On Brokenness, Junot Diaz, and a Big Wheel
My hard road to recovering a repressed memory of childhood assault
There’s no denying that what was once just the Harvey Weinstein story has taken on a life all its own in #MeToo. While Tarana Burke has been working on Me Too as a social justice cause for more than a decade, it took the coming out of harassed and abused White women of relative privilege for it to become a movement. That White women have empowered themselves to reveal the abuses of powerful men is a step in the right direction for eradicating sexual harassment and abuse.
The lengthy sentencing phase for convicted sex abuser Larry Nassar in January was but one example of this fact. More than 150 women gave statements of the abuse they suffered at the hands of this once well-respected sports doctor for Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics. So, too, were the recent trials and last week’s conviction of America’s Dad, the great comedian and rapist Bill Cosby. It took a Hannibal Buress joke and 60 accusers (mostly White women) to bring the story of Cosby’s drug-fueled rapes over a five-decade period from the rumor mill to a jury willing to put him in prison. If one is a White female or has a platform from which to speak out, #MeToo is one way to get justice, or at least, some conclusion to years of brokenness and pain.
