What have we done?

It’s not that I haven’t needed to write. I just found myself focusing on all else. My partner laid down the law today. She saw how miserable I have been. I’ve been ignoring my need to write, as well as my need to exercise, well, because it’s easier to go crazy inside my mind with errands, than to go crazy because of what has happened.

A little over a week ago, a 15 year old Richmond High School girl was raped and beaten by 7 guys, as over 20 others stood and watched. Let me try this again. I am feeling nothing.

In my community last week, for two and a half solid hours, seven boy-men took all their hostility, apathy, rage and filthy, desperate venom and inserted these, brutally, inhumanely, savagely into and onto a girl child/young woman desecrating her body, mind, heart and spirit until she lay unconscious, while a group of twenty onlookers stood by. Nobody called for help.
Nobody called the police. Nobody. No Body. Every body checked out.

Ok, I am beginning to feel something.

When my partner came home, I was cooking dinner in our homey, cozy, safe kitchen. She told me that she needed to tell me something. I had no idea the imminent bomb that was about to burst in my ears, face, uterus. I told her to hang on, since I was in the middle of cooking, but she went ahead and told me what had happened. I extinguished all the flames on the stove. An old one burst, rekindled. Inside an old flame caught fire and gathered momentum as my partner sat and wailed on the couch. My anger and desperation linked with hers.

At first I wanted to go to the old warrior ways of the scythe. A swift, fierce justice executed without mercy. I knew the pain of one attacker. I knew the pain of a series of abusers over years. I did not know how one survives a continuum of torture by more than two dozen males. I held my breath. I did not move, except for an escapee tear or two fighting me to be let out.

After my partner stopped crying it was my turn. I felt like I was going to implode. How can we let this happen? What in the world were we doing or not doing in order for that savagery to occur? How were we supposed to survive this? I knew in that instant that the young women in that school were more afraid than before. The young men knew they had just cast, willingly or not, a net of terror, lest some girl get out of line. Lest some girl do absolutely nothing. Regardless, she could be fucked at any moment. I am not just talking physically. The power dynamic just reared its ugly, hooded head lest we get too comfortable, less vigilante. I knew mothers were more keenly praying for their daughters safety and tried desperately to reign them indoors , trying to shelter them from life outside. I knew that often inside was not very different because fathers and brothers could and would do the same.
I knew that what the girls and their mothers felt was contagious. Many mother from other schools dug their nails into their daughters. Many daughters tried to integrate this tragedy into their young lives.

At first I vehemently insisted that we would not talk to our 11 year old boys about this. My partner disagreed. She was right. I knew I had to spew my own poison out before any such conversation, so as not to attack and dismember my children’s spirits. I have cried and raged and cried some more about this event with some of my co-counselors. I had a session with a 6’7” guy. He laid on top of me and I had to fight him off. It was a powerful, explosive session. I had him in a headlock within 15 seconds. The deep, profound releasing of disappointment, grief and hurt increased when he held me softly, close. I so wanted to believe there could be sweetness and safety without confusion..

I have looked for a place to gather, to grieve in community; to overcome together. Last night there was a vigil at the High School. I was getting angrier by the minute. There were no plans of action. No education for boys and girls. No calling out to understand where we have failed our children so miserable. There was a lot of talk about Jesus, almost more than about this girl. There was a speaker that said that this was not the only incident of multiple rape assailants this month. It wasn’t the only rape that week. Did we know that a woman /girl gets raped every 9 seconds. Count with me now: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. A woman’s or a girl’s life just changed forever. So did a man’s or a boy life. We could do this again. Every nine seconds. This is so outrageous. I just can’t process this. What do we do? I can’t imagine what the mothers of the young men who stood by are feeling.
I have to figure out a way to talk to my children about this. I cannot be silent. I must teach them to never, ever stand by and do nothing. It must begin at home. In my home.