stomping on us.
Attorneys and Licensed Clinical Social Workers accepted the out-dated, honest, completely anonymous blog that I wrote, given to them by my abuser, as evidence that I am more deeply flawed for trying to please him and then escaping him with writing as my crutch, than he is for possessing, maintaining, and replicating childish My Little Pony pornography. And then he watches that cartoon show with my kids. And dresses them as his favorite character, Rainbow Dash. After I told them all of my abuse at his hands, they used an anonymous-to-the-code-level blog sentence about family coming together in the end, to claim that all of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was from an average 1998 coming out process that is long resolved, in disagreement with every other other professional on my support team. A circuit court judge laughed with Him in his favorite joke about how I am a “steamroller” when I even begin to stand up for myself. They cancelled five years of special ed services for my son, because He finds special ed distasteful and personally insulting. They overlooked two spontaneous disclosures of inappropriate touching to a pediatric trauma specialist, by my daughter, because she then did not say anything in a forensic interview with strangers, with no follow-up or surprise visits to His house. Nevermind her other cliches symptoms of abuse. Nevermind my 30+ letters of reference. Nevermind that signed affidavits of other adults whom He assaulted. Me asking mandated reporters what I should do about horrifying news and symptoms is considered “seeking,” and “coaching.”
And I am supposed to shut up. I have been directly told by justice system professionals that my published real and anonymous queer and feminist writings are problematic and inflammatory, as though they are not the crux of my professional and personal advancement. It is supposed to be further evidence of my insanity, my manipulation, my outlandishness if I speak up exactly as I have been trained by academics, ethics, spirituality, and the cells thta course through my other self-aware cells. I have been directed to not to write about my honest to every goddess who has ever existed truth, because it hurts He who performed the actual villainy. I have had my truth blow up in my face, the faces of my kids, and my extended family. I have been told to stop. Stop with my career, stop with my experience, and stop with my examination of how many of us have been asked to shut up.
You are supposed to shut up.
Shut. Up.
No? Why not? Why not shut up at this point? Why can’t you hold your tongue? Because you believe in justice? Because you’ve been trained to be articulate? Because it’s all true? None of that matters. It will still blow up in your face. It was always going to blow up in our faces. Had I been perfectly compliant with norms, with His wishes, control, and intimidation, I’d still have been crushed.
Nothing will keep us from being targeted once we exist.
Kissing His ass, didn’t spare me his campaigns of terror. Kissing His ass, isn’t going to get my kids back. Kissing asses from here until eternity won’t spare my kids the horror that they’re already stuck in. Kissing Their asses won’t get my kids back; They already abhor me/you/us. We don’t have to understand why. We can’t. But if silence won’t protect us, if silence just buys us the random chance of becoming their targets, instead of the guarantee, we remain completely and utterly unprotected.
Nothing is going to stop these disasters. Nothing but speaking up can even approach getting any of us through becoming the target that living as ourselves creates.
So should we roll over for no better results? Shhhhh. Take it and take it quietly so that you can have these crumbs.
No? Me neither.
I, with all my flaws, which are scrutinized with double, triple, quadruple standards, will not shut up. Because I believe in justice, speaking truth to power, and not giving up. I have been trained to examine, cite, articulate, and persist. I have already lost everything I can lose. So only my truth and my voice remains. If I am quiet, I still lose. So I will work for me, for you, for my kids, and yours. We cannot undo the horrors we have survived, nor the horrors of those who did not survive. All I, you, we may have left is reclaiming our time. Not rolling over and taking it over and over and over again, quietly. This is what we owe to each other.
I will charge into battle for my kids, for your kids, for you, and for me. I will fight and be gutted and lick my gorey axe for more as I collapse.
I am my own tool. I invite you to take hold. The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house (always Audre Lorde). This dull, faulty screwdriver that I have whittled out of pine is all that I have left. Only our ragged, beaten, perfect voices will protect others. From our brothers, our nations, or species. Speak. It is marginally better than silence. To connect with each other. As earnestly, thoughtfully, carefully as we can while charging at a sturdy shield wall built of silence. Silence is the tool of oppression, bringing nothing but more fear and hurt. I will not use it.
My blood is already spilt, from both cheeks, and my children’s, every major surface bruised and infected. So why not yell now? Silence won’t work.
Maybe a new pen name will.
