00:02:12.240It is so much easier to flatten out complex situations into a cancel culture run-em-up trend piece
00:02:18.680that will get tons of clicks and attention, but doesn't actually inform or help us understand things more clearly.
00:02:26.020So, what happens when we rely on lofty buzzwords like cancel culture in lieu of a deeper exploration,
00:02:32.760especially for a topic that's really important and sensitive, like sexual violence?
00:02:37.840Recently, the media outlet The Cut published a long read about a teenager who they say was canceled by his classmates after he non-consensually shared a nude image of his girlfriend with his friends.
00:02:50.280Now, there is a lot going on in this piece, and you should probably read it to really understand today's conversation.
00:02:55.960But the main framing device and argument is that the teenager is actually the victim of canceling, and this feels really unhelpful to me.
00:03:04.880So I really want to talk about what gets left out of the conversation when this happens.
00:03:09.880Survivor and independent scholar Wagatwe Wanjuki says that this cancel culture framing doesn't actually really get us to a more useful understanding of sexual violence or rape culture.
00:03:21.340So you have a really, like, long and storied career as an award-winning, like, international anti-rape activist and survivor justice advocate.
00:04:31.160We joined forces and we asked the Obama administration to enforce Title IX in a better way.
00:04:40.640We're saying, hey, we're being failed.
00:04:42.400And they actually listened to us, which was really interesting in a lot of ways.
00:04:46.080So taking it from there, just seeing the power of social media, but also the power of like traditional media as well as somebody who was like a contributor and did a lot of communications work.
00:04:58.960So I've always have been working around media, social media, activism, survivor rights, policy, that sort of stuff is just very near and dear to me.
00:05:12.180I would say the phrase, you know, the personal is political is definitely a guiding force for what I do.
00:05:17.840Yeah, something I really admire about your work is the way that you're continuing to use the internet and digital media to educate but also sort of entertain and really show people better ways, better frameworks for how they can understand things like survivor justice, consent, and the way that those issues are playing out all around us, whether it's on reality TV, in our culture, in the news.
00:05:42.740you're really somebody who I think is excellent at using the internet to cut through what can
00:05:48.260sometimes be a confusing and chaotic topic. Yeah. I think it's really because I was so
00:05:54.500misinformed when I started out as an activist, not even just as an activist, but as a survivor,
00:06:00.260taking a while to even identify what happened to me. And I thought back and I was thinking,
00:06:04.360I was like, the media told me it was just about a stranger in the alleyway attacking you.
00:06:09.060And I was thinking about how being like unprepared and misinformed are so well connected. And I am also like not super a people person, at least not in person on the Internet. It's cool. Right.
00:06:24.660so it was just it seems like just to be a really good combo of sort of saying okay I see where
00:06:30.320these problems are I like being on the internet it's really rapid pace let's challenge all these
00:06:37.080assumptions that are there in the media and like how can we change our relationship to media even
00:06:43.280if we can't change it because I think it's so easy on especially on Twitter right and even I would
00:06:48.440say even a little bit on TikTok to get really outraged to pile on people and just say like0.97
00:06:52.860it sucks. But I noticed there's all these circular things. So sort of like instead of getting mad
00:06:58.040every single time and not really thinking about the deeper implications or like how it can be
00:07:03.760systemic, you know, let's move towards that that lens looking at the systemic stuff, because it's
00:07:10.640just for me, I like to ration my outrage. I want to be strategic. I want it to be effective.
00:07:16.860You know, it's tough because it's also like the world is on fire. But also then you have your own
00:07:21.920personal life stuff that you need to deal with. And since a lot of folks are very inflammatory
00:07:28.360on their, on social media and on internet, I think it's really important to show a different way.
00:07:36.280How can you be authentic? How can you be sincere, but also just like, how can you still be rooted
00:07:43.840in reality? Right. And like, I try to like maintain my values and as much as I can, you know,
00:07:50.620in terms of just how I interact with information and try to be, I try to be useful.
00:08:05.200Late last month, The Cut published an article called Canceled at 17
00:08:08.860about a high schooler they called Diego, who, while drunk at a party,
00:08:13.080shared a nude image of his then-girlfriend Fiona with his friends without consent.0.98
00:08:17.340Now, to be frank, what he did is a crime in many jurisdictions, but the article goes on to talk about how the students at his school ostracized him for what the piece states was just a, quote, stupid drunken mistake on his part.0.75
00:08:31.060The piece spends a lot of time on what this all feels like for Diego emotionally, who the article goes out of their way to describe as a squeak, goofy kid who was being shunned by his classmates.
00:08:41.900We're also told that the climate of the school really fueled all of this behavior.
00:08:46.780The student body, back in in-person schooling after lockdowns,
00:08:50.620were now reflecting on incidents of sexual harassment and assault
00:09:13.980Like, what happens when adults fail to create a safe and supportive learning environment for young people,
00:09:18.720so much so that those young people take matters into their own hands?
00:09:22.560And what are the racial dynamics at play behind the fact that the majority of the young men on the people-to-watch-out-for list are boys of color?
00:09:30.840Or what are the institutional factors at play here?
00:09:33.860For instance, in 2017, the Trump administration's Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, completely overhauled Title IX,
00:09:42.620The federal civil rights law that governs how schools must handle sexual assault in schools.
00:09:48.720But this piece doesn't really get into any of that.
00:09:52.160Instead, it tells us that Diego is the victim of cancel culture run amok.
00:09:56.520That young people fueled by social media wokeism have come together to ruin the life of a sweet kid over one tiny transgression.
00:10:05.800That piece from last month in the cut.
00:10:09.680when I saw that piece, I thought, wow, this intersects with so many of the issues that I
00:10:14.800know that you care about. And so you were the first person that I was like, I really want to
00:10:18.540know her take. What were your initial thoughts on that? Man, I feel like there's so many waves of
00:10:23.400it. But first I was rolling my eyes because it starts off canceled at 17. I'm like, oh my God,
00:10:29.280not canceled. Right. Because it goes back to the whole cancel culture stuff. And I was thinking how
00:10:35.460that's already inherently anti-black and i remember the cover was a clown it was a clown0.83
00:10:41.640like a sad clown on a skateboard so it's already like framing it as this like this child and then0.75
00:10:48.080you read it and quote unquote he was canceled it's just that he was ostracized after sharing
00:10:53.800nudes of his girlfriend non-consensually right and then there's also little hints about him
00:10:59.000potentially being abusive in other ways. Um, and so it was just, it was, it was a perfect example
00:11:06.200of empathy, right? The framing, it was a very, um, I think it's a worthwhile topic. And I think
00:11:14.720she touched upon things that other people should have covered basically. Um, the way that it was
00:11:23.040from his point of view like if you if you read it sort of like he's the victim there was a lot of
00:11:29.180she spent a lot of time talking about how badly he felt how badly his parents felt how you know
00:11:37.160all these sort of things how bad the administrators felt it was always about everyone but the victims
00:11:42.320how badly they felt very little was spent on the victim what she thought any of those sort of
00:11:49.340things. So that was just very, that stood out to me. And also the timing stood out because
00:11:54.840it technically was a Title IX story, even though they made it seem like it's about this boy being
00:12:02.140victimized. And they did this on the week of the 50th anniversary of Title IX. I think it was a
00:12:09.140week up or the week after. So it was just very much like a part of this backlash against Title IX,
00:12:15.240which is a civil rights law. I feel like folks don't say that enough. Like this is about
00:12:18.940civil rights and education, and also just part of a larger part of the backlash to me, too.
00:12:26.400Yeah, I mean, that's something else that I really like how you framed that, because one of the
00:12:32.100things that stuck out right away for me for that piece was the way that Diego is framed as this,
00:12:38.720you know, good kid, blah, blah, blah. And his ex-girlfriend, the person that he,
00:12:44.200you know, non-consensually shared nude images of, the writer goes out of her way to talk about
00:12:51.800how beautiful she was in this way that just feels a little sus. It almost feels like the
00:12:56.220implication is that Diego was so proud of her beauty that showing these images, even without
00:13:03.360her consent, she really should have almost been like complimented or flattered. And something
00:13:07.920about the way it was framed just made me think that the writer was trying to get us, the reader,
00:13:12.800to think like, well, is what he did really so bad?
00:13:16.340It was essentially another way of saying
00:13:18.200she was asking for it by being so beautiful.
00:13:21.380And that was a way to make him seem less responsible.
00:13:25.640And it was really creepy because these are children.
00:13:29.100Why are you talking about how attractive a child is?
00:13:33.080And especially if we're going to be talking
00:15:29.180from bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments
00:15:34.180nothing is off the table it's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling
00:15:40.720characters and that is a trojan horse whether you're looking for literary deep dives smart
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00:15:50.760you're in the right place listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever
00:15:57.240you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held
00:16:04.620captive for nine months. I survived and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what
00:16:11.100should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember
00:16:17.440this low taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week I'm with0.97
00:16:26.300survivors who lived through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going
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00:16:46.560about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:16:51.900Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:17:05.580At this point, it seems almost impossible to have not encountered at least one piece about cancel culture run amok.
00:17:13.700Friend of the show, Michael Hobbs, has a great episode of his podcast, You're Wrong About, all about how most of the time, these pieces making puffed up arguments about the threat that cancel culture plays in our workplaces and college campuses are usually just cherry-picked anecdotes that totally fall apart under any scrutiny.
00:17:33.080Yet, media outlets, even pretty mainstream ones like The Atlantic, keep churning them out, lending credibility to this idea that people are routinely losing their entire livelihoods for saying or doing one small off-color thing.
00:17:46.740It's yet another way that our digital media ecosystem has incentivized these divisive but ultimately kind of meaningless buzzwords to describe situations in ways that make us all less informed and more divided.
00:17:58.860You hit on something earlier where you said that it was a story, it was like ostensibly a Title IX story, but then they use this framing of, you know, cancel culture, run amok.
00:18:09.360Why do you think that's the framing that they chose?
00:18:12.940I think because they want it to be unhelpful. I think we also have to understand the role of media and around issues like this, that it's a form of social control in the sense that it is basically reflecting the values of the people in charge. Right.
00:18:31.040So it's going to align with the values of the systems of oppression that we have in force, like heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism.
00:18:42.600So the media is going to use language.
00:18:46.460The media is going to use language that is going to be very vague.
00:18:51.360I think that's very much something that is common amongst reactionaries in general.
00:18:56.220They will use very vague language so they can twist it.
00:19:00.720right? Because they started off as canceled. You have to open it up to see what it's about. Then
00:19:05.680you're like, oh, this kid did something really bad. And not only that, the language she used
00:19:10.480before she even told us what he did was like, please don't judge him, blah, blah, blah. I was
00:19:15.340like, whoa, they're like very heavy handed. Like I mean, I've read a lot of bad things about sexual
00:19:22.340violence, but that was really shocking where she was just explicitly like, don't judge this boy
00:19:27.060who did something objectively wrong um so yeah i think it's just about it was it was able to use
00:19:34.940this umbrella where it's like either you're an assailant or you said something racist then she
00:19:40.420also just like stopped saying what different kids did and then giving us their opinion as if it's
00:19:48.020truth right so it's just it's a manipulation tool is the is the the short of it I see time after
00:19:57.240time after time after time all of these pieces where it's like cancel culture run amok and it's
00:20:03.280like actually this seems like a couple like a couple of anecdotes that you've really cherry
00:20:08.120picked and and and really blown up or it just it just feels like a lot of breathless writing about
00:20:13.700something. But there does also seem to be like an actual story worth telling in the piece,
00:20:19.720I would argue, because when I read that piece, all I could think was like, wow,
00:20:23.720these young people have been so clearly failed by the adults in their lives that they feel like,
00:20:30.080and the institutions in their lives, that they feel like the only way that they can get
00:20:34.340any kind of justice is taking matters into their own hands. And no shit, turns out a bunch of0.99
00:20:39.000teenagers acting on their own without any kind of like meaningful guidance or institutional support0.99
00:20:44.240might not handle things in the most productive way. And I'm wondering, like, why not tell that
00:20:51.160story? Because it's a story worth telling. You know, I think part of it is that, you know,
00:20:55.380part of the backlash, it's a way to sort of recalibrate power. So I would see this as a way
00:21:01.560to sort of like, okay, too many people were supportive of Title IX and sexual assault
00:21:06.080survivors so let's sort of shift the script i think cancel culture on a muck is just a lot easier
00:21:13.300to write and it's a lot you can do a lot of innuendo a lot of implying this is just part of
00:21:20.340again we're very much in this reactionary culture where we're trying to like so we're seeing people
00:21:26.720using the media to sort of reclaim um hegemonic masculinity or toxic masculinity i would say they
00:21:35.160They're like excusing the toxic part to reinforce hegemonic masculinity, because with hegemonic masculinity, you know, a lot of theorists will talk about how it's about how there's power in the legal sense, then also like in the public sphere and then also in the private sphere.
00:21:52.720So it's a way to sort of reassert that power by not looking at the real problem.
00:21:59.680The media loves episodic framing when it comes to sexual violence.
00:22:04.360is something that's been studied. And they also, studies also show that when you have an episodic
00:22:10.440framing, when you sort of like say it's this kid being victimized, people are less likely to be
00:22:18.400supportive of survivors because they're not going to really know that this is part of a cultural
00:22:23.020problem. And when people realize that this is a cultural problem that hasn't gone away, people
00:22:27.920are going to start thinking, wait, who's benefiting from this? Wait, who's not changing things? So I
00:22:33.180think it's a way to maintain the status quo and essentially because how many adults are going to
00:22:40.280write about themselves being like failing a bunch of kids very few people are going to be willing
00:22:45.020to admit that so what do you do you kind of like shove it under the rug all right it's the cat's
00:22:50.440out of the bag we couldn't control the activists right like you're welcome y'all right like i feel
00:22:55.720like my friends and i were activists and people were like whoa whoa whoa uh we got we got to fix
00:23:01.120that. And so instead of validating it as a real thing, they go to this other angle that's just
00:23:07.780very, yeah, it's manipulative. It's dishonest and they know what they're doing. Do you feel that the
00:23:15.960media just consistently fails survivors in the way that it frames and tells your stories?
00:23:21.840Absolutely. Absolutely. So it was really interesting. I've been reading about just
00:23:27.940media and campus sexual assault and the different connections between it. And there's been
00:23:32.540a long legacy of specifically white women coming out to doubt sexual violence in education. So
00:23:40.780it was more so about campus sexual assault specifically starting around in the 1980s,
00:23:46.7201990s. And it was about like, this was before there was a lot of research out. So first it was
00:23:52.820sort of like, do we really know? We need, we need data. We don't really trust it. Just a bunch of
00:23:57.260women lying. Then the data came out. They're like, the data's wrong. This is just, it doesn't make1.00
00:24:01.520any sense, blah, blah, blah. So now the argument here is that cancel culture has gone wrong. And
00:24:07.880then when you use cancel culture, you can blame low key black people, right? You can blame the1.00
00:24:14.820internet, quote unquote, Twitter. You can just blame a bunch of minoritized groups and sort of
00:24:20.940like it's a way to funnel that resentment against people who've been getting um more visibility
00:24:27.560one thing is about the racism in the piece i mean it's it's so interesting because
00:24:33.460she they do mention that like the boy like most of the boys who were like sort of singled out were
00:24:41.100all boys of color yeah so that is something that's been used increasingly in the past couple
00:24:47.040Actually, they started using that line, the reactionaries, the anti-Title IX people, when my friends and I sort of came on the scene.0.50
00:24:56.620And so they're trying to make it as sort of like framing it as these white girls are trying to ruin these black boys' lives.
00:25:04.000And that is really awful in a sense because I know as me as a black survivor and someone who was assaulted by a black person, I hesitated to come forward for a while because I did not want to reinforce that representation.
00:25:20.400I think it's really harmful when media only talks about men and boys of color as potentially perpetrators or only as the accused because you're erasing them as victims.
00:25:32.420And then you're also silencing the people that they do victimize because the thing is, is most sexual violence is within the race, but they don't talk about that. And so it was really messed up of how they tried to emphasize that while erasing the victims because maybe most of the victims are girls of color or people of color, but we don't really hear that.
00:25:55.840She talks about the activists being mostly women of color, but then she labels them as tribalistic, you know, and exorcistic, you know, like really trying to be like, these are these irrational, like, like primal thing.
00:26:10.280And it was really interesting how she kind of frames it as like, it's a primal thing when you're supporting survivors and being an activist.
00:26:17.720But God forbid, but everyone else, right, the abusers, their enablers, they're all the rational people.
00:26:25.840And there was also like a little bit of a dog whistle where she talked about privilege in ways that just sort of show that, like, if you believe in privilege, then you're going to be somebody who will be a counselor, like someone who cancels.
00:26:40.380There's a lot of like little like nitpicky things.
00:26:45.060Oh, and then when she talked about him going on a trip, learning about the civil rights movement, and then she was like, that's where he learned.
00:28:00.700There's another thing. I was like, yeah, it's just like these white ladies, you know, and you know that it just hits at that white liberal racism.1.00
00:28:07.540It's like, oh, no, I don't want to support something that accuses black boys of rape.0.92
00:28:12.500But then they don't talk about how basically with anything in regards to school's code of conduct, students of color are disproportionately disciplined.
00:28:23.900So if you're only doing it around rape, you're just being racist and you're using rape culture to do it because that's really messed up to only care about it when you're trying to undermine survivors who are often survivors of color.
00:28:34.560absolutely and i think the piece does at once is sort of concern trolling around like oh i don't
00:28:44.020want to be you know criminalizing boys of color but then also blames people of color for this
00:28:49.960like cancel culture run amok like it's like well geez which is it exactly definitely playing both
00:28:54.940sides and hoping that you don't catch up on it right and i think unfortunately i'm sure most
00:29:00.440white people would not be able to pick up on that because it's just sort of those things that you can
00:29:04.060read in between the lines but it's um it's really weird how they're using race in this really
00:29:11.080manipulative way more after a quick break
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00:29:45.380think again more americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from spotify
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00:30:02.680Think podcasting can help your business?
00:30:48.300It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:30:56.220Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:31:05.380Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:34:49.820There's been a lot of mergers and stuff like that.
00:34:52.040And there's some theory about how when that happens,
00:34:54.660When there's less competition, there's more incentive to cater to the narrative of the people in charge of hegemonic narratives and the hegemonic discourses, which is why you'll get more like rape culture, more racism, why, you know, fascists will get platforms more easily than like victims of police violence.
00:35:13.900What we have to do is essentially have media organizations that are trauma informed. And also their values are not about making money or catering to power, but rather challenging power, because this is something that you need to have an expertise, you need to be educated about.
00:35:32.500it's really complicated to talk about sexual violence because very often I read things and I
00:35:37.360can read in between the lines, but I know most people would not be able to do that. They wouldn't
00:35:42.520know that, you know, when I was reading the article, it was kind of like best hits of all
00:35:49.220the different reactionary things that I've seen when they're talking about Title IX. So it's just
00:35:56.020about incentives, changing the incentives, who gets funding, who gets to lead newsrooms, right?
00:36:02.500who gets disseminated and how. It's really, when you think about it, we're very much in the domain
00:36:09.600where, yes, social media has been great and we have chipped away a little bit at that power,
00:36:14.520but we still have to acknowledge that the power in the media is disproportionately in favor of,
00:36:22.140you know, a few old rich white dudes. And that's by design.
00:36:26.600yeah i mean i think so often when i think about like what will it take to get to a
00:36:33.540a better future one you know one where survivors are supported it's capitalism it's like it's like
00:36:39.780it is tearing down systems and institutions and it seems so you know lofty far off but it seems
00:36:48.920to always come back to that it was actually realizing the connections between rape culture
00:36:54.180in the media that made me realize, I was like, oh, capitalism has to go because there's literally
00:36:59.100no financial incentive to be against rape culture. There's only so many financial incentives. And if
00:37:06.920every single business is existing to stay in business, to make as much money as possible,
00:37:12.260that's a huge disadvantage for survivors and for the entire society because
00:37:18.640mere exposure to rape myths and headlines actually influences people. They're more
00:37:26.220victim blaming. They accept more rape myths. And then people who are inclined to commit sexual
00:37:32.580violence are actually more emboldened. So these are all messages that we are all living with
00:37:38.500the implications of that we don't really talk about. That's just really upsetting. But yeah,
00:37:44.960capitalism is, we have to think about how basically capitalism as we know it in the United States
00:37:51.560was built on sexual violence, right? It's the sexual violence against indigenous people as
00:37:58.740form of colonialism, and then sexual violence against enslaved Africans, where raping people0.99
00:38:05.180could literally create more capital. And so when we think about that legacy, if we think about this
00:38:11.500economic system that we're in that, um, has been run to normalize sexual violence because it is
00:38:18.360profitable. We have to, we have to throw it away. We're not going to be able to really dig out
00:38:23.280there. Like, obviously I'm going to do what I can, but yeah, capitalism and, um, heteropatriarchy,
00:38:30.300right. We just have a lot of sexist people, a lot of CIS sexist people, cause we're seeing the rise0.98
00:38:37.160of transphobia and the way that the idea of groomers right people are able to use those0.99
00:38:44.380labels those like you're a predator you're this you're that strategically because we're so ignorant0.96
00:38:49.460about rape why are we so ignorant about rape in large part because of the media why because0.99
00:38:54.640capitalism makes the media incentivize for us to be ignorant about it
00:38:59.740yeah oh that i i guess i it's difficult to not see the ways that these things are all connected0.98
00:39:08.180and like once you start pulling that thread you're like oh shit it's the whole ball of yarn
00:39:13.460exactly it's like throw it all away it's just it's all it's you this is why intersectionality0.83
00:39:18.300got so popular right because people were really drawn to the idea of like this is all connected
00:39:22.660it in some way, some point. You know, to go back to that piece, something that really, I kind of
00:39:29.960got stuck on after reading it is that the idea that it's, it was the perpetrator who was like
00:39:37.520ostracized. When I was young, when I was in high school, I, you know how like every high school
00:39:43.340has like that thing that happened in your school? Well, the thing that happened in our school was
00:39:48.160that a female classmate of ours um her boyfriend showed a video of her to our entire school and to
00:39:56.560like neighboring schools and when I tell you like like she was completely ostracized I don't even
00:40:02.440remember the guy's name and she was the one who had to like I think they left I think they moved
00:40:07.320away like it was like it was like the biggest thing of our school and so you know we were all
00:40:12.460in high school. And so certainly, I mean, I think back and I'm like, wow, we really fucked up and0.86
00:40:19.980failed that young woman. But today in 2022, part of me was so surprised that the party that was0.97
00:40:27.640ostracized was the perpetrator, not the victim. Because that certainly wasn't what the vibe was
00:40:33.360when I was in school. I mean, I think that was something a lot of people were saying on Twitter,
00:40:37.060like, whoa, they actually ostracized the perpetrator for once. Yeah, I was really
00:40:41.960surprised because it makes me think about slut walk. In 2011, a Toronto police officer suggested
00:40:47.720that women should avoid dressing like sluts to avoid sexual violence. In response, anti-rape0.68
00:40:53.620activists started the slut walk movement to protest rape culture, victim blaming and slut0.90
00:40:58.140shaming. Slut walk was about like 2011, something like that. It was a long time ago, but it made me0.64
00:41:05.460think about how, you know, feminists are trying to reclaim the word slut, even though depending
00:41:11.060on your identity it's not exactly like as achievable but that's like another conversation0.96
00:41:16.360however it was about how slut we used to talk a lot about how the word slut was used0.93
00:41:21.700against victims of sexual violence because they would be the ones who are bullied they would be0.82
00:41:27.400the ones who'd be ostracized it was basically showing how slut shaming was an umbrella term
00:41:33.860to sort of hide what actually is being done to whom who has the power who's the real victim
00:41:40.800So this was really surprising. And I think because it is so more common for the victim to be ostracized, it made this decision even more interesting because it's sort of like, oh, my gosh, if it starts, this is going to be bad.
00:41:58.640And it really frames it as, like, it's normal and good for the victims who are usually girls, right, to carry that shame and the consequences of the actions of their perpetrators.
00:42:12.000Yeah, you just, I mean, it's normal and good for the victims who are usually girls to carry that shame.
00:42:18.540I guess especially today when we're all having this conversation about a 10-year-old child who is a survivor of rape who was impregnated, this idea of what we ask women and girls, what shame we ask them to absorb to keep these societal things running, to make sure that this power imbalance doesn't shift back.
00:42:46.320And I guess that's just really weighing heavy on my heart right now. The way that you put that really stung a little, I guess.
00:42:53.080Yeah, I remember I was reading something and I realized that and I was like, oh, shit. I was like, oh, they're okay with this. Oh, they think we deserve this. Oh, like, it's just sort of like, ah, damn it.0.99
00:43:05.260this is why I don't believe in giving gory details. I don't believe that showing the0.95
00:43:10.620violence will convince people because there are a lot of people who think that's just how the world
00:43:16.380is supposed to be. And I think that's something that we need to reckon with because I think it'll
00:43:22.280make us more effective in our strategy and how we respond. But especially we're thinking about
00:43:28.240how, you know, Christianity very much has shaped our sense of what victimhood is.
00:43:35.580And when you take that into consideration, you have to think about Jesus Christ, who's like
00:43:40.380the ultimate victim. And they use Jesus Christ as a way to sort of show that suffering is good,
00:43:47.900in a sense, right? And it's kind of twisted in a way to be like, this is just all a part of God's
00:43:54.060plan. Your suffering is a part of God's plan. It brings you closer to, to godliness. And when
00:44:00.680you're in a society where the marginalized people are seen as inherently bad, right? Women are the1.00
00:44:06.840original sinners, you know, trans people and queer people are, you know, they're, they're deviant.1.00
00:44:12.960Then it's sort of like this weird like concept of like, if you're suffering, we're kind of helping1.00
00:44:19.380you. Like, it reminds me so much of that Zora Neale Hurston quote, if you're silent about your
00:44:28.380pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it. Like, teaching us that we should find empowerment
00:44:34.900through our suffering, or that should be like, you know, a badge of honor. Like, I'm just so
00:44:40.560done with anything that tells me that something that is negative for me, that I should be happy
00:44:47.580about it. I'm so done with that. And I feel like that is in our culture everywhere.
00:44:51.960Yeah, it definitely is. It's definitely a way to sort of maintain, not sort of,
00:44:56.360it's one of the many ways that they maintain the status quo because it's a sort of gaslighting as
00:45:00.820well, right? Because if suffering is normal, then we don't need to think about systems of
00:45:06.920oppression. We don't need to think about rape culture because that's just how the world is.
00:45:12.120and so it's like it was sort of it's sort of like an anti-call to action if you think about the
00:45:17.860article it says right because it's like don't change no no no like just if you blame the victim
00:45:22.860if you coddle abusers that's okay that's cool you know it's it's it's low-key that like don't get
00:45:29.720too worried about all the hubbub on twitter and college campuses like it'll be okay
00:45:33.880it's a call to inaction exactly so given where we're at everything that's happened in our culture
00:45:45.900when it comes to survivors and how how we fail them don't support them tell their stories are
00:45:51.860when you think about what's on the horizon are you hopeful in this moment today like
00:45:56.020how are you feeling about what it means to be a survivor and to have survivor stories be told
00:46:01.700Um, you know, I, I'm hopeful in a sense where I have seen from my time on college campuses,
00:46:08.780where it was really hard for people to talk about rape to now we're having bad-ass high
00:46:14.000schoolers doing rallies and like getting administrators to resign.
00:46:32.860I think it's easy to fall into despair when you're on social media doom scrolling, especially since I feel like I just, you know, I follow a lot of news.
00:46:40.940I follow a lot of anxious people, follow a lot of vulnerable people, you know, but there is progress.
00:46:46.800If there wasn't, they wouldn't be fighting back against us so hard.