How do you deal with the vast disappointment and anger and rage and grief and rage and RAGE and RAGE and RAGE when a community icon, who did so much to help your gente, is found to be the type of monster that still makes me believe in capital punishment?
I don’t know.
I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know. There’s no true answer for this. I don’t want to research it. I don’t want to feel it. I need to feel it. I need to feel the full depth of what this means. It feels like there’s no meaning. It feels raw and too fucking goddamn present. I woke up to the New York Times article and I won’t stop myself from writing.
Even that I’m writing this semi-coherently feels like a mask of professionalism to cover my full rage.
Rage is not even enough. I am driven to violence.
Fury. Indignation. Temper. Grief. Agony. Anguish. Heartbreak. Mourning. Sorrow. Desolation. Anger. Hatred.
I scour through this pile of words to try and string together the broiling thoughts in my head that want to murder this dead man.
Ana Murgia, I mourn for you.
Debra Rojas, I mourn for you.
Dolores Huerta, I mourn for you.
The too-many other forsaken-and-community-minded women, I mourn for you.
“Ms. Huerta, who was 36 at the time, said she chose not to report the assault to the police because of their hostility toward the movement, and she feared that no one within the union would believe her.”
These women loved their community, and believed that the work was more important than the man. He was the face for improving labor conditions for farmwokers. (Another unfortunate aside: he was a bastard to undocumented immigrants.) But Esmeralda Lopez said a simple and extraordinarily and stupidly profound sentence:
"Cesar Chavez is just a man.”
She stated this to her mother, and her mother understood immediately and told her to come home.
Her mother should not have to know what that means. None of us should have to know what it means.
I shouldn’t have to relate to so many other women and non-cismen about our assaults, as I’ve written about over and over again. We shouldn’t have to protect a man on behalf of protecting our community.
I shouldn’t have to have conversations swirling around the word "r*pe" because we are trying to avoid the well of grief that comes with directly saying what happens to us.
I don’t know what words Dolores Huerta said in her interview, “but she speaks of the attack in a startlingly matter-of-fact manner.”
For me, and from what I’ve seen from many of us, it’s not startling that she was matter-of-fact about it. It’s simply our reality.
Maybe she did use the word "r*pe" because it’s been decades. Maybe she’s built a thick enough callous to do so. It’s been almost 10 years since mine, and my callous still feels thin.
Time and again I’ve seen a version of “Everyone woman knows a survivor at the hands of a man, but no man knows an assaulter.”
The next italicized section is a description of my own assault. Please skip as needed.
My senior year of college, I was pressured into sex by a grad student at a nearby and respected school. I still respect the school. But I was the one who invited him over, and I had originally wanted to have sex but I changed my mind. He didn’t want me to change my mind. He was twice my size and in the moment I couldn’t think enough to go to the bathroom and call my friend to get him out of my dorm room. We had "sex." When he was done and pulled out and saw that I was still spotting old brown blood, he was disgusted and I immediately relished in that. I sent him away when it felt safe to do so.
Over the next few days I told my friends "his definition of consent and mine didn’t match." What the fuck? What kind of fuck sentence is that? What kind of asinine thing to say? What the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK. I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO SAY THAT. I. SHOULDN'T. HAVE. TO. SAY. THAT.
It wasn’t until months later that I used "r*pe." I’m still "grateful" it wasn’t "violent." There are, un-fucking-fortunately, worse ways to be assulted. How are you supposed to be grateful for a lack of overt violence? I shouldn’t have to grateful for that.
I only reported anonymously, years later, on the school's website because if he did it again, I wanted there to be something of a track record.
I didn't report it publicly because I didn't - and still don’t - think I would be believed, and I don’t have the fame to get written about, and I don’t have the money for an attorney. All because I’m the one who invited him.
I don’t want to write about my r*pe again. I don’t want there to be a situation where I think writing about my r*pe is important.
There are devices we can put in vaginas that are like teeth in defense of unwanted penetration. We shouldn’t have to do that.
"Shouldn’t" is strong in this writing because it’s true, and because I want to show these asinine "not all men" people that all this just fucking means TOO MANY MEN.
"Cesar Chavez is just a man."
We shouldn’t have to understand that.
Those women shouldn’t have had to stay quiet to protect the community! Why stay quiet for a community that you don’t think will believe you?
They shouldn’t have had to sacrifice for a community they thought wouldn’t believe them, and some that still don’t.
I so highly respect the writers of the article who spent five years researching what they knew would be devastating for a community because they felt the women deserved to be believed.
I am devastated by this, but I am truly grateful that the women are being believed. I’d rather tear down the statues of this man than have the gente not believe these women.
Bring a shovel.
About the Creator
Ariana GonBon
29yo bi Xicana. There's always more to write about, in more interesting ways than white men.
Instagram: @arte.con.ariana
For more stories unapproved by Vocal: colochosdeflores.wordpress.com
For entertaining tidbits: xismosaxit.com
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It began with a girl. Black-haired and sweet and gone too soon. It is the way of mortals to die, of course. Most pass within a few decades, unless they can be tempted away to fairyland and persuaded to stay there. Even then, mortals live only as long as they can go without visits to friends or family that allow time and the weight of years to catch up to them.
By Natasja Rosea day ago in Fiction
Comments (1)
Your rage is appropriate, this is a righteous anger. Women shouldn’t have to worry about their safety in these ways, and the men who are quick to say not all men will probably never really know what it’s like, to constantly be on guard. I’ve actually been “by definition” r*ped, but I know it was a very different experience for me than what you or any other woman went throigh. Still some of what you described in your personal experience with this resonates with me, especially the feeling of being grateful it wasn’t worse. A couple years ago, I was seeing a woman and we were messing around but I told her explicitly and directly we shouldn’t do anything penetrative, as I hadn’t been tested and we didn’t have protection. She sat on it anyway, which was quite literally in violation of my consent. I didn’t want that. I wasn’t comfortable with it, but I was so taking off guard— and concerned with being rude that I didn’t assert myself and put a stop to it right away. It was also really confusing for me because even though I consciously denied consent, my body responded more than I wanted it to. Then she started role playing cnc stuff, talking about me r*ping her and my body shut down completely, and that was the end of that. In any case, even though I knew right away that she had violated my consent most of what I felt was guilt for letting her, and I told myself I was physically bigger than her I could have stopped her, but I didn’t. I told myself that meant it was okay, what she did because ultimately I had the power to stop her but chose not to. When I remember the fallout of this, the most immediate feeling i had was “damn I know that was r*pe, but atleast i wasnt drugged or coerced or held down or forced with threat of violence. My nonconsent was rejected but it wasn’t like my autonomy was brutally stripped away. Three things I think about that now, 1. That doesn’t make it okay, and in a respectful relationship it never would have happened 2. Like you said, nobody who receives unwanted contact, sexual assault, or a “non violent” r*pe should have to say “At least it wasn’t violent” because that’s still violence and it shouldn’t have happened. But most especially: 3. Holy shit, this whole thing must be a million times worse for women who go through it. I felt unsafe just because of the risk of STIs, but if the roles were reversed the woman would also have the fear of pain, injury, or even death. Like social awkwardness was enough to keep me from stopping the unwanted sex. How the hell are people who are physically smaller than their r*pists supposed to fight back, even if they have the mental courage to assert themselves? it’s a physical battle that’s way riskier for them. And it occurred to me that this must mean many, many women just go along with stuff out of fear of what could happen if they refuse or say no :( I also got to thinking I really hope I never had a woman say yes out of fear. I don’t think that’s the case, but how would I know for sure? It’s nauseating to think about. Even with all these thoughts I still don’t really know how terrifying all of it must be for women, it shouldn’t happen. All men should be safe but so damn many of us are violent that every single one of us needs to be viewed as a danger, with constant caution. This is why I don’t trust male teachers, daycare providers, doctors, etc around my kids without me in the room. It’s like I know, maybe they wont do the unthinkable— but there’s a chance they would and I’m not gonna risk my children’s safety and peace of mind, on trusting a man around them unsupervised. And for women that protectiveness has to be applied to self, and carried throughout your lives? It’s unthinkable and exhausting to even try to contemplate. I get why so many women choose the bear. Im sorry women have to constantly be on guard and look at all men as a potential threat, but I understand why you must. I wish that would change.