Society gives women the near impossible task of separating harmlessness from danger, the foresight of knowing what some men are capable of. When we call out assault when we hear it, Trump says, I don’t think you understand. Just words. You are overreacting, overly offended, hysterical, rude, relax!!! So we dismiss threatening statements and warning signs, apologizing for our paranoia. We go into a party or meeting thinking it’s just a party or meeting. But when we are taken advantage of, and come crawling back damaged, they say, How could you be so naive, you failed to detect danger, let your guard down, what did you think would happen? Trump made it clear the game is rigged, the rules keep changing. It doesn’t matter what you think is assault, because in the end, he decides.
At 1:10 in the Access Hollywood recording, you can hear the Tic Tacs sliding in their little box. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. Some will say, He’s just a man! eating a mint! on a bus! But it triggered me the way, if you hear the click of a lock when a man closes a door behind you, your body tenses. Women have been trained to notice micromovements, to scan and anticipate all subsequent action, constantly measuring how far threatening words are from realities. We are tasked with defending ourselves in every imaginable scenario, planning escape routes, walking with keys between knuckles, a natural instinct in our day-to-day routines.
* * *
• • •
On July 6, 2016, a month after my statement was released, Philando Castile, a young black man, was driving home from the grocery store when a police officer pulled him over for a broken taillight and shot him seven times. His fiancée in the passenger seat recorded him slumping over, his white shirt stained red like a Japanese flag, while a four-year-old girl sat in the back. I thought, Evidence, this is it, the case that gets the verdict. It’s right there, you can’t turn away from it, can’t reason your way out.
But on June 16, 2017, the jury returned a not guilty verdict. In Oakland, people stormed the highways. Some called it chaos, but I saw reason. My testimony was incomplete because I’d blacked out. Philando couldn’t testify because he was dead, couldn’t even attend his own trial. I wish the prosecutor had called Philando to the stand, forced the jury to stare at the empty witness box, his name echoing into the silence, proceeded with questions. What were your nicknames for the little girl? Did your arms get tired when you carried her? Did you know, while getting dressed that morning, those were the clothes you would die in? What kind of cake did you want at your wedding?
The officer claimed he’d been scared, had reason to believe Philando was reaching for his gun. Show me that scenario. A man seated with a trunk full of melting groceries, wearing a thin layer of cotton, a little girl in the backseat. About to whip out his gun, shoot through the cop’s bulletproof vest, to be his own getaway driver? Why would Philando shoot an innocent man within forty seconds of meeting him? Why did the officer?
Let’s go back to Mr. Hernandez’s film literature class, back to Jaws. Mr. Hernandez pointed out that we never actually saw the shark until about eighty minutes into the film. Instead we heard horror stories, glimpsed its sinister fin; primed to be scared, so that when the shark made its grand debut, we saw everything we’d been taught to see, the merciless, blood-seeking Jaws. Before the cop pulled Philando over, he’d reported the man resembled a robbery suspect, commenting on his wide-set nose. By the time the cop stepped up to the window, he didn’t see Philando, he saw everything he thought he knew about wide noses, blackness, guns, added it all up to threat in his head. The problem is not who we are, the problem is what you think we are. The realities you cast on us; that Philando would be violent, that I’d ask for sex behind a dumpster.
Philando’s officer had testified, I thought, I was gonna die, and I thought if he’s, if he has the, the guts and the audacity to smoke marijuana in front of the five-year-old girl and risk her lungs and risk her life by giving her secondhand smoke and the front seat passenger doing the same thing, then what, what care does he give about me? In his testimony, I heard the familiar expectation that a victim be flawless, in order to be worthy of life. The audacity to smoke marijuana provided sufficient reason to die. The defense calling me a party animal meant I, too, deserved to be raped.
Brock had written in his statement: Coming from a small town in Ohio, I had never really experienced celebrating or partying that involved alcohol. A search warrant was obtained for Brock’s phone, uncovering texts the summer before college, photos of him drinking liquor, smoking from a pipe, a bong: Do you think I could buy some wax so we could do some dabs? Dabs being a highly concentrated form of cannabis. Oh dude I did acid with Kristian last week. Texts from friends, I’ve got a hankerin for a good acid trip. I’m down for sure. Texts about candyflippin, a combination of LSD and MDMA. I gotta fucking try that. I heard it’s awesome.
I did not mind, this is not proof that he is bad, I am not here to judge his drug consumption. Rip that bong, boy. You can eat mushrooms for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You can dab your heart out whatever the literal hell that means. You know why? Because it’s your life, and you are free to consume as you please. But what you cannot do, is come into my courtroom with the statement, I was an inexperienced drinker and party-goer, so I just accepted these things that [the guys on the swim team] showed me as normal . . . I’ve been shattered by the party culture and risk taking behavior that I briefly experienced in my four months at school.
On the day the verdict of my case was read, a Washington Post article quoted Brock saying that in ten years he hoped to be in residency to be a surgeon. His sister wrote, Goodbye to the Olympics. Goodbye to becoming an orthopedic surgeon. Another letter writer said, As you may have learned, Brock had gone to college with the intent of studying Biomedical Engineering . . . his personality was quite consistent with the typical engineering student, respectful, unobtrusive, unassuming . . . I found his résumé in the probation officer’s report. At the time of the assault, he had worked as a lifeguard for two years and then at a store called Speedy Feet. But I never read this anywhere. He was not forced to acknowledge the facts of his present. He was talked about in terms of his lost potential, what he would never be, rather than what he is. They spoke as if his future was patiently waiting for him to step into it. Most of us understand that your future is not promised to you. It is constructed day by day, through the choices you make. Your future is earned, little by little, through hard work and action. If you don’t act accordingly, that dream dissolves.
If punishment is based on potential, privileged people will be given lighter sentences. Brock was shielded inside projections of what people like him grow up to become, or are supposed to become. Orthopedic surgeon. Biomedical engineer. All-American Athlete. Olympian. The judge argued he’d already lost so much, given up so many opportunities. What happens to those who start off with little to lose? Instead of a nineteen-year-old Stanford athlete, let’s imagine a Hispanic nineteen-year-old working in the kitchen of the fraternity commits the same crime. Does this story end differently? Does The Washington Post call him a surgeon?
My point can be summed up in the line Brock wrote: I just existed in a reality where nothing can go wrong or nobody could think of what I was doing as wrong. Privilege accompanies the light skinned, helped maintain his belief that consequences did not apply to him. In this system, who is untouchable? Who is disposable? Whose lives are we intent on preserving? Who goes unaccounted for? Who is the true disrupter, the one firing, the one fingering, who created a problem where there never was one? Brock said he’d failed to tell the detective so many crucial details upon his initial arrest because . . . my mind was going a million miles an hour, and it was impossible for me to think clearly about what happened. Meanwhile victims are always expected to think clearly, we don’t get to use fear as an excuse. Senseless violence continues to play out, while you ask for more and more evidence, telling us it’s not enough, try again.
Even when sexual assault c
laims are brought to police, only a small percentage will be taken up by prosecutors. This is not because prosecutors do not believe the victims, it is because they know the burden of proof is extremely high, as one must prove the assault occurred beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecutors will not put you through the entire process if evidence is scant and chances are low to begin with, which means even if the victim wants to move forward, it is not always up to her.
That leaves filing a lawsuit in civil court, which requires a lower standard of proof, preponderance of evidence. Still she has to find, convince, and hire an attorney who will take her case. In a civil lawsuit the victim’s name is not protected, and she will likely be accused of suing for money. This process can take two to three years.
When a victim is assaulted on a college campus, often all the victim wants is to be assured she is safe and he will never repeat his offense. Universities have been accused of lacking the sophistication needed to handle these cases, due to ongoing confusion about their varying disciplinary systems, so victims are again advised to report to the police. Serious crimes need to be handled by serious systems, I agree. But she would be sacrificing her education to spend years struggling in the criminal justice system. Schools are not equipped to conduct full trials, but they have the power to create safe environments, and inflict limited punishment by removing the perpetrator from campus. It is absolutely true and undeniable that everyone deserves due process, especially when consequences are severe. If colleges were capable of sending men to prison it would be absurd. But this is not what we’re asking. All the school can do is say, you cannot study here anymore, you cannot use our library anymore, or the cafeteria, you have to go find another library and cafeteria. If students can be swiftly expelled for plagiarism or dealing drugs, the same punishment should be inflicted if there’s enough evidence to suggest they pose a threat to others. Oh but his reputation! That’s really where he suffers. My advice is, if he’s worried about his reputation, don’t rape anyone.
* * *
• • •
Brock wrote, Before this happened, I never had any trouble with law enforcement and I plan on maintaining that. On November 15, 2014, three months before my assault, Deputy Shaw spotted a few young men walking through Stanford campus with beer cans. When apprehended, they ran. One guy was caught and detained, confessed the guy who escaped was Brock. Brock was summoned back. The police noted: He returned wearing a bright orange tuxedo and Deputy Shaw smelled the odor of alcohol on him. . . . He had a black backpack on with Coors Light beers inside, as well as a beer in his hand. He admitted trying to hide the beer and knew he was not supposed to have it because he was not 21 years old. He stated that when he saw Deputy Shaw approach, he made the decision to run. While running, he heard the verbal commands to stop, but continued evading. He said it was a split-second decision and he regretted making it. Deputy Shaw would be the one to photograph my body three months after this incident.
Six months after my assault, two young women found Detective Kim and reported they’d encountered Brock at the KA fraternity the weekend before I was assaulted. The police report noted: He put his hat on her and she took it off. He then started to dance behind her and tried to turn her around to face him. She felt uncomfortable and tried to turn her body away so that he would not be directly “behind” her. He became really “touchy” and put his hands on her waist and stomach. He even put his hands on her upper thighs. She felt more exceedingly uncomfortable and got down off of the table. She said the Defendant “creeped” her out because of his persistence.
The same location, a week before. I was grateful the girls had taken the time to find my detective, knew it would’ve been easier to see the news and say, Woah, that was the same guy at the party, and carried on. Instead they’d contributed their story, then returned quietly to their lives.
Shortly after the Defendant’s arrest in the early morning hours of January 18, 2015, Detectives noticed a text message in the “Group Me” application that appeared on the Defendant’s screen. It stated, “Who’s tits are those?” The images had been erased by a third party in the group. There was speculation Brock had photographed my breasts and sent it out. If this is true, I do not want to know.
The stories about Brock running from police with a backpack full of Coors, rubbing up on girls, smoking weed, tripping on acid, photographing tits, were all absent from the image his loved ones and the media projected. The Washington Post called him squeaky clean and baby-faced, a rosy-cheeked cherub. The letter writers insisted he was misconstrued as a criminal. They called him an innocent man, fighting for his freedom. Fun loving. Not a malevolent bone in his body. Blushes at the drop of a hat. If I could choose one word it’d be gentle . . . there are some people I equate to Labrador retrievers . . . Gracious, caring, talented. Humble, responsible, trustworthy. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Even after the conviction, they believed he remained entitled to impunity. Their support was unwavering, they refused to call it assault, only called it the horrible mess, this unfortunate situation. And still they said, Brock is not one to believe that he is above the law or has any special privilege. . . . As a woman, I have never felt intimidated by him whatsoever. In his mother’s three-and-a-half-page single-spaced statement, I was not mentioned once. Erasure is a form of oppression, the refusal to see.
On January 20, 2017, four months after the release of the Access Hollywood tape, the nation watched Trump smile, lift his hand, be sworn in as president of the United States. I was shaking. It was the rattling, the sound of thousands of sliding Tic Tacs. You can do anything.
The news found me in the snow. It was December 2, 2017, a year and a half after the sentencing. Lucas and I were visiting a friend’s cabin. In my half sleep I heard the swish swish of him walking around in his snow pants, pots in the kitchen, the sink running, heat breathing through the vents. I picked up my phone, did my routine squinty-eyed scrolling in bed. I saw missed calls, news had broken, Brock’s appeal filed. Accusations of an unfair trial, citing insufficient evidence. The brief was 172 pages long. The New York Times noted that around 60 of the pages were about my intoxication. The snowy view faded, the fir trees. I had to return, to figure out what this meant, call my DA, my parents, saying, yes I heard the news, yes I’ll be all right.
Appeals are incredibly common and everyone has the right to one, but the idea that the case was not closed for good, that there was a chance, no matter how small, there’d be a retrial, knotted my insides. My DA told me there was nothing to be done. The attorney general of the state would take the next few months to write a response. After that was submitted, an oral argument would be given by Brock’s appellate attorney, Mr. Multhaup, in front of a panel of three judges, sometime next year, no saying when. The white-haired appeal attorney I’d seen at the sentencing had been replaced by this widow’s-peaked man.
A call from Tiffany. She’d stepped out of brunch, leaving a table circled by friends. What does this mean. Are we okay. She stood alone outside while I sat in the room in the snow, wishing we were together. Everyone in the cabin was finishing toast, strapping goggles to their heads, engaged in a reality I was no longer a part of. Lucas came back to the room, noticed I was distracted, glued to my phone, not getting dressed, and asked what was wrong. When I told him, he was determined not to let the news steal our day, we were going to go skiing. I shook my head.
He’d seen this happen too many times before. More than being angry at the appeal itself, he was upset seeing what it did to me. He wanted to shake me out of its grip, to swoop me out onto a ski lift where I was meant to be. But I did not want to mobilize or feign happiness for others. Lucas finally said he would give me privacy and take his phone, we could meet whenever I was ready. I heard everyone shuffling out the door until finally the house was still.
One hundred and seventy-two pages. I looked at the table of contents, saw sections devoted to Ms. Doe’s sister, Ms. Doe’s boyfriend, Julia.
I saw the people I love being disassembled again, blamed in a new set of arguments more virulent and insulting than before. I wanted to pluck their names off the page, to hold them closer to me, out of the attorney’s hands.
I had written the statement to say stop. Stop treading on me, denying my truths, stop pushing back. I have had enough, I have taken too much, I can’t take anymore. It ends now. This was their way of saying no. Their way of saying, Here’s one hundred and seventy-two pages of no. They lived in a soundproof box and planned to keep me suffocating inside it with them.
Do you understand, when you ask a victim to report, what you’re telling her to walk into? Why didn’t she go to the police? I had deputies, a detective, paramedics, I had squad cars, an ambulance. I had them handcuffing him, photographing me, recording witness accounts, jotting down every detail of my body from the thin chain wrapped around my neck to the laces of my shoes, my clothes collected, his clothes collected. I pressed charges within twenty-four hours of the assault and here I was three years later reading the appellate attorney’s statements about how I was clearly in front of the dumpster, not in any way “behind” it. How it was “merely exterior massaging” of my “genital opening,” how we were enamored young people expressing their sexual urges. When you say go to the police what do you envision? I was grateful for my team. But the police will move on to other cases while the victim is left in the agonizing, protracted judicial process, where she will be made to question, and then forget, who she is. You were just physically attacked? Here’s some information on how you can enter a multiyear process of verbal abuse. Often it seems easier to suffer rape alone, than face the dismembering that comes with seeking support.
Know My Name Page 29