Anger, Shame, and Power

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Shame is the tool of the oppressors

It does not change our behavior. Guilt does. Shame is used to get people to oppress themselves. This is also why we cannot shame up the hierarchy. White men in power literally feel no shame because they are on top of the power pyramid.

There is, however, a way we can use shame as a tool of liberation. And that way is being demonstrated in the #metoo movements. Yes, plural. There are at least three: Tarana Burke’s, the more recent (more glamorous) version, and the one that is most relevant here: Unshame.

We need to help each other refuse to take on the shame of rape. A woman, a person who was raped has nothing to be ashamed of! Yet, we learn to feel that shame to hide our anger!

Anger

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I am so fucking angry
if I were a dragon
I’d burn it all down
because I’d be spewing fire
all over the place

I am so fucking angry
if I didn’t know better
I’d castrate them all

I am so fucking angry
if you mansplain on me
I’ll scream

I am so fucking angry
because the rapist can
be angry
because his privilege to rape
is being questioned
but I am not allowed to be
because I am a woman

Well, fuck this shit!

I am ANGRY

On Date Rape – My #MeToo Story

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Content warning: As the title of the post suggests, it is about date rape. I share my experience with it.
To get help if you’ve been raped and are struggling with the aftermath: Please find someone to talk to! You are not alone! One option is to call RAINN at 1800-656-4673 or use the link to find help closer to where you are. People who staff these phonelines are trained to help us survivors.

“It wasn’t that bad. It’s been so long ago.”

These are the thoughts that keep going through my head. And yet, there are all the signs that this isn’t true. I oscillate between feeling tremendous rage at mostly white men dismissing her account. And then I want to hide somewhere. Both signs of post-traumatic stress injury.

Photo by Ted Weinstein taken before I shared this #metoo story. tedweinstein.com


It was in 1988. 30 years ago. I had met Dennis through work. He seemed charming. And I was intrigued by the idea of having a relationship with an African-American man. In my naive 20-year-old mind, he must automatically be progressive and interested in all the same things I was. I was politically active. I had come to the United States from Germany to reconcile the crimes of the Nazis. He invited me to his friend’s house. I can’t remember what excuse he made for that. It was only much later that I found out that he was married. He picked me up in front of the library. He drove a sportsy car. A green sports car, maybe a Volkswagen. I could still pick it out from a lineup. Just like him. We walked up the stairs to his friend’s apartment. It was a one bedroom. The living room had a bar-like counter that connected to the kitchen. I was sent into the friend’s bedroom because they had to do something. The friend came in after a while and chatted with me. I actually liked him better than Dennis.

My memory of what happened next is a bit fuzzy. I was offered something to drink – and got a cola that seemed very sweet. Then the friend left and Dennis and I were alone. Somehow we ended up on the couch. Dennis pulled my pants down. I am not sure why I didn’t resist. It was as if I had become paralyzed, become an object for a man’s pleasure without her own will. I remember the small window, high above that let light in. I was trying to go there with my mind while he tried to enter me. I remember that for some reason he couldn’t. I was too tight. He gave up at some point. Not sure if he ever came. I remember him suggesting I take a shower. I remember that I desperately tried to wash off what had just happened. And I couldn’t. I felt both numb and disgusted. And confused. What had just happened? Something in me had shattered.

He brought me home. As I was leaving the car, he touched me between my legs and told me to save that for him. I never did let him get close again. He must’ve been reassigned at work because I hardly saw him again. At some point, his wife called. She had found a poem I wrote him. I wish I would’ve told her to burn it. Maybe she did anyways.

I got an STD from the whole thing. The doctor who examined me told me I had been raped. I hadn’t associated that word with my experience. It fit. I had been raped. Me. The feminist. Something more shattered.

Because soon after the rape I ended up in an abusive marriage, I rarely talked about the rape. It wasn’t so bad compared to what I survived in the marriage. That’s what I told myself. It wasn’t until recently, when I read in “Not That Bad” about downplaying our experience, that I realized that the two are probably connected. My self-image had been shattered. The rape made me vulnerable to an abusive man.

So, yes, all this is 30 years ago now. I was a young adult then. And it’s still haunting me. Today, 30 years later, I am still the woman who was raped. And I am certain Dennis won’t even remember me. Nothing shattered for him. He was not traumatized by the experience. Hearing all the dismissals of Dr. Blasey Ford’s story, it seems more shatters inside of me. Each dismissal tells me: What happened to me doesn’t matter. It is such a long time ago.

And this is why I get angry because, damn it, it does matter! Even though it happened 30 years ago, the wound is still there. Sure, I put myself back together again – and I can still feel the cracks where I had shattered. Every time someone dismisses Dr. Blasey Ford’s story, the cracks open again. I shatter some more. Being raped is traumatizing. Being doubted is retraumatizing.

So, I am angry because every time a rape is dismissed, I am dismissed. Every time a rape is dismissed, I am told what happened to me doesn’t matter. Every time a rape is dismissed, I am told that my experience isn’t that important, I am not that important.

I am tired of these stories men (and, sadly some women…) make up to downplay the impact of rape. The rape shaped my life. That is important. And if you tell me otherwise, you’re just an asshole – and most likely a privileged white man. And your #timesup, damn it!

Reflections on Immigration

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In 1995, the Republican controlled Congress passed a law that would make it easier to deport permanent residents who were accused of a crime, even minor ones. I still remember hearing about this on the radio driving in my car. I can still see the dashboard. I was terrified. My ex-husband kept threatening me with “see you in jail.” What if he’d use this law to get me deported and thus separate me from my 4-year-old son? What if I then would no longer be able to protect him from his abusive father? I decided to become a U.S. citizen. At least that would keep me safe; at least that would allow me to stay in the country. It was an agonizing decision because I would lose my German citizenship. At some point, the realization that I’d be German even after that helped. I’d be able to get that citizenship back because my parents are German. I am German. So, I thought.

In 2018, that assumption is being tested. According to the German government, I am no longer German. I will have to reapply for my citizenship. I cannot even do a 2-week, unpaid internship without jumping through the hoops of an immigration system designed to keep people out, to keep me out of my home country.

In addition, there is hatred toward immigrants everywhere. Mostly it is directed against those immigrants who have the “wrong” skin color. I am white. I am still scared. I still feel unwelcome everywhere. I still feel invisible as a human being. That’s what it is really about: We are not treated as human beings, we’re being treated as annoying numbers, as people who are dangerous, who need to be kept away or else we’ll be poisoning the water and the gene pool. I was able to leave my abusive husband. I am not able to leave the haters. It seems like nowhere is safe anymore. I am not welcome anywhere.

Evaluating Ethical Systems

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It is hard to find common ground with people who are denying basic human rights, like health care or asylum, life itself, really. They are driven by a philosophy that centers something other than life – and such an ethic is morally bankrupt.

Why?

We can evaluate ethical systems on a meta level. In order for an ethical system to be humane, to be valid for humans, it needs to respect, honor really, life. Because without life this system would be superfluous. We need ethical systems to enable communities, to enable living together. So, an ethical system that ultimately destroys life cannot be moral on a meta level because it would destroy what it is supposed to ensure.

More concretely, ethical systems that center property are immoral. Property does not exist without life; property is a contract between living humans. Unfortunately, the people in power, mostly white men, are driven by such an immoral ethical system. They are merely interested in maintaining their power – and in order to do so build a pseudo ethics that pretends to justify their power. In reality, they are undermining their power from within because they cannot have power over dead people, which is where their system ultimately leads. It is not centered on life, it does not value life (unless it can be abused to maintain their power, such as in the case of an anti-choice stance to abortion).

I am not sure if the meta-ethical sketch above is correct. Probably not yet. I have been grappling with figuring out why I have this strong sense that the philosophies that center property – from Ayn Randism to libertarianism – feel deeply immoral to me. I sense it has something to do with their blatant disregard of life – human and otherwise. Property and power seem more important – and that’s a sand castle because neither would exist without life. So the system is unsustainable and has to eventually collapse on its own – except in reality, of course, it can be maintained by brutal force, intensified by this hallow system. Self-justification.

An alternative ethical system, one that could self-maintain, centers life. Everything is driven by respecting life. Sadly, this system – or such systems – seem to be very vulnerable to the brutal systems. How can we help the inhumane system collapse? And do this without creating more suffering than the system itself? How are we maintain that system every day? By holding onto beliefs that divide us, that make some life more valuable than others. By focusing our work on accumulating power, by making power and money the measure of achievement, of morality itself thus turning ethics into an absurdum.

Open Letter to the GOP Leadership in Congress

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I have faxed the following letter to GOP members of Congress who hold leadership positions. I am disgusted with their complicit support of the undemocratic changes the president is making to U.S. democracy as symbolized by his comments about the European Unions, supposedly our allies, and his visit in Russia.

As a German-American, naturalized U.S. citizen since 1998, I am deeply concerned about how President Trump talks about our European allies, Germany in particular. What I am even more worried about is Congress’ silence, especially the GOP’s silence. It is as if that party is perfectly willing to go along with the destruction of the post-World War II alliances that have brought peace and prosperity to the United States (though not always to other countries). As much as these alliances had their problems, their strength lay in their cooperation based on liberal and democratic principles.

Are you, as Congress, now willing to throw this all into the wind to openly align the U.S. with authoritarian regimes? Instead of working toward true democracy, toward implementing the liberal promises of the U.S. constitution, you are standing by as Trump undermines it. For what? Just to maintain your power? Are we, the people, really that unimportant to you? Do you really care so little about U.S. democracy?

This is certainly no longer the United States that I joined as a citizen! It is long past time that you stand up to Trump and show him that his words and actions are unacceptable in the United States of America! It is Congress’ responsibility to provide checks and balances. Please do your job!

Some of the background for this letter is expressed here by the European council president. Some other concurring voices: John Brennan, The Guardian reporting, even the Republican Speaker, David Frum.