Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 271

Here are a few excerpts from a book I recently read, "Assume Nothing: A Story of Intimate Violence," by Tanya Selvaratnam.

A friend told me about her experience dating a future senator and presidential candidate while they were in college. When he had broken up with her, he had said, “You’re not first lady material.” For men with political ambitions, the way their partner looks impacts their prospects. In my situation, Eric’s controlling of my appearance was a thread in a larger web of manipulation.

Over time, the slaps got harder and began to be accompanied by demands. In bed, he would slap me until I agreed to find him a young girl for a three-way. I told him what he wanted to hear even though I knew it was never going to happen. He would slap me until I agreed to call him “Master” or “Daddy.” He recounted his fantasies of finding me somewhere far away to be his slave, his “brown girl.” 

I wondered what he called his previous girlfriends. The ones I was aware of were white. With me, he said I had “wild” hair and unsightly scars, and he wanted me to be his slave. Publicly, he was a friend and ally to communities of color; he was a big supporter and fan of jazz artists. But in the bedroom, he wanted to be “Master” and slap around his “slave.”

It’s mind-boggling that Eric could pass laws to help women in the abstract while harming real women in his own life. His advocacy was a form of atonement but also of deflection. It was as if he were declaring “I can’t be guilty of these private crimes because of what I do publicly.”

I spent the next twenty-four hours intensely deliberating. I was part of a pattern: I was not the first, and I wouldn’t be the last. It would be easier to drift away and not say anything. But that wouldn’t be me. Discovering that others could be in danger marked a turning point. The silence of women before me meant that I had suffered, too, and silence didn’t feel like an option I could live with. I felt that I was in a lose-lose situation. 

Trauma can be so deafening at times that it becomes hard to think. In my case, the decision to fade away quietly and let Eric do his work conflicted with my desire to prevent him from harming another woman. I thought the world needed him to do a few more good things, such as stop Trump’s travel bans and protect transgender people in the military. What made my situation complex and different was that my abuser was a liberal hero. I knew that people would doubt me and my motives. I knew that some would be angry with me for taking down one of their own progressive leaders. But Eric would not be the first hero to be a fraud, and I wanted to be the last woman he could harm.

It wasn’t just the exposing of the story that frightened me but also the scrutiny of my personal life. When people met me, that story might be the first thing they associated with me. When they googled me, it might be the result they noticed most. I expected these reactions: “She’s being an opportunist.” “She stayed with him.” “She didn’t tell anyone about the physical abuse for a long time, so how do we know it was real?” Some people would judge me; some would doubt me; some would have my back. But ultimately, this wasn’t about me; it was about the women who wouldn’t be abused by him in the future.

During that low period, I said to my friend Farai, “The bad guys win.” 

She said, “But the storytellers also win.” 

I wrote my way out of the darkness.