I was in my early 20s before I ever felt the sting of real disappointment. I had been a golden boy. I had been lavished with scholarships to the country’s best schools. I had been buried in awards for accomplishments. And, when disappointment - accountability, really - came...
I lashed out. I yelled. I cried. I blamed everyone else. And I pointed to my accomplishments - arguing that I alone had created them - as evidence that I couldn’t possibly be responsible for the disappointment. But, this angry response wasn’t a one time occurrence.
I really wish it had been. I wish that I had recognized that my own privilege - in my gender, my race, my opportunity - had ill-prepared me for this disappointment and tried to be better. I wish I had learned the lesson with one shameful series of responses. But, it took years.
Years of grace filled friends & many others who were hurt because of my words and behavior. Others who may have questioned their place in this world because I was desperately clinging to the idea of my own privileged place.
When I watched the testimonies today, I saw a privileged and threaten golden boy clinging to the long skewed image of himself and his future. The fear of accountability provoked anger and emotion not of self-defense but of selfish entitlement. He was in front of a panel of men...
who were experiencing the same disappointment and accountability and clinging to the same false truths. Their drumbeat of “the darkest moment in Senate history” ignored the generations of dark moments in that history for women, people of color, LGBTQ, & other marginalized groups.
It’s possible, if you share their experience & perspective, to see men desperately fighting to defend their reputations and their livelihood. They weren’t. They were defensively fighting to maintain the cultural myth of their own merit won through hard work.
At the same time, I saw a gut wrenching and courageous testimony. A shared & certain truth without any promise of benefit or even the hope of a sympathetic ear. She spoke with a calm that assumes an outcome - often disappointing - but remains convinced of the importance of truth.
It’s entirely possible to assume the worst about this testimony. It’s possible to assume that she’s lying or misguided or misremembering this experience. We so desperately want to believe the myth - even when it doesn’t serve us - that will overlook hard truth when we see it.
She has literally nothing to gain. At best, the news cycle will continue on and she’ll be forgotten or relegated to a footnote. At worst, her life will never fully recover & never find peace. All for civic duty. All for pride and love of this system of laws that promised justice.
I want to believe that I have evolved, and most days that feels true, but I can say this week - with some very real shame - that I will never truly experience disbelief or disappointment as the first responses to me or assumed reaction to my shared truth.
The least I can do is to admit my failings and be willing to sacrifice my own privilege for people that don’t enjoy the same. I can believe women. I can believe that black lives matter. I can believe that water is life. And, I can believe that love is love is love.
Finally, I believe that I can put my spotlight on people living in the darkness. I can lend my mic and platform to stories untold. I can listen, truly listen, not to respond or to fix, but to hear. And understand.
I don’t think this is a single event that will right the world & lead to equity and equality in society & under the law. I think that will take many more years of struggle & shouting. But, I do believe that time is coming. And, I want to part of carrying the burden until it does.
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