We're Going to Need More Wine

by Gabrielle Union

  I was taken to the hospital. After having my dad see me in that moment, my boyfriend Alex came to the hospital. And he too was destroyed. We’d been together about a year. His family was Greek and Mexican, and they were completely opposed to us being together. They called him a nigger lover.

  “But you’re an interracial couple!” he would answer.

  “Why do you have to go to the extreme?” was the response.

  Yet in the moment of Alex finding out I’d been raped and his parents having to deal with their child being crushed, they finally realized that our thing was real. I was, to put it mildly, very resentful that it took my being raped for them to not have a problem with interracial dating. But anyway.

  My mom arrived, quiet and scared. I flashed to the advice my mom had given my older sister and me for how to handle anyone who wanted to mug us or worse.

  “You know what you do, right?”

  We would say in unison with matching eye rolls: “What do we do, Mom?”

  “You say ‘Shit, shit bastard!’ That’s what you do.”

  Shit, shit bastard. She thought a woman spewing out a string of nonsense swears would shock an assailant into confused submission. To this day my sisters and I will just text those words to each other, or leave “Shit, shit bastard” on each other’s voice mails.

  She didn’t know what to say to me. I’m sure she was shocked because it happened to the one daughter she didn’t think she had to worry about. I had always been the strongest one, taking care of myself. They had never seen me show fear. You move your kids to this all-white community and force them to go to these all-white schools. You think you’ve priced yourself out of this shit. You’ve done all these things and then this happens.

  A FEW DAYS LATER, THE GUY STRUCK AGAIN IN A NEIGHBORING CITY. You could see him on the security camera at Payless this time. He walked in, saw the camera, and walked right back out. But then I guess he was just amped up to keep this crime spree going and he walked into a Clothestime store. I knew the girl there. He’d become more brazen, bolder, and he hurt her even more than he hurt me. By then the manhunt was reaching fever pitch. Within the week, he turned himself in. Because they knew who he was, the cops had started watching his mother’s house, and she got him to surrender.

  My dad was the one who went to every arraignment. Every single court hearing. I remember Dad saying, “I want him to see me.” He is one of those parents who can rule with a look. Discipline with a glare. And he really thought that the same glare that got us to stop jumping on the bed, or to eat our vegetables, was going to work on someone who’d raped women. But he was there. Glaring.

  “Now I feel bad,” my rapist would say. “Not when I was smashing her crying face or leaving her in a heap. Nope. But her father’s glare. That did it. That’s what made me see the evil I had done.” Dad took it personally, so this wasn’t about justice for me. It was a personal affront to him. It happened to me, but it was an affront to him.

  To this day, my dad has the article from the newspaper about my rape in his wallet. Twenty-four years. He has never explained to me why he carries it around, but I know it’s a reminder that someone dared to fuck with him. “How dare you even think you could do this to me?”

  Because of that article, everybody knew. They didn’t print my name, but there were very few black people my age in Pleasanton. And just in case, for the people who didn’t know, Lisa Goodwin went to a party and to get sympathy for herself, told my story but made it about how it affected her.

  I had to testify in front of a grand jury, but I didn’t have to see him. The most traumatizing part was going into the courthouse and seeing other criminals. I could see them coming off the transport van in shackles. Coming face-to-face with criminals, being in the courthouse with rapists and murderers and child molesters, was, for somebody in the throes of post-traumatic stress, all too much. I got into the elevator and in two seconds, I literally sprinted back out. Wrong combination of people. I heard my mom apologize because I guess she probably thought it looked rude.

  He took a plea deal of thirty-three years. So we never had to go to a trial. I hope he’s still in jail. I haven’t looked to see if he’s out. I do know he is aware of who I’ve become. My father said they mentioned it in one of the parole proceedings. My dad goes to those, too.

  I have seen enough episodes of Oz that I really believe in prison justice. I believe there are certain things that prisoners do very well. And their handling of rapists is one of them. So . . . I feel pretty solid about that. Whatever he’s endured brings me joy. I hope it happens every day of his life. A few times a day. I’m perfectly okay with that.

  People always ask, “Do you wish you’d had better aim?” I mean, obviously you pull the trigger of a gun to stop, maim, or kill. That was my goal in that split second. But I don’t think I’m a killer. I don’t think I could live with killing anyone, even in self-defense. I think I would be even more tortured by that.

  The other question I get asked is “What were you wearing?” I got raped at work and people still want to know what role I played in what happened to me.

  I HAD ALREADY TRANSFERRED FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA AND was supposed to start UCLA in August. But I couldn’t do the grand jury and be in Los Angeles, so I deferred and did a semester of my sophomore year at a junior college in Fremont. During that time, I opted to sue Payless for not providing a safe environment.

  Timing became the most important thing in my life. I timed everything I did to try to reduce the space for something else to happen to me. If I could limit the time I was in, say, a restaurant, then that would narrow the likelihood of me being murdered if the restaurant was held up in a hostage situation. That’s how my brain began to function.

  There were times when I was studying in the library, and I lost track of time and let it get dark out. Then I had to get from the library to my car. I’d run to my car, jump in, slam the door, and slump into the seat in a heap of tears. I’d shake, my arm numb as if I were having a heart attack—and I had to sit and wait. My car at the time was a stick shift and I couldn’t stop my foot from shaking to put my car in gear, so I had to just sit. But sitting meant a carjacking was possible.

  I moved from the fear of one random act of violence to another, because I’d seen the devil up close. Once you’ve been the victim of a violent crime and you have seen evil in action, you know the devil lives and breathes in people all day, every day.

  The first therapist I saw was a bust. I saw him about two weeks after I was raped. He very quickly diagnosed me with post-traumatic stress disorder and insisted on trying to hypnotize me. A person who has just been raped isn’t into that mind control shit, I assure you. He tried several times, and I would scrunch my face, pretending, but in my mind I’d be organizing my closet. I was also struck that he thought I was so Humpty Dumpty broken that he couldn’t even talk to my conscious self. It’s like he was looking past me to say, “Let me talk to your manager. I need to see someone who’s really in charge here.”

  One of the first weeks of classes at UCLA, I saw an ad in the Daily Bruin for mental health services.

  I visited the clinic and realized that the UCLA Rape Crisis Center was a part of mental health services. And through the Rape Crisis Center, there was group therapy. And you could meet other rape survivors. And so I got rid of Mr. Hypnotism and started seeing a therapist through UCLA.

  In group, I was the only stranger rape. The rest of the students had been raped by acquaintances or family members. Some studies have estimated that 90 percent of rapes perpetrated against college-age women are acquaintance rapes. You want to know something weird? I felt grateful that my rapist was a stranger. It felt like a luxury not knowing the person. Because there was no gray area. There was no question of “Who are they going to believe, him or me?”

  I was also the only one in the group who’d gone through the criminal justice system. Some of these women still had classes with these guys. One woman, I think she was an enginee
ring student, was raped by her lab partner. But she had to go right back. I don’t remember if she was the one who ended up dropping out. I know she wanted to, because the engineering department was so small and she felt trapped.

  Group therapy was the only place I could feel “not crazy.” I was around other young people with the same stresses I have, the same fears and triggers. You know that feeling you get when somebody first rubs your feet? It’s like a jolt through your whole body, then an instant exhale.

  Each time we met, I exhaled. Because when you’ve been raped, you really feel like you’re on an island. Rape is the most underreported crime there is. And it’s shrouded in secrecy and shame. You think no one will be able to relate to you because of what you’ve been through. Then to be in this room, where everyone could relate, changed everything. Wow, that girl is getting straight As. That girl got a great internship. This girl is engaged. It gave me the calm I so desperately needed. I saw the possibility of hope.

  My therapist was lovely. “Let’s talk,” she said to me the first time we met. “Just talk.” Unlike my previous therapist, she didn’t treat me as someone irrevocably broken. She gave me glue, some Band-Aids, and Bactine, and said, “You’ve got this.”

  At UCLA, my life was like that cartoon where someone is walking along and magically a new plank is placed before them with each new step. It felt like there was nothing beneath me, but then each visit, each story, each memory was like another plank. I had no idea where those planks were taking me, but I was hoping that healing was on the other side. Being able to function was on the other side. Not having to literally run in panic all the time was on the other side.

  And then, before I got to the other side, I went and got famous.

  THERE’S A VISE AROUND MY CHEST AND MY ARMS ARE NUMB. If I had to swim for my life, I would die right now. It’s like a slow-moving heart attack. Those dreams where something is happening but you can’t move—that’s my life.

  And this is twenty-four years later.

  I am in the car outside Target. I am talking myself into going in. I have a list clutched in my hand, because it’s a sort of security blanket of order. I have to be as efficient as possible, get in and get out. And it’s also something to stare at if I am being stared at. In my head I rehearse the walk to the door, and I gauge how well I did choosing one of the times that the store is less crowded. I won’t feel safe, not even when I am back in my car. I will feel only safe when I am home. When every door is locked and checked.

  After I was raped, in 1992, I didn’t leave my house for a whole year unless I had to go to court or to therapy. I simply did not leave. That spiraled into me not going anywhere that I could be robbed. Anyplace where there was money exchanged, I simply avoided. The other day I was telling my husband that I couldn’t remember the last time that I actually went into a bank. The idea of being in there while it was robbed—that shallow-breathing-inducing fear of “I could be robbed right now”—is too much for me. Anytime I go to a restaurant with someone, I joke, “Sorry, the Malcolm X in me can’t sit with my back to the door.” But I can’t. I cannot enjoy a meal if my back is to the door.

  Twenty-four years.

  That feeling of surveillance, of being hunted, never goes away. Fear influences everything I do. I saw the devil up close, remember. And I see now how naïve I was. Of course I can never truly have peace again. That idea is fiction. You can figure out how to move through the world, but the idea of peace? In your soul? It doesn’t exist.

  I often get asked if my fears have decreased as I move further from the rape. No. It’s more about me moving from becoming a rape victim to a rape survivor. I am selective about who I allow into my life. I can spot people who make me feel anxious or fearful, and they are not welcome.

  But with the accessibility of our culture, I can’t keep boundaries. It could be the guy who grabs me, yelling, “YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO GET THIS PICTURE!” People will grab me as I’m walking through a crowd. They may turn it into a joke, but they are also not taking no for an answer. No one understands how much female celebrities are physically touched and grabbed and shoved and fondled. We all talk about it. I can’t tell you how many times people—men and women—feel your body. “Oh, you’re just a little bitty thing,” I hear, with someone squeezing my thigh. Men take pictures and get you under the armpit so they can feel the side of your boob. But we’re supposed to just take it.

  I was talking to someone about this recently. “You have a lot of rape energy around you,” he said. “Something happening to you that you had no power to stop. And it keeps happening.”

  The first time I said no, my ex-husband Chris and I were on a casino floor in Vegas. We were having a huge argument and I was crying. I stared down at the incredibly tacky carpet of giant red and green flowers surrounded by gilded latticework. I followed the loop of the lace over and over with my eyes, hoping to disappear into the rug. But I felt something. Even before I heard the yell, I sensed I was in someone’s sights.

  “Bring it on!”

  It was a cheerleading squad first marching, then running toward me. They were in full regalia, head to toe, clearly in town for a cheerleading competition.

  “It’s already been brought!” they yelled.

  I was still sobbing as they surrounded us. “I am so sorry,” I said, practically heaving. “It’s not a good time, girls.”

  They looked so disappointed, curling their lips to smile at me, willing my ugly cry away.

  When they finally walked away, I felt a wave of panic that I’d let these people down. I wanted to call them back. “I can do this!” I wanted to yell. “I can be what you need!” I still think about that moment.

  I can remember each time I said no, because I have panic attacks about backlash. When my husband Dwyane and I are together, we’ve got double the attention. Don’t get me wrong—I’m incredibly grateful to represent something so very positive to a group of people, but the flipside is that each interaction is anxiety producing for me and an opportunity for me to disappoint yet again. I have such a fear of not fulfilling the ever-changing wants and needs and expectations of strangers that I become terrified of what should be basic encounters. Going into a bar with friends, I’m like a rabbit that has wandered into a yard where a pack of wild dogs lives. One minute, I’m just hanging, chilling with all the other rabbits. Then something picks up my scent, and I’ve gotta flee.

  When we’re out with the boys we raise, Zaire, Dahveon, and Zion, we try to say, “Hey, guys, it’s family time.” Not so long ago, we were all at brunch in Miami and an entire family came over. Mind you, we were in the middle of a family discussion, and also just really enjoying being together. It was one of the very few times I was not completely on edge out in public, looking around, checking for the emergency exits.

  Zaire, who was twelve at the time, took the lead and jokingly said, “Not a good time.”

  The mom looked at me. “Is this what you’re allowing?”

  “We’re just trying to enjoy breakfast,” I said in my sweetest actress voice.

  She grabbed my arm. Like you would grab a kid who is about to fall in the pool. She used full force. She wanted my attention.

  “That’s a shame,” she hissed.

  This woman snatched me, right in front of my family. I try to teach the kids about boundaries and sticking up for yourself and not letting people show you disrespect, and then I am grabbed in front of them.

  “What is a shame?” I asked. There was no answer.

  It happened so fast. It was so shocking.

  D intervened. “Not now,” he told the woman.

  It is twenty-four years later. My instinct in so many situations when I feel threatened is to run. As fast as I can. But just as that night at Payless, my good home training keeps me frozen in fear.

  And then, sometimes, we humans perceive each other.

  I will be in the ladies’ room, washing my hands next to another woman. She will take a few glances, which I notice, and as I’
m readying myself to walk out the door, she’ll say, “Me, too.”

  She doesn’t have to tell me what she means. I nod. I have been doing rape advocacy and sharing my own story since the beginning of my career. We don’t hug. We don’t cry. She nods back at me. Just two women in a moment of mutual respect, acknowledging the truth and consequences of our experience. Feeling, in that moment, less alone on our respective islands.

  eight

  BLACK WOMAN BLUES

  “You know, you are really pretty for a dark-skinned girl.”

  The woman placed her hand on mine as she said this. We had just met. This black lady had stopped me at the airport to say she enjoyed Being Mary Jane. She delivered her remark about beauty with a tone of assurance, yet surprise.

  For years, whenever I heard this I would tighten my lips into an impassive smirk, tilt my head as if I didn’t really understand what the person was saying, and move the conversation elsewhere. Or simply end it. I know, it sounds like I was just called pretty. I get that it can be confusing. The phrase is used in the black community as if a unicorn had just been spotted prancing across 125th Street. Through God all things are possible, and it’s even possible that He sometimes makes dark-skinned women who aren’t ugly. Somehow, some way, I escaped the curse of my melanin and Afrocentric features to become a credit to my skin tone. “We found one!”

  An ex-friend I came up with in Hollywood used to say, “I just think it’s great that you are so dark and still able to book jobs.” She was the slightest shade lighter than me. I let it go until I simply let her go, but recently, I’ve grown tired of ignoring these remarks and what they mean about all darker-skinned women. Issues of colorism run so deep in the African American community, but more and more I see it spring up on social media as #teamlightskin versus #teamdarkskin. It’s an age-old us-against-us oversimplification that boils down to the belief that the lighter your skin tone, the more valuable and worthy you are. The standard of beauty and intelligence that has historically been praised by the oppressor has been adopted by the oppressed.