We were on the phone yesterday, still reeling from yet another bizarre court case where a murdered child was on trial for existing in public. My oldest son is 14, taller than me, with a man’s voice and the over-sized hands and feet that come with imminent, but not yet reached physical maturity. To me, he is the embodiment of a roaming piece of my heart. I carried him, nursed him, and taught him. He will always be my baby. He is his father’s buddy. They communicate in a language of comics, art, video games, and jokes that are so very them. My youngest son adores his big brother, and while he is also my baby, I can see that like his older brother some day he will be a giant in my house. I worry for all of them in that way that you do when society says that the people you love are worth less, and frames their very existence as a crime. Trayvon Martin’s death and Jordan Davis’ death are the most recent, but far from the only examples of this phenomenon that they called lynching until very recently.

They worry for me, because violence doesn’t observe gender lines and Rekia Boyd’s death wasn’t that long ago. Renisha McBride’s death is even more recent. And each time, the slain are on trial first, long before their killers have to worry about consequences. These stories have become so common that my friends and I have developed our own rituals around the outrage cycles required to force a trial, and around the results of the trials. We talk online and off, suggest self care tactics, and hug each other’s babies regularly. I am Tete Mikki to Jamie’s son, and while I fuss about his tiny size and random toddler outbursts, he is my baby as much as any of the others. Jamie knows my sons, has babysat them, nagged them, and demanded they stop teasing her about being so short. So, when we sat on the phone, we were half going through our normal rituals and half boiling over from outrage exhaustion. It does some thing awful to your spirit to constantly have to insist on your humanity, and the humanity of those you love. To be part of a community so frequently demonized, in refutation of documented history and current events, is to be forced to fight for your life and the lives of strangers constantly. We talked about a baby picture posted by @miss_hellion, the myth of black danger, and we started brainstorming hashtags.

#DangerousBlackKids is not about proving our worthiness to live to those who would handwave our murders. It is not about being respectable enough to deserve life. It is about being human in public, with each other, for each other. It is a reminder to ourselves that we will never be the monsters society would like us to be, that we are complex, complicated, and eminently worthy of life because we are here. We will always be here. We will fuss, feud, fight, and be a family regardless of what outsiders want to see. Our children are precious to us, to their friends, to the communities that we inhabit. And no matter how many times we have to fight for them, or for ourselves, we will keep fighting for as long as it takes to win. Because we are always worth it. We will never stand silent in the face of destructive forces. Just as we work within our communities to heal them, we will work outside our communities to stop the next generation of traumas from being inflicted.

By now, most of the internet has voiced their opinion on Dylan Farrow & Woody Allen. There are hashtags, articles, counter articles, & an obscene number of abusers & enablers showing the world not to trust them. Some of those people are feminists, renowned journalists, or just plain old enough to know better. This isn’t a step by step dissection of them, their motives, or their impact. I could do that. Again. But to be honest, I’m so tired of pointing out that the emperor has no clothes that I could just scream. I’m a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I’ve written that out a lot of the years. And I’m fortunate in that my primary abuser is dead. Unfortunately, he was a family friend & to this day some of my relatives speak of him with a certain amount of fondness. I…mostly don’t speak to them. It’s easier that way than it is to wade into the waters of not being believed, or worse yet being blamed for what I did or didn’t do as a child. Now, as the debates rage on and on, all I can think of is how Dylan must feel to have people who weren’t in that house, in that attic, debating whether or not she knows what happened to her. There were only two people present, and only one of them benefits from lying. But she doesn’t fit the popular narratives about victims of sexual abuse any more than Allen falls into the stereotypes so often depicted on cop shows and afterschool specials.

I wasn’t in an attic. I was in a basement, and in a room off a kitchen that always smelled like fishsticks. The basement smelled of mold, had severe vermin issues, and figures heavily in my nightmares to this day. I still hate unfinished basements. And no, there were no witnesses. There was very little in the way of physical evidence I imagine, since my abuser was my baby sitter and expected to bathe me if I got messy. I can’t prove anything. Probably never could to be honest. I was very young when it started, and as I got older (and I displayed some behavioral issues), there was little or no discussion of anything, but how I should be better behaved. Because that’s what happens to so many of us. So, for Dylan to be brave enough to tell, to be unable to keep telling (at 7 no less), and for her to still suffer emotionally to this day makes perfect sense to me.  I’ve had the therapy, the peace of knowing he can never touch me again, and I’m still not over it.  I pretend I am, because I need some space to try to be who I could have been in a different life.

We laud bravery, especially when it is displayed by folks who are laying it all on the line. We don’t talk about what that bravery costs. What happens when it is displayed and not honored, or worse yet, it is honored, but the trauma of telling isn’t going to lead to any real closure. Woody Allen has never spent a day in jail for the crimes that Dylan has detailed. That’s an incredibly common occurrence in these cases. Telling as a child is difficult, sometimes impossible, the process of telling over and over again as is required to report this crime to the police is incredibly damaging. So when the decisions are made to protect the kids (and conveniently allow alleged abusers to never face charges), it makes perfect sense. What doesn’t make sense is the way adults that report are treated. Just because a child couldn’t face telling, couldn’t withstand family and social pressures, the shame, the guilt, or sometimes the self loathing doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It doesn’t mean the child isn’t brave. It means that bravery costs, and sometimes the price is too high.

I will always believe the kids. Because I was one of them. And I was never as brave as Dylan. I’m still not that brave. I’ve talked to the internet about what happened, to friends, my husband, even a few therapists. But most of my family doesn’t know, and the ones who probably suspect will never ask. I don’t fault them for that. I have no idea what I’d say. It’s easier to be the family black sheep, that wild child who no one really understands, than to be anything else. I could tell you about the damage done, and how it shaped me for good and for ill. But this isn’t that kind of post either. It’s just a statement of fact. Here at Hood Feminism we will not be making excuses, tolerating enabling, or apologists. And no, I will not deluge you with stats, but I will point out that after the bravery comes the consequences. The hard part of all of this isn’t just right now when the news cycle is so focused. The hard part is in a few months or a few years when this hasn’t gone away from Dylan’s life. Because it never ever goes away. That’s not obsession, that’s not sick, that’s not a failure to heal…it’s a wound that runs deep, and visible scars that folks may well trip over. We’re not easy people to understand, accept, or even love. But we’re here. It’s not just about being a kid that was molested, it’s about being an adult who has to live with what happened in a world that says your abuser was right. Most people won’t believe you, and even it they do, you’ll be blamed. Because bravery at any age costs more than most of us can stand to pay.