An Open Letter to Skeptics: Before You Question Why It Took Some People Decades to Speak Out About Abuse…

This is adapted from a post on Facebook earlier this week, inspired by several ‘conversations’ on this platform, some of which I was directly involved in, others which were too vile and vicious for me to stomach reading long enough to respond to.

Dear Brothers and Sisters asking “Why?”

Asking why did it take a woman decades to come forward and speak out against someone for committing sexual assault…

Assuming, as the sad face of our nation assumes, that if things were ‘bad enough’ someone would feel compelled to press charges right away.

I see you pontificating from the safety of your keyboard, presuming you know what other people have suffered. But I have a question for you. If it is in fact so easy, if you would, in fact, demand justice right away, why haven’t you?

I see you oozing misogyny as you rush to condemn someone who is making tremendous personal sacrifice to tell her story.

But here is what I didn’t see….

I didn’t see you standing up for yourself against a system of corporate elites when you elected a corporate flunky to govern this country….

I didn’t see you standing up to the bosses who exploited your labor and drained the soul out of you until all you could do to get through the day was hide in your many addictions….

I didn’t see you standing up to those who are dismantling the economy in favor of the aristocracy….

I didn’t see you standing up to the corporations who stole your retirement…

I didn’t see you demand justice when your job was outsourced….

I didn’t see you stand up for yourself when the work you were doing to enrich the aristocracy destroyed your body….

And speaking of your body, I didn’t see you fighting back when the aristocracy proclaimed that access to healthcare is a privilege and not a right.

If you think you know what you would do if you were physically or sexually assaulted, ask yourself if you are already responding that way to the physical, mental, emotional, and financial assault you have been undergoing.

Electing a Pussy Grabbing Fascist doesn’t count as ‘fighting back’….the term for that is “Stockholm Syndrome” and maybe someday ten or twenty or thirty years from now when you finally get it and start to speak out against the person, the companies, the institutions that have been exploiting you, others may be more understanding and supportive than you have been to people who, right now, are speaking out about the crimes against them.