I could write essays on #whyIdidntreport, but they all start with this: the first time he grabbed me and hugged me at 12 (the very first grooming for future molestation), I told my mother. She said "what is wrong with you? don't you know what people do when they love eachother?"
I never mentioned it to her again, until the day after I took him to court 7 years later, at which point she said to me on the phone "I know everyone involved in this, I know exactly what happened. YOU tell ME how that was abuse."
In 27 subsequent years, we've spoken once.
The last time I saw her was at court, when she saw me coming out of court after testifying against him. She laughed at me.
And then she went in to testify that I was crazy, a whore, and had made the whole thing up to hurt her. #basta
Thank the goddesses for therapy, energy work, sisterhood, and most of all my dad, who never once doubted me, and sat in the the basement of the courthouse with me through the entire trial while I chain-smoked through PTSD, shaking the whole time.
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I'm going to tell a story right now that I've never told out loud.
When I was 20, I arranged to be out of the country when the 1st lawsuit against my molester was filed.
1/
There was press--in the local paper, in the Philly Inquirer about a family therapist who molested his teenage patient. It hit big by current standards.
That night, I spoke to my mother-- the last conversation we had for 20 years-- in which she told me she didn't believe me.
2/
At the time, I was all alone as a senior in college studying abroad, save my professor/boyfriend, 17 years older, who was there as the "faculty advisor."
When he learned, shortly after I filed suit, that I was generally absent from my body during sex, he took it personally.
3/
I fucked up a lot on race consciousness this year. @theladyalx came for me as a result. @nicoleclee entered my life soon after.
I chose thework. I put myself in the company of @desireeadaway and others. That led to @ncbcp_bwr.
And then I fucked up again. That led me to these really awesome conversations with @StaciJShelton and others behind the scenes that are so challenging and rich and so loving, and that have taught me to not be afraid to ask if I have fucked up, shamelessly.
And then I fucked up AGAIN. That led to me following @AngryBlackLady and @dianelyssa, who I think still mute me but educate me every day now. LOL.
I have had a year of fucking up as a white woman, in really bad ways.
It has been fucking painful, and worth every single minute.
I spent the afternoon immersed in various forms of my own personal therapy. I'm back and I'm ready to tear some shit up.
And I'm just gonna say it: I'm not backing another politician, ever again, who isn't willing to set shit on fire and burn down white supremacist patriarchy.
I'm going to center on people with a history of fighting for justice, people invested in equity, people who know what it means to fight, people who are relentless. I don't give a fuck where they come from or whether they're "experienced."
I'm looking at a coalition of warriors.
And WE make the army--leaders, generals and priestesses alike--as long as we are willing to listen and build and fight.
Make no mistake about it: I don't care if it all ends in ashes as long as what comes next allows nothing like what happened today to ever happen again.
My friend @Lmpera has a saying: what we do for the one we do for the all.
This afternoon, I stripped naked and got this beautiful, life-worn body of mine scrubbed, pummeled, massaged, anointed, head to fucking toe. Full on goddess territory.
I am new. And have some thoughts. 1/
We are innundated right now with their hatred of us— all of us who don’t look, love, or live like those in power. It is overwhelming.
The antidote is this: we must love ourselves so ferociously,with such profound and powerful commitment to it, that their hate can’t gain entry 2/
and with such an overwhelming sense of worthiness that we heal ourselves and one another from all the damage these centuries (and recent weeks) of hatred has wrought.
This means nourishing ourselves in every way— food, water, spiritually, emotionally, and dare I say it, 3/