FACE OUR FEARS: Dehumanization is the name of the game.
Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that the debate around releasing the Epstein files could be re-traumatizing victims of sexual harassment and assault all around the world. Not only have so many survivors lived through their own personal hell at the hands of predators, but they are now forced to read about it and relive it over and over as the Epstein scandal plays out in public.
Talking about sexual trauma in the public sphere is done with so little concern for victims of this form of abuse. The way it is often made into memes or the way victims are often portrayed as liars… it can be too much to bear. For anyone out there who has experienced sexual harassment, abuse or any personal violation, I see you. I stand with you. I grieve with you for what you have lost. Please do whatever you need to do to find a sense of peace.
In my previous life as a therapist, I worked with children — mostly boys ages 2-20 who had been victims of sexual assault at the hands of their fathers or father-figures. I realized then how little the system actually cared about punishing the perpetrator. I remember working with one organization who told me when I inquired as to why the system protected predators much more often than victims:
“Natalie, we get a rape conviction so rarely that when it happens, we have to pinch ourselves because it usually never occurs.”
I say all of this because we could be on the brink of the Epstein files actually bringing some sense of justice to victims through a recognition of their pain and what they have gone through would be a start along a healing journey. But is it enough? It won’t actually “fix” the system, but simply point out those who got away with heinous acts. And then what will happen to them? If anything? We’ve already decided that “you can grab them by the pussy” when Trump was elected for a second term so what will — if anything — change?
And I started to think about everything that is going on right now. The Epstein saga is an important news story, absolutely. It could be the very thing that topples that MAGA house of cards.
But people in the United States are being violated in so many ways that it is hard to decide where to focus our attention because if you pull one thread of dehumanization and exploitation, the whole tapestry quickly unravels.
So let’s begin to unravel it.
When we allow the ultra-powerful to go unchecked, enabling them to exploit, traffic and dehumanize the most vulnerable among us, it is no wonder that it becomes a means to an end — a way to line the pockets of the uber wealthy and concentrate power into fewer and fewer hands.
And when we (the little people) hold less cards, they can divide us further, turn us against one another and create a common enemy to blame our misfortunes on.
REALITY CHECK: Alligator Alcatraz must close immediately.
We cannot play the game of the “worthy vs. unworthy” when it comes to who should be seen in their full humanity and who should not. We must also stand against violence in all spaces, like what is playing out in Florida.
(CNN): Two days after filing a lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for being “unlawfully denied entry” to inspect conditions at the facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” members of Congress and state representatives were given a limited tour Saturday to inspect conditions after calling the lack of access a “deliberate obstruction meant to hide what’s really happening behind those gates,” according to a joint statement from lawmakers.
They said they heard detainees shouting for help and crying out “libertad”— Spanish for “freedom” — amid sweltering heat, bug infestations and meager meals.
“They are essentially packed into cages, wall-to-wall humans, 32 detainees per cage,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who represents Florida’s 25th Congressional District, said during a news conference following their tour.
Wasserman Schultz said each cage contained three small toilets with attached sinks, which detainees use for drinking water and brushing their teeth, sharing the same water used to flush the toilets.
The wife of a 43-year-old Guatemalan man currently detained at “Alligator Alcatraz” told CNN her husband is enduring harsh conditions similar to those described by lawmakers who toured the facility. After more than two weeks in detention, she said, he has yet to see a lawyer.
“There are too many mosquitoes … He’s in a really bad condition. The power goes off at times because they’re using generators,” the woman told CNN in an interview Tuesday.
“The detainees are being held in tents, and it is very hot there. They’re in bad conditions. … There’s not enough food. Sick people are not getting medication. Every time I ask about his situation, he tells me it’s bad,” she said.
The only thing that has scared me more than the conditions at Alligator Alcatraz are the unhinged comments people are leaving on my posts anytime that I suggest we don’t put human being in cages.
Read that again.
Demanding humane treatment for all people — all of us — should not be a controversial stance to take. But if we allow this government to dismantle who is worthy of dignity and who is not, pretty soon no one will be safe.
It isn’t about what people “deserve.” It should be about how we show up in the world. And right now, America, we are not okay.
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