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Can Extinction Rebellion Build a US Climate Movement Big Enough to Save the Earth? |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=37640"><span class="small">Alleen Brown, The Intercept</span></a>
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Sunday, 13 October 2019 08:14 |
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Brown writes: "A crowd of about 200 black-clad members of the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion gathered Monday morning at the southern end of New York City's financial district."
The environmental group Extinction Rebellion staged a 'die-in' at the Charging Bull statue in Manhattan on Oct. 7, 2019. (photo: Hilary Swift/The Intercept)
Can Extinction Rebellion Build a US Climate Movement Big Enough to Save the Earth?
By Alleen Brown, The Intercept
13 October 19
 crowd of about 200 black-clad members of the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion gathered Monday morning at the southern end of New York City’s financial district. Some held banners painted with ghostly white animals or cardboard cutouts of trees and waves. In the background, a New Orleans-style jazz funeral band warmed up tubas, and one of the march’s emcees instructed people on the proper way to wail. (“Dig down and pull out your grief — because you gotta cry!”)
At the head of the procession, 20-year-old Ayisha Siddiqa took the megaphone. She explained how she’d come to the U.S. from a poor part of Pakistan when she was 5 years old and had lost family members as a result of frequent power outages, which are expected to increase globally as the climate crisis deepens. Attention turned to Richard McLachlan, a 68-year-old New Zealander, as he and another activist began reading Extinction Rebellion’s declaration of rebellion.
“The science is clear: We are in the sixth mass extinction event, and we will face catastrophe if we do not act swiftly and robustly,” the activists said. “We, in alignment with our consciences and our reasoning, declare ourselves in rebellion against our government and the corrupted, inept institutions that threaten our future.” It was the kickoff to an event dubbed Rebellion Week, part of an international series of XR actions.
As the group started moving out of the park, a figure appeared in the distance, waving Extinction Rebellion’s green flag from atop Wall Street’s charging bull statue. Dyed red corn syrup oozed down the bull’s back, and activists wearing white shirts splattered with fake blood played dead at the animal’s feet.
By sunset, police had arrested 700 people across the globe for participation in actions under XR’s banner, including 93 “die-in” participants in New York. That was the point. By getting arrested in visually compelling acts of civil disobedience inspired by Gandhi, the civil rights movement, and ACT UP, Extinction Rebellion hopes to jolt world leaders into taking action on the climate emergency.
Since the movement was born in the United Kingdom one year ago, it has grown to a network of at least 485 groups in 72 countries. Many observers have responded with a reaction similar to the one elicited by 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg: Finally, someone is truthfully confronting scientists’ apocalyptic climate forecasts with the urgency they deserve.
Indeed, Extinction Rebellion’s ambition is no less than to save the Earth. To win, they say they need 3.5 percent of the U.S. population to participate. But whether a largely white, middle-class movement has what it takes to meet a sky-high ambition of mobilizing more than 11 million people to force sweeping climate action is an open question.
In the U.K., the group has been criticized for failing to center those most severely impacted by the crisis — people of color and marginalized communities. The New York-based chapter, founded a couple months after the one in the U.K., is in the midst of developing its own identity and proving that it stands for those who have the most at stake.
To members, sincere in their belief that a mass-appeal climate movement is what’s needed to quell catastrophe, drawing in front-line communities is life or death. As McLachlan put it, “This has to explode. It has to get bigger if it’s going to work.”
Preventing the Airplane from Taking Off
The weekend before the rebellion began, some 40 people sat in a circle in a community art space in the West Village as Bill Beckler, an Extinction Rebellion activist with a neatly trimmed beard and loose-fitting jeans, laid out terrifying climate scenarios. He described “hothouse Earth,” a scenario introduced in a 2018 paper, in which processes initiated by climate heating, like permafrost thaw and forest dieback, become self-reinforcing feedback loops, causing the release of more greenhouse gases and stemming the planet’s ability to absorb them. He referenced another study that says there is a 5 percent chance carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could present an existential threat to humanity by 2100.
“If you told me to get on a plane that has a one in 20 chance of crashing, I wouldn’t get on that airplane,” Beckler said, his voice breaking with emotion. It’s Extinction Rebellion’s job to keep the airplane from taking off. “You guys are the ones.”
Beckler was there to train the group in nonviolent direct action, a requirement for anyone who wants to be arrested at an XR action. He was joined by Chelsea MacMillan, who wore her hair in a tidy pixie cut and had the posture of a yoga instructor.
He asked the group to close their eyes and take a moment of silence to let the facts he’d laid out sink in. “Hope is an empty, useless thing right now that stops people from doing what they need to do,” Beckler underlined.
Extinction Rebellion was founded in October 2018 by activists in the United Kingdom who had been despairing over the climate crisis. One co-founder, 47-year-old Gail Bradbrook, has written that the personal breakthrough that led to Extinction Rebellion was a direct result of two weeks she spent tripping on psychedelics in Costa Rica. Her background is indicative of the emphasis XR places on personal transformation.
Two months later, the New York wing held its first mass meeting. MacMillan, who founded the Brooklyn Center for Sacred Activism, told The Intercept she was attracted to the “regenerative” spirit of the movement, which encourages members to share their feelings and openly process grief. “We’re going to see things collapse.”
Extinction Rebellion’s No. 1 demand is that those in power “Tell the truth” about climate change. It’s why activists scaled the New York Times building in June and unfurled a banner that read “Climate change = mass murder,” with “change” crossed out and replaced by “emergency.” The group demanded the paper of record follow a set of standards that includes front-page climate headlines daily and the removal of financial conflicts of interest. Police arrested 66 people. Less than a week later, New York City declared a climate emergency. (Whether the declaration will have much impact is a separate question.) XR pressure later led the Times to drop its sponsorship of the energy industry’s Oil & Money conference, an event it has had a relationship with for 40 years.
The truth, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is that governments must act to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 if they want to give humanity a 50 percent chance of avoiding unmanageable climate outcomes. Finding those odds unacceptable, Extinction Rebellion demands the goal be met by 2025. “Even if it sounds politically infeasible, it doesn’t matter. … We have to do it,” Beckler explained to the group.
He said the way to achieve that is to fulfill the third demand: a citizens’ assembly. Rather than endorse the Green New Deal, Extinction Rebellion argues that randomly selected individuals from the general public, reflective of U.S. demographics, should decide how the government should resolve the crisis. They would hear from experts and stakeholders before delivering recommendations. “The government enacts what the group comes up with,” he said.
That demand hasn’t been met in the U.S., but in the U.K., Parliament agreed to convene a citizens’ assembly last June, after police arrested more than 1,000 XR activists for blocking intersections and gluing themselves to infrastructure. The assembly’s recommendations will not be legally binding.
Although the U.K. movement makes only three demands, the U.S. chapter added a fourth: a just transition that establishes reparations for “Black people, Indigenous people, people of color, and poor communities,” where the sources of climate pollution pay for the damage they’ve caused.
The Police Are Not Your Friends
After the massive April protests in the U.K., Wretched of the Earth, a grassroots climate justice collective, published an open letter to Extinction Rebellion. “Our communities have been on fire for a long time and these flames are fanned by our exclusion and silencing,” they wrote. “Without incorporating our experiences, any response to this disaster will fail to change the complex ways in which social, economic and political systems shape our lives.”
The central XR tactic of mass arrests was at the heart of the criticism, since arrest is more risky for people of color, low-income people, and immigrants. In the U.K., Extinction Rebellion is known for communicating its plans to law enforcement and at times has given the appearance of viewing the police as collaborators. “The strategy of XR, with the primary tactic of being arrested, is a valid one — but it needs to be underlined by an ongoing analysis of privilege as well as the reality of police and state violence,” Wretched of the Earth wrote. “Though some of this analysis has started to happen, until it becomes central to XR’s organising it is not sufficient.”
The relationship with police in the U.K. may be shifting. The same day as the direct action training, police raided a London building where Extinction Rebellion activists stored equipment, and arrested 10 people for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. Specialist protest removal teams, made up of officers from across England, arrived in London to help handle the glue and locks protesters use to block infrastructure.
Meanwhile, activists in Paris were met with tear gas as they barricaded themselves in a mall for 17 hours. And in Australia, Extinction Rebellion members were preparing to fight legislation designed especially for them by the Queensland parliament, making activists who possess lock-down devices subject to up to two years’ imprisonment.
MacMillan, like all Extinction Rebellion activists The Intercept interviewed, was well aware of the criticisms. She said part of the work of Extinction Rebellion U.S. is “finding the balance of using white privilege we have in the movement to stop the mess we’re in,” while also building relationships with communities of color. Although the group met with police in advance of the Rebellion Week, they did not share details of their plans. “We didn’t tell them anything except what’s on the website,” McLachlan said.
At the training, MacMillan discouraged activists from antagonizing police, but she also emphasized that the police were not their friends. “We try to maintain a quiet, neutral stance with police. We’re not trying to be buddy-buddy,” she said. “We are against the police as a tool of the state.”
Flatbush Attempts to Show the Way
On the Friday before the week of action, members of Extinction Rebellion Flatbush gathered in a blue-painted room with mini flags from countries around the world hanging from the ceiling. Located in the heavily South Asian Brooklyn neighborhood of Kensington, the space is an adult daycare during the day, but after 4 p.m., it’s the Pakistani American Youth Society community center.
Shahana Hanif, a 28-year-old Bangladeshi American and City Council candidate with a bright smile, described to the group how she worked to open the Avenue C plaza, which has become an important gathering place for Kensington — and a starting point for movement building. Next, Bhumika Muchhala’s young daughter played on her lap as she explained the concept of climate reparations and described her work with the Third World Network, which brings the perspective of the “global south” to international gatherings like the United Nations climate talks. She pointed out that 100 corporations are responsible for 71 percent of global greenhouse emissions and that the U.S. is responsible for the largest proportion of carbon emissions driving the crisis.
Extinction Rebellion Flatbush, one of a growing number of neighborhood-based XR groups in New York, organized the event as a starting point for bringing in people who are more reflective of the neighborhood. “Flatbush is trying to show the way,” said XR Flatbush member Lorna Mason. But although about 40 people attended, very few appeared to be of South Asian descent.
The last presenter, McLachlan, gave a version of a talk he gives on subway trains, one of XR’s outreach tactics unique to New York.
He conceded to The Intercept that XR Flatbush, which he helped found, had failed in its first attempt to draw in South Asian neighbors. “There were very few of them here,” he said. He’s hopeful, though, that they can win trust by homing in on issues that impact community members, like organizing for air conditioning in Brooklyn schools.
“To be honest, I think it’s more than that,” said Kashif Hussain, a community organizer who founded PAYS and also spoke at the event. “I’m kind of happy they didn’t come, because the presentation wasn’t geared toward them anyway.”
It might have been more compelling if it included slides specific to climate impacts in South Asia, Hussain said. The presentation “is geared toward educated folks and people who are willing to be involved in civil disobedience.”
There have been plenty of climate-related uprisings led by people from vulnerable communities. During Standing Rock, a massive anti-pipeline movement led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota, police arrested more than 800 people. Indigenous people took some of the biggest risks and faced some of the most severe charges.
In Puerto Rico, hundreds of thousands of people, including islanders from low-income neighborhoods who had never before protested, went into the street to demand the resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, who oversaw the botched response to Hurricane Maria. They won, and he stepped down.
In the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, the Latina-led organization Uprose has been doing climate justice work for 15 years. The organization’s director, Elizabeth Yeampierre, said she’s wary of new climate activist groups that have popped up asking her to join their cause. “This is not trendy for us,” she said. “We are in this for the rest of our lives.”
To make Extinction Rebellion successful in Kensington, they’d need a friend of the community to take on the hard work of developing programming around the climate emergency and organizing people who aren’t already radicalized around the climate crisis, Hussain said. “Community members like me could be that catalyst, but without proper resources, it’s virtually impossible.”
McLachlan said he’s committed to doing what he has to. “I’ll come back as often as it takes,” he said.
Preventing the Next Apocalypse
Monday’s procession moved from the charging bull to the New York Stock Exchange, where more fake-bloodied Extinction Rebellion bodies were strewn across the pedestrian-only road. Many marchers carried gravestones with the names of environmental defenders who have been murdered throughout the globe.
Bob, a 50-year-old bystander, said he worked at a brokerage firm nearby. Asked about Wall Street’s role in the crisis, he said, “I think it’s very clear. That’s capitalism. It’s obviously broken.”
Bob said his employer’s parent company funds oil and gas pipelines. He threw his hands in the air. “I guess I’m a part of the problem until I’m part of the solution.”
The procession veered east down Pine Street. In front of Trinity Church, activists linked arms in the middle of Broadway Avenue and blocked a two-decker tourist bus. One passenger looked down from the upper deck with delight.
In the week that followed, New York XR members conducted a sit-in at Columbia University’s Low Memorial Library and blocked a nearby intersection. Activists glued themselves to an 18-foot boat parked in the middle of Times Square, leading to 62 arrests. In the U.K., police arrested more than 1,000 people throughout the week, as they conducted actions at the London airport, blocked the entrance to the BBC, and carried out other disruptive protests. XR activists held actions in 60 other cities, including Sydney, Madrid, Vienna, Buenos Aires, and Mumbai. The premier of Queensland, Australia, announced that she would fast-track the anti-protest legislation.
As the Monday procession broke up, many made their way toward Washington Square Park for the launch of a weeklong Rebel Fest, where Extinction Rebellion set up family-friendly events to complement the civil disobedience happening in other parts of the city. Owl, a member of the Ramapough Lenape Nation who was involved in fighting an oil pipeline in New Jersey that would have passed through his people’s territory, was invited to present an acknowledgment that the festival would be held on stolen land. “The bottom line is that they have an important message, which is what we are doing now is causing a global mass extinction,” Owl told The Intercept.
“Indigenous people, black people, people of color have been on the front line since before there was a formal environmental movement,” he said. “I’m looking forward to further ties with Extinction Rebellion, and this is a good start.”
Owl took the megaphone before the crowd of Extinction Rebellion activists. “We’ve been through an apocalypse before,” he told them. “And I can tell you it’s not pretty.”
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Unexpectedly on a Dark Day, Light Shines Through |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=47905"><span class="small">Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor's Website</span></a>
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Saturday, 12 October 2019 13:56 |
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Keillor writes: "I sleep with a woman who is worried about the fate of the planet and so is trying to avoid the purchase of plastic and if I dispose of a Post-it Note she fishes it out of the garbage and puts it in recycling, which I go along with because I don't want to sleep alone."
Garrison Keillor on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, near his bookstore Common Good Books in 2014. (photo: Jean Pieri/Pioneer Press)
Unexpectedly on a Dark Day, Light Shines Through
By Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor's Website
12 October 19
 sleep with a woman who is worried about the fate of the planet and so is trying to avoid the purchase of plastic and if I dispose of a Post-it Note she fishes it out of the garbage and puts it in recycling, which I go along with because I don’t want to sleep alone. We lie in bed and I look over at her listening to the CBC and a long report on the melting glaciers, and I drift off to sleep. When I go out on the road, I miss her and so I am a slave to her every wish. If she tries to convert me to veganism and I have to sneak over to the dark side of town for a 16-oz. porterhouse and cover up my breath with Sen-Sen, so be it.
But the other day she told me that cotton is a bad fabric, that to grow the cotton to make three pairs of jeans uses more water than a person will drink in a lifetime. And dreadful chemicals are employed in the making of denim. “What am I supposed to wear? Silk?” I said. She told me that silk is more sustainable. So is linen.
She is very conscientious, turns off lights, worries about the diminishing bird population and whether a person of conscience should fly or not, and reads every dire newspaper article about global warming.
But cotton?? I love cotton. Jeans are my uniform. I walk down the street in old faded jeans and a black T-shirt and I am 25 again, a young attitudinous writer. I am not going to take up silk pantaloons just to save on water. Linen is for old segregationist Southern senators. Not my fabric. She tells me that science has discovered how to make a fabric that is very leather-like, using mushrooms. Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom moccasins? What’s next? Broccoli briefs? Succotash socks?
It is discouraging to contemplate the damage my generation has done to the planet. We’re the rock ’n’ roll generation, the Beat generation, the protest generation, and all those people wore jeans. They thought that jeans were righteous symbols of their solidarity with the working class. To wear a wool suit would’ve marked them as management. Wool is better, ecologically. Denim is poisoning the planet. So much for self-righteousness.
I was thinking of this Saturday as I drove around lost in the Berkshires, on little country roads on a beautiful autumn day trying to find the town of New Marlborough. I was driving a rental Volvo with a dashboard that had me flummoxed and the GPS lady on my cellphone was yelling at me to “Resume the route!” and meanwhile I was low on gas. I’d been to Yankee Stadium the night before to watch my Minnesota Twins go to pieces against the Yanks, before a sold-out crowd of Yankee fans who booed Minnesota and everything else beginning with M, including modesty, good manners, mindfulness and their own mothers. In a just world, my team would’ve pulverized the Yanks and sent that crowd home mournful and meditative, but no. This, plus global warming, was all on my mind as I turned onto Main Street in Lenox, and there I saw the sight that redeemed the whole weekend.
It was a gas station. I pulled in, looked around for the button that unlatches the gas tank cover, and a tall skinny kid appeared at the window, and asked how he could help. I said, “How do you open the gas cap?” He reached in and did it and went to the pump and grabbed the nozzle. The last time I saw a kid pumping gas at a gas station was back during the Johnson administration. His name was Jimmy. He had a big smile. “Regular?” he said. I said, “Fill her up with regular.” The moment I said it, I felt the world become kinder and gentler. He told me this was his first job. He’s sixteen. I said, “You must be the best friend of every old lady in Lenox.” He laughed. “Forty-three bucks,” he said. I gave him fifty and said thank you.
One small kind deed changed my whole weekend around. Is it only coincidence that Norman Rockwell lived nearby in Stockbridge? Anyway I feel unaccountably happy that in America, there is still a kid pumping gas. Don’t give up, folks. Wear your jeans for a week between washings and save on water. Be prepared to be unexpectedly delighted.
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It Has Been My Great Honor to Serve the American People |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=51826"><span class="small">Marie Yovanovitch, The New York Times</span></a>
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Saturday, 12 October 2019 13:41 |
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Yovanovitch writes: "For the last 33 years, it has been my great honor to serve the American people as a Foreign Service Officer, over six Administrations - four Republican, and two Democratic."
Marie L. Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, center, leaving the Capitol after in a closed hearing Friday on Capitol Hill. (photo: Anna Moneymaker/NYT)
It Has Been My Great Honor to Serve the American People
By Marie Yovanovitch, The New York Times
12 October 19
 hank you for the opportunity to start with this statement
today.
For the last 33 years, it has been my great honor to serve the
American people as a Foreign Service Officer, over six
Administrations—four Republican, and two Democratic. I have
served in seven different countries, five of them hardship posts,
and was appointed to serve as an ambassador three times—twice
by a Republican President,and once by a Democrat.Throughout
my career, I have stayed true to the oath that Foreign Service
Officers take and observe every day: “that I will support and
defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,
foreign and domestic;” and “that I will bear true faith and
allegiance to the same.” Like all foreign service officers with
whom I have beenprivileged to serve,I have understood that oath
as a commitment to serve on a strictly nonpartisan basis, to
advance the foreign policy determined by the incumbent
President, and to work at all times to strengthen our national
security and promote our national interests.
My Background
I come by these beliefs honestly and through personal
experience. My parents fled Communist and Nazi regimes.
Having seen, first hand, the war, poverty and displacement
common to totalitarian regimes, they valued the freedom and
democracy the U.S. represents. And they raised me to cherish
these values as well. Their sacrifices allowed me to attend
Princeton University, where I focused my studies on the Soviet
Union. Given my upbringing, it has been the honor of a lifetime
to help to foster those principles as a career Foreign Service
Officer.
From August 2016 until May 2019, I served as the U.S.
Ambassador to Ukraine. Our policy, fully embraced by
Democrats and Republicans alike, was to help Ukraine become a
stable and independent democratic state, with a market economy
integrated into Europe.
Recent Ukrainian History
Ukraine is a sovereign country, whose borders are inviolate
and whose people have the right to determine their own destiny.
These are the bedrock principles of our policy. Because of
Ukraine’s geostrategic position bordering Russia on its east, the
warm waters of the oil-rich Black Sea to its south, and four NATO
allies to its west, it is critical to the security of the United States
that Ukraine remain free and democratic and that it continue to
resist Russian expansionism.
Russia’s purported annexation of Crimea, its invasion of
Eastern Ukraine, and its de facto control over the Sea of Azov,
make clear Russia’s malign intentions towards Ukraine. If we
allow Russia’s actions to stand, we will set a precedent that the
United States will regret for decades to come.
Supporting Ukraine’s integration into Europe and
combatting Russia’s efforts to destabilize Ukraine have anchored
US policy since the Ukrainian people protested on the Maidan in
2014 and demanded to be a part of Europe and live according to
the rule of law. That was US policy when I was appointed
Ambassador in August 2016, and it was reaffirmed as the policy
of the current administration in early 2017.
The Fight Against Corruption
The Revolution of Dignity, and the Ukrainian people’s
demand to end corruption, forced the new Ukrainian government
to take measures to fight the rampant corruption that long
permeated that country’s political and economic systems. We
have long understood that strong anti-corruption efforts must
form an essential part of our policy in Ukraine; now there was a
window of opportunity to do just that.
Why is this important? Put simply: anti-corruption efforts
serve Ukraine’s interests. They serve ours as well. Corrupt
leaders are inherently less trustworthy, while an honest and
accountable Ukrainian leadership makes a U.S.-Ukraine
partnership more reliable and more valuable to the U.S. A level
playing field in this strategically located country—one with a
European landmass exceeded only by Russia and with one of the
largest populations in Europe—creates an environment in which
U.S. business can more easily trade, invest and profit. Corruption
is a security issue as well, because corrupt officials are vulnerable
to Moscow. In short, it is in our national security interest to help
Ukraine transform into a country where the rule of law governs
and corruption is held in check.
Two Wars
But change takes time, and the aspiration to instill rule-oflaw values has still not been fulfilled. Since 2014, Ukraine has
been at war, not just with Russia, but within itself, as political and
economic forces compete to determine what kind of country
Ukraine will become: the same old, oligarch-dominated Ukraine
where corruption is not just prevalent, but is the system? Or the
country that Ukrainians demanded in the Revolution of Dignity—
a country where rule of law is the system, corruption is tamed,
and people are treated equally and according to the law?
During the 2019 presidential elections, the Ukrainian people
answered that question once again. Angered by insufficient
progress in the fight against corruption, Ukrainian voters
overwhelmingly elected a man who said that ending corruption
would be his number one priority. The transition, however,
created fear among the political elite, setting the stage for some
of the issues I expect we will be discussing today.
Understanding Ukraine’s recent history, including the
significant tension between those who seek to transform the
country and those who wish to continue profiting from the old
ways, is of critical importance to understanding the events you
asked me here today to describe. Many of those events—and the
false narratives that emerged from them—resulted from an
unfortunate alliance between Ukrainians who continue to operate
within a corrupt system, and Americans who either did not
understand that corrupt system, or who may have chosen, for their
own purposes, to ignore it.
It seems obvious, but bears stating, that when dealing with
officials from any country—or those claiming connections to
officialdom—one must understand their background, their
personal interests, and what they hope to get out of a particular
interaction before deciding how to evaluate their description of
events or acting on their information.
To be clear, Ukraine isfilled with many citizens and officials
who want the very things we have always said we want for the
United States: a government that acts in the interests of its people;
“a government of the people, by the people and for the people.”
The overwhelming support for President Zelenskiy in April’s
election proved that. And it was one of our most important tasks
at the embassy in Kyiv to understand and act upon the difference
between those who sought to serve their people and those who
sought to serve only themselves.
Addressing Specific Concerns
With that background in mind, I would like to briefly address
some of the specific issues raised in the press that I anticipate you
may ask me about today.
Events Before and After I served in Ukraine
I arrived in Ukraine on August 22, 2016 and left Ukraine
permanently on May 20, 2019. Several of the events with which
you may be concerned occurred before I was even in country.
Here are just a few:
- the release of the so-called “Black Ledger” and Mr.
Manafort’s subsequent resignation from the Trump
campaign;
- the Embassy’s April 2016 letter to the Prosecutor General’s
Office about the investigation into the Anti-Corruption
Action Center or AntAC; and
- the departure from office of former Prosecutor General
Viktor Shokin.
Several other events occurred after I was recalled from Ukraine.
These include:
- President Trump’s July 25 call with President Zelenskiy;
- All of the discussions surrounding that phone call; and
- Any discussions surrounding the reported delay of security
assistance to Ukraine in Summer 2019.
During my Tenure in Ukraine
- As for events during my tenure in Ukraine, I want to
categorically state that I have never myself or through others,
directly or indirectly, ever directed, suggested, or in any
other way asked for any government or government official
in Ukraine (or elsewhere) to refrain from investigating or
prosecuting actual corruption. As Mr. Lutsenko, the former
Ukrainian Prosecutor General has recently acknowledged,
the notion that I created or disseminated a “do not prosecute”
list is completely false—a story that Mr. Lutsenko, himself,
has since retracted.
- Equally fictitious is the notion that I am disloyal to President
Trump. I have heard the allegation in the media that I
supposedly told the Embassy team to ignore the President’s
orders “since he was going to be impeached.” That
allegation is false. I have never said such a thing, to my
Embassy colleagues or to anyone else.
- Next, the Obama administration did not ask me to help the
Clinton campaign or harm the Trump campaign, nor would
I have taken any such steps if they had.
- I have never met Hunter Biden, nor have I had any direct or
indirect conversations with him. And although I have met
former Vice President Biden several times over the course
of our many years in government, neither he nor the previous
Administration ever, directly or indirectly, raised the issue
of either Burisma or Hunter Biden with me.
- With respect to Mayor Giuliani, I have had only minimal
contacts with him—a total of three that I recall. None related
to the events at issue. I do not know Mr. Giuliani’s motives
for attacking me. But individuals who have been named in
the press as contacts of Mr.Giuliani may well have believed
that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our
anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.
- Finally, after being asked by the Department in early March
to extend my tour until 2020, I was then abruptly told in late
April to come back to Washington from Ukraine “on the next
plane.” You will understandably want to ask why my
posting ended so suddenly. I wanted to learn that too, and I
tried to find out. I met with the Deputy Secretary of State,
who informed me of the curtailment of my term.He said that
the Presidenthad lost confidence inme andno longer wished
me to serve as his ambassador. He added that there hadbeen
a concerted campaign against me, and that the Department
had been under pressure from the President to remove me
since the Summer of 2018. He also said that I had done
nothing wrong and that this was not like other situations
where he had recalled ambassadors for cause. I departed
Ukraine for good this past May.
- Although I understand that I served at the pleasure of the
President, I was nevertheless incredulous that the U.S.
government chose to remove an Ambassador based, as best
as I can tell, on unfounded and false claims by people with
clearly questionable motives. To make matters worse, all of
this occurred during an especially challenging time in
bilateral relations with a newly elected Ukrainian president.
This was precisely the time when continuity in the Embassy
in Ukrainewas most needed.
*******
Before I close, I must share the deep disappointment and
dismay I have felt as these events have unfolded. I have served
this nation honorably for more than 30 years. I have proudly
promoted and served American interests as the representative of
the American people and six different presidents over the last
three decades. Throughout that time,I—likemy colleagues at the
State Department—have always believed that we enjoyed a
sacred trust with our government.
We make a difference every day on issues that matter to the
American people—whether it is war and peace, trade and
investment, or simply helping with a lost passport. We repeatedly
uproot our lives, and we frequently put ourselves in harm’s way
to serve this nation. And we do that willingly, because we believe
in America and its special role in the world. We also believe that,
in return,our government will have our backs and protect us if we
come under attack from foreign interests.
That basic understanding no longer holds true. Today, we see
the State Department attacked and hollowed out from within.
State Department leadership, with Congress, needs to take action
now to defend this great institution, and its thousands of loyal and
effective employees. We need to rebuild diplomacy as the first
resort to advance America’s interests and the front line of
America’s defense. I fear that not doing so will harm our nation’s
interest, perhaps irreparably.
That harm will come not just through the inevitable and
continuing resignation and loss of many of this nation’s most
loyal and talented public servants. It also will come when those
diplomats who soldier on and do their best to represent our nation
face partners abroad who question whether the ambassador truly
speaks for the President and can be counted upon as a reliable
partner. The harm will come when private interests circumvent
professional diplomats for their own gain, not the public good.
The harmwill come when bad actors in countries beyond Ukraine
see how easy it is to use fiction and innuendo to manipulate our
system. In such circumstances, the only interests that will be
served are those of our strategic adversaries, like Russia, that
spread chaos and attack the institutions and norms that the U.S.
helped create and which we have benefited from for the last 75
years.
I am proud of my work in Ukraine. The U.S. Embassy,
under my leadership, represented and advanced the policies of the
United States government as articulated, first by the Obama
Administration and then by the Trump Administration. Our
efforts were intended, and evidently succeeded, in thwarting
corrupt interests in Ukraine, who fought back by selling baseless
conspiracy theories to anyone who would listen. Sadly, someone
was listening, and our nation is the worse off for that.
Thank you for your attention. I welcome your questions.
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The Stanford Sexual Assault Case Made Her "Emily Doe." In New Memoir, Chanel Miller Tells Her Story |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=51501"><span class="small">Democracy Now!</span></a>
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Saturday, 12 October 2019 13:34 |
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Excerpt: "We spend the hour with author Chanel Miller speaking about her recently published remarkable memoir, 'Know My Name.'"
Chanel Miller. (photo: Ali Smith/Guardian/eyevine/Redux)
The Stanford Sexual Assault Case Made Her "Emily Doe." In New Memoir, Chanel Miller Tells Her Story
By Democracy Now!
12 October 19
 e spend the hour with author Chanel Miller speaking about her recently published remarkable memoir, “Know My Name.” The book chronicles how Miller reclaimed her name, her story and her life after being sexually assaulted by Brock Turner, a member of the Stanford University swim team, in 2015. At the time, she was known as “Emily Doe.” The case gained national prominence when a California judge sentence Turner to just six months in a county jail after he was convicted of three counts of felony sexual assault. He ended up spending only three months locked up. The sentencing sparked outrage. Voters in California later recalled the judge in the case. During the trial, Miller read a victim impact statement addressed to her assailant. The text of the letter later went viral, being read by millions around the world.
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: Today we spend the hour with a woman who was known to millions simply as “Emily Doe.” In 2015, a member of the Stanford University swim team, Brock Turner, sexually assaulted her while she was unconscious behind a dumpster outside a Stanford University fraternity. The assault ended when two Swedish graduate students saw what was happening, then chased after Turner and held him down until the police came. At the time, Emily Doe was a 22-year-old college graduate living at her home with her family in Palo Alto.
The case gained national prominence when a California judge sentenced Brock Turner to just six months in county jail after he was convicted of three counts of felony sexual assault. He would spend three months locked up. The sentencing sparked outrage. Voters in California later recalled the judge in the case.
During the trial, Emily Doe read a victim impact statement addressed to her assailant. The text of the letter went viral after BuzzFeed published it in 2016. Well, the woman known to the world as Emily Doe recently came out to reveal her true identity in a remarkable new memoir called Know My Name. She published the book using her full name: Chanel Miller.
Well, today we spend the hour with Chanel. We begin by airing a short video she illustrated and narrated about how she moved past the sexual assault and eventually reclaimed her name, her story and her life.
CHANEL MILLER: It happened when I was 22, on the cusp of my adulthood. When you are assaulted, an identity is given to you. It threatens to swallow up everything you plan to do and to be. I became Emily Doe. Assault teaches you to shrink, makes you afraid to exist. Shame, really, can kill you.
“Unconscious,” “stupid,” “dumpster,” “swimmer,” “Stanford,” “half-naked,” “nameless,” “nobody.” Nobody wants to be defined by the worst thing that’s happened to them. I feared those words would follow me forever, so I did not speak. In court, the judge used words like “moderate,” “less serious” to describe the crime. I remember the trial. The defense attorney stood before the jury and said, “Chanel knows how you get in blackouts. You drink a lot of alcohol. And that’s what she did this night and many other nights, to be honest.”
So I wrote a victim impact statement, 12 pages. I read it at the sentencing, straight to the man who hurt me. “You don’t know me, but you’ve been inside me. … Fingers had been jabbed inside me. … My bare skin and head had been rubbing against the ground behind a dumpster. … I am a human being who has been irreversibly hurt … waiting to figure out if I was worth something.” But the judge did not hear me.
When I released the statement, something else happened. “It has forever changed the way I carry myself, the way I live the rest of my life. … You can’t be silenced.” The world breathed life into my words. I spent all this time absorbing, absorbing, listening to their voices, until I understood.
Chanel knows how you get in blackouts. Chanel also knows how to write. And Chanel knows how to draw.
Survivors will not be limited, labeled, boxed in, oppressed. We will not be isolated. We have had enough, enough of the shame, diminishment, the disbelief, enough loneliness. Look at all this togetherness. Look out for one another. Seek whatever you wish to be in life. Speak up when they try to silence you. Stand up when they shove you down. No one gets to define you. You do. You do. My name is Chanel, and I am with you.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the voice of Chanel Miller in a video that animates her illustrations. We spend the rest of the hour with Chanel in our studio discussing her new memoir, Know My Name. I began by asking Chanel why she chose that as the title of her book.
CHANEL MILLER: I like that it’s defiant, that it’s a stepping forward, that it’s a proclamation of identity and knowing who I am and what I stand for, because in court, you’re so stripped of identity. You don’t have a name. You don’t have characteristic traits. You’re spoken about in terms of being a sum of your body parts, and really nothing more than that. So, coming forward is my way of saying, you know, I have a history, I have people that love me, and I also have talent in writing. And that’s what this is.
AMY GOODMAN: Take us back to 2015. You go to this party, you drink, you black out, and you wake up in a hospital gurney with two detectives looking down at you. Oh, I think also the dean of Stanford?
CHANEL MILLER: It’s one of the dean of students with one deputy.
AMY GOODMAN: At that moment, what did you understand?
CHANEL MILLER: All I understood was that I had been found passed out. And I’d later be told that someone was acting hinky around me. So, my impression was that there was a man giving off suspicious behavior at this party. I didn’t understand that he had made any contact with me. That was never made clear. I just knew that he was chased off the property due to his behavior and that I was somehow wrapped up in it but was unaware to the depth at which I was involved.
AMY GOODMAN: And you were not wearing your own pants.
CHANEL MILLER: Correct, no underwear.
AMY GOODMAN: And you were missing your underwear.
CHANEL MILLER: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s what you understood at that moment.
CHANEL MILLER: Yes. My dress was hiked up to my waist. I didn’t have underwear on, and I didn’t understand why or how they could be gone. And I was given hospital pants.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you ask anyone to explain what is going on?
CHANEL MILLER: No. I figured if there was something that grave, they would tell me more explicitly. I also refrained from asking because I think I knew something was wrong, and I wasn’t prepared to hear the answer. I didn’t want you to tell me that I had been assaulted. I wanted that ignorance. And sometimes you need that in order to sit down with a detective, which I did that morning, and be levelheaded and go back through your night and rake through it all to give him answers. If they had disclosed everything at that moment, I think I would have been completely immobilized, unable to digest that information. So, instead, I was released home and not given anything more.
AMY GOODMAN: You had dried blood on your hands, and your hair was filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of pine needles.
CHANEL MILLER: Yes, yeah. I was standing. I was not allowed to take out the pine needles until they were photographed. So they were scratching my neck. They were falling onto the floor. I was wrapped in a blanket. They were embedded in the blanket. And when we were finally able to take them out, I was standing naked. Two other nurses with gloves on were pulling them out of my hair in silence. We were just taking them out, piece by piece. We filled an entire, like, paper lunch bag full of my hair and pine needles. And they said, “Well, that’s enough for evidence.” And we took the rest and left it on the floor.
And I worried that if I said, “My whole head was covered in pine needles,” that I would be seen as exaggerating, that I was being dramatic or, you know, that it wasn’t that intense, when, really, I would later find out that one of the deputies testified that as I was being taken into the gurney, as I was being carted into the hospital, I left a trail, that what I was left with that morning, I had already lost a lot of the debris. My head was being used to mop up a ground.
AMY GOODMAN: Which meant that perhaps you were dragged there, dragged behind the dumpster.
CHANEL MILLER: Or that there was very little care taken about my state of being when I was half-naked on the ground, that it didn’t matter where my head was, the condition of my skin. The texture of my backside was raw. None of this consideration was taken.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, there was consideration when it came to these two Swedish cyclists, who you believe saved your life.
CHANEL MILLER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you came to understand happened. And when did you learn about these two graduate students?
CHANEL MILLER: So I had this vague understanding that students had stopped a guy at the party, at the hospital. So, in my head, I think, “OK, someone was apprehended.” Later, in the news, I would figure out that it was the two Swedish graduate students who had stopped. And then, after they testified for the first time in the preliminary hearing, I learned not only did they tackle him, they, number one, checked on me. They kneeled down to see that I was breathing, before even going after him. So, first priority is her, let him go. Now I know that she’s breathing, you start the chase. One of them went after him, did a leg sweep, tackled him. The other one followed up, and they both pinned him to the ground, because he was trying to get away. And as they were on top of him, they were saying, “Do you think this is OK? What the f— were you doing? Say sorry to her.” So, not only did they stop him, they were demanding apology, and they were refusing to go anywhere until they knew that I was going to be taken care of.
AMY GOODMAN: They called the police?
CHANEL MILLER: Or somebody — they called someone to call the police, because they were busy restraining him.
AMY GOODMAN: And when the police came, they wept?
CHANEL MILLER: So, one of the Swedes, as he was giving his testimony to the deputy, began to openly weep. And one of the deputies would later tell me he was tearing up watching him go through that.
AMY GOODMAN: What was it like to meet these two students? When did you meet them?
CHANEL MILLER: I met them maybe two months ago in New York City. I had dinner with them. And it was so amazing to be able to meet them face to face and say “thank you.” And they kept saying, “You know, you’ve already thanked us by helping the world. That’s thanks enough.” But to have them as part of my life, to have them so genuinely concerned about my well-being, for them to have returned again and again to testify repeatedly, when they could have just moved on, that’s so unbelievable to me and sets just this wonderful standard of behavior that we can hold men to.
AMY GOODMAN: You see your sister in the hospital, your little sister, your mei mei.
CHANEL MILLER: Yeah. I’m jie jie.
AMY GOODMAN: In Chinese, “little sister.” And you go home with her.
CHANEL MILLER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: You go to your parents’ house, where you grew up, the two of you grew up.
CHANEL MILLER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: But you didn’t tell them.
CHANEL MILLER: No. Well, first I did not have anything to tell them. I had no narrative yet. I didn’t understand what had happened. So I didn’t want to say, you know, “I woke up covered in bruises and scratches, half-naked. Let’s sit around the table and ruminate why that might have happened.” That would have been terrifying. And when you let your imagination off the leash, then it would send all of us spinning. So not telling them was my way of keeping the situation in my control. And I felt that as long as it was contained, I would be able to keep moving.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, how did you hide it from them? Your house isn’t that big. How did they — your parents, who are very tuned into you and your sister, your whole being.
CHANEL MILLER: I would begin to go on these long bike rides in the morning before work and process a lot on those rides. On my drives to work, I would cry, then take a moment in the parking lot to collect myself, go inside. If I needed to cry at work, I’d go in the bathroom or the stairwell. When I come home, if I can’t collect myself, again, I’ll go on a drive. I would sit in parking lots, calling hotlines, so that I understood I was not alone. But I know many victims who are masters at concealing what we’re going through. And it would surprise many people how good we are at keeping things contained, of putting on a face so that we can show up at work every morning, so that we can protect our loved ones — we don’t want to scare them — and so that we can trick ourselves into thinking ordinary life is an option for us, when really something catastrophic has happened that’s going to take an extreme amount of time to process.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about when you fully realized what happened, and then when you told your parents.
CHANEL MILLER: I found out online when I was at work, and was not able to pair the graphic story that I was reading of a discarded body with the body that was sitting in my rolling chair with a plate of goldfish at work. I did not want to pair them. And that’s sort of when this separate identity of Emily Doe was born. I think when you are traumatized, it’s easier to separate yourself, to keep the trauma in the corner, so that it’s away from you, that you can access it when you need to, but, otherwise, you’re not going to look at it or let it touch your life.
AMY GOODMAN: When did this article come out? How soon after the attack?
CHANEL MILLER: Ten days. So I was completely alone in silence for 10 days, where only my sister and I knew what had happened.
AMY GOODMAN: You read it online.
CHANEL MILLER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And what was your reaction?
CHANEL MILLER: It’s like the insides of me just went mute. You can’t stomach it that quickly. And only when I went home that night and sat my parents down to tell them did it hit me. The look on my mother’s face was so broken open. It instantly registered how terrifying what happened was. When you see yourself through the eyes of loved ones, you understand that this isn’t something you deserved, that it’s really painful and that it was not OK. That registered. And that’s when I, you know, let go of all that posturing and completely broke down. My knees buckled. And my mom just held me. And sometimes, even if you don’t have words, you need that holding. You need someone to be showing you that they see you and that they’re here for you.
AMY GOODMAN: Chanel Miller, author of her memoir, Know My Name. When we come back, Chanel will talk about bringing charges, the trial, and she’ll read from her victim impact statement. Back with her in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Music by Michael Beharie and Teddy Rankin-Parker. This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our conversation with Chanel Miller, author of the new memoir, Know My Name. The book chronicles how Chanel reclaimed her name, her story and her life, after being sexually assaulted by Brock Turner, a member of the Stanford University swim team, in 2015. I asked Chanel how she reached the decision to press charges against her assailant.
CHANEL MILLER: That happened within 24 hours of the assault. I had just pulled into my driveway with my sister, and the detective called and asked if we wanted to press charges. I did not understand the implications of this. I didn’t understand how long-term of a decision it would be.
AMY GOODMAN: Not to mention you didn’t understand that you were attacked.
CHANEL MILLER: Correct. I didn’t even know that I had been assaulted yet or what the charges were. So, my impression was that they had caught a guy and needed me to verify that, yes, they should pursue a case against him. And I thought, “All right, that sounds good to me.” So I said yes and unlocked an entirely new future for myself in that moment.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about how long this judicial process took.
CHANEL MILLER: Even though I filed within 24 hours of my assault, it still took a year and a half to get to the sentencing, and then, after that, another year and a half of the appeal, for the case to finally be closed. So a total of almost four years of my life were invested in this case, where I felt stuck, where I didn’t have the option to leave, where I was forced to return again and again to this story. So, know that even if you file that quickly, that’s how long it’s going to take.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about that period of time, when they were developing the evidence, when you heard the trial would take place, who you understood your assailant to be, how he was described — Brock Turner — and how you were described, and your decision to remain anonymous, to remain Emily Doe.
CHANEL MILLER: Yeah, he was spoken about in terms of his accolades primarily. His smiling photo was used in most of the articles. There were quotes from his previous swim coaches talking about how wonderful this was and how it was a tragedy that had befallen him. It sounded so passive, the reporting of it, as if he was the victim of a crime of external circumstances, and now everything for him was hinging on this verdict, even though my loss had already taken place and had never been up for deliberation.
AMY GOODMAN: He was a possible Olympic contender, a student at Stanford. And how were you described? How was Emily Doe described?
CHANEL MILLER: I was intoxicated, blacked out, passed out, half-naked. I was spoken about in terms of how many shots I had that night, of how many times I’ve blacked out previously in my life. All other traits were dismissed. But that’s all I got to exist as and present myself as inside the courtroom.
AMY GOODMAN: Chanel, describe your experience of the trial, when it finally took place.
CHANEL MILLER: I was looking forward to being able to testify and give my side of the story. That’s what I thought testimony was. And I quickly learned, in that environment, you are constantly discredited and diminished openly, that it becomes a game of how quickly you can answer questions that are worded in a complicated way. Half the time I’m just trying to understand what the defense attorney is asking me. And you’re forced to remember that night down to the minute. At what time did you pee? How many yards away from the house did you pee? As if I’m supposed to be living my life counting yards, counting sips. It was extremely dehumanizing. And the way they speak to you as if you’re a criminal, you feel like you’ve done something wrong. Surely, you have, if you’re being treated this way.
AMY GOODMAN: And they brought on a blackout expert?
CHANEL MILLER: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain.
CHANEL MILLER: They paid $10,000 to this, quote-unquote, “blackout expert,” who came in and testified that even though I was blacked out, I could have been completely willing and able to consent, that Brock had no way of knowing that I was in a blackout, so basically absolving him from the responsibility of reading social cues, of having the decency to know how to treat a person.
AMY GOODMAN: So the trial took three weeks. Talk about what Brock Turner was originally charged with, what those charges were reduced to, and then the jury verdict.
CHANEL MILLER: Yeah. At first he was charged with five felonies, two of which were for rape of an intoxicated person and rape of an unconscious person. Those rape charges were dropped because in California rape is solely defined as the act of sexual intercourse. So, digital penetration, fingers, doesn’t count as rape. It’s defined as sexual assault. Whereas the FBI’s definition of rape is any kind of penetration. So the two rape charges were dropped. Sexual assault charges remained, and so did assault with intent to rape. That was the third felony he was charged with. And my impression is that the only reason he wasn’t able to rape was because he ran out of time, because two people intervened, not because he chose to draw the line there.
AMY GOODMAN: So, where were you when the verdict was handed down?
CHANEL MILLER: I was called to the courtroom. Basically, after closing statements are given at the trial, the jury deliberation began. They say, “We’re going to give you a text sometime within the next two weeks, and you will have 15 minutes to show up at the courthouse.” So, I went home and just was waiting for two days for the text. When I got it, I drove in.
And they read out the three counts. And then, after that, they went through each jury member and said, “State your individual vote for each count.” So I was sitting there, and they go through each jury member. And jury member number one says, “Yes.” Number two says, “Yes.” “Yes.” “Is he guilty of this?” “Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.”
And I was sitting there listening to the sounds of these yeses, all of that validation just like pounding and embedded inside of me. And I was struck by this immense sadness, because in the very beginning, when I knew that my assailant had been chased away, I knew the answer was yes. Of course he was guilty. I knew that from day one. But over the course of a year and a half, I had drifted so far from myself. I had forgotten what I was worth, that I deserved to be treated better. I had learned to doubt myself and to sit with shame in months of isolation. And by the time the verdict came around, I thought, “Do I even deserve to be sitting here?” All that’s happened is that my loved ones are broken, and I feel completely depleted.
And then I began to hear those yeses, and I was like, “Oh my goodness, I completely forgot. I forgot what I was worth.” And that’s so sad to me. And I feel like it’s my job for other victims who are experiencing this to keep them at that yes, to not let them drift so far for so long from who they are, but to keep them right there in the knowing that they’re supposed to be safe.
AMY GOODMAN: Chanel Miller. Her memoir, Know My Name, has just been published. When we come back, Chanel will read from her victim impact statement. Back with her in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “The Body Is a Blade” by Japanese Breakfast. This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our conversation with Chanel Miller. Her memoir, Know My Name, has just been published. The book chronicles how Chanel reclaimed her name, her story and her life, after being sexually assaulted by Brock Turner, a member of the Stanford University swim team, in 2015. During the trial, Chanel read a victim impact statement addressed to her assailant. The text of the letter later went viral, being read by millions around the world. I asked Chanel to read a part of that statement.
CHANEL MILLER: My independence, natural joy, gentleness, and steady lifestyle I had been enjoying became distorted beyond recognition. I became closed off, angry, self deprecating, tired, irritable, empty. The isolation at times was unbearable. You cannot give me back the life I had before that night either. While you worry about your shattered reputation, I refrigerated spoons every night so when I woke up, and my eyes were puffy from crying, I would hold the spoons to my eyes to lessen the swelling so that I could see. I showed up an hour late to work every morning, excused myself to cry in the stairwells, I can tell you all the best places in that building to cry where no one can hear you. The pain became so bad that I had to explain the private details to my boss to let her know why I was leaving. I needed time because continuing day to day was not possible. I used my savings to go as far away as I could possibly be. I did not return to work full time as I knew I’d have to take weeks off in the future for the hearing and trial, that were constantly being rescheduled. My life was put on hold for over a year, my structure had collapsed.
I can’t sleep alone at night without having a light on, like a five year old, because I have nightmares of being touched where I cannot wake up, I did this thing where I waited until the sun came up and I felt safe enough to sleep. For three months, I went to bed at six o’clock in the morning.
I used to pride myself on my independence, now I am afraid to go on walks in the evening, to attend social events with drinking among friends where I should be comfortable being. I have become a little barnacle always needing to be at someone’s side, to have my boyfriend standing next to me, sleeping beside me, protecting me. It is embarrassing how feeble I feel, how timidly I move through life, always guarded, ready to defend myself, ready to be angry.
You have no idea how hard I have worked to rebuild parts of me that are still weak. It took me eight months to even talk about what happened. I could no longer connect with friends, with everyone around me. I would scream at my boyfriend, my own family whenever they brought this up. You never let me forget what happened to me. At the of end of the hearing, the trial, I was too tired to speak. I would leave drained, silent. I would go home turn off my phone and for days I would not speak. You bought me a ticket to a planet where I lived by myself. Every time a new article came out, I lived with the paranoia that my entire hometown would find out and know me as the girl who got assaulted. I didn’t want anyone’s pity and am still learning to accept victim as part of my identity. You made my own hometown an uncomfortable place to be.
You cannot give me back my sleepless nights. The way I have broken down sobbing uncontrollably if I’m watching a movie and a woman is harmed, to say it lightly, this experience has expanded my empathy for other victims. I have lost weight from stress, when people would comment I told them I’ve been running a lot lately. There are times I did not want to be touched. I have to relearn that I am not fragile, I am capable, I am wholesome, not just livid and weak.
When I see my younger sister hurting, when she is unable to keep up in school, when she is deprived of joy, when she is not sleeping, when she is crying so hard on the phone she is barely breathing, telling me over and over again she is sorry for leaving me alone that night, sorry sorry sorry, when she feels more guilt than you, then I do not forgive you. That night I had called her to try and find her, but you found me first. Your attorney’s closing statement began, “[Her sister] said she was fine and who knows her better than her sister.” You tried to use my own sister against me? Your points of attack were so weak, so low, it was almost embarrassing. You do not touch her.
You should have never done this to me. Secondly, you should have never made me fight so long to tell you, you should have never done this to me. But here we are. The damage is done, no one can undo it. And now we both have a choice. We can let this destroy us, I can remain angry and hurt and you can be in denial, or we can face it head on, I accept the pain, you accept the punishment, and we move on.
Your life is not over, you have decades of years ahead to rewrite your story. The world is huge, it is so much bigger than Palo Alto and Stanford, and you will make a space for yourself in it where you can be useful and happy. But right now, you do not get to shrug your shoulders and be confused anymore. You do not get to pretend that there were no flags. You have been convicted of violating me, intentionally, forcibly, sexually, with malicious intent, and all you can admit to is consuming alcohol. Do not talk about the sad way your life was upturned because alcohol made you do bad things. Figure out how to take responsibility for your own conduct.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Chanel Miller reading her victim impact statement. You left the courtroom floored, silent. People saw you. They actually knew your name. But your name didn’t get out. You were still Emily Doe. And describe the day the judge issued his sentence. Was it the same day as your victim impact statement that you read?
CHANEL MILLER: Yes. I showed up to court with my family and friends. I was almost excited to show them who I was, to finally stand in my truth and not just be crying like I had been the entire time that I was on the stand. So, I gave my statement. I was not allowed the time to read the entire thing, so I read an abridged version of the statement.
AMY GOODMAN: Before Brock Turner was sentenced for sexually assaulting you, his father wrote this long letter to the judge presiding over the case. Dan Turner complained his son’s life had been ruined for “20 minutes of action” fueled by alcohol and promiscuity. The letter reads, in part, “These verdicts have broken and shattered him and our family in so many ways. His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve. This is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life. The fact that he now has to register as a sexual offender for the rest of his life forever alters where he can live, visit, work, and how he will be able to interact with people and organizations.”
CHANEL MILLER: Yeah. So, I was listening. My family was listening. It was extremely difficult to hear and tolerate. And then, after the father read his statement, Brock stood up and read 10 sentences. I believed it’s OK that they said that, because the judge will understand what’s going on and will hear me. So I was patient.
And when the final sentence was read, it hadn’t even occurred to me that he could receive less than one year, which is the maximum for county jail, if you’ve been accused of three felonies. I was completely in shock. And I also questioned why I had decided to read the statement. I felt like it had been my failure to properly read the room, that my emotions were inappropriate in this context. The environment was just deflating. It was so anticlimactic. The fact that we had taken a year and a half just to get to this moment, and he announces six months, and it’s over just like that, you thought, “Why was I — why did I do this? Why am I here? Why can’t anyone hear me?” It felt humiliating. And again, my family was upset. You know, I felt like I had to have people fighting for me, like I couldn’t fight for myself. And I went home thinking I had embarrassed myself. I didn’t think, “Wow, that was very courageous, or that was eloquently written.” I just tucked away my statement and was like, “I’m never doing that again.”
AMY GOODMAN: But then your statement got out.
CHANEL MILLER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: BuzzFeed published it.
CHANEL MILLER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you decide you wanted that statement to be heard by others?
CHANEL MILLER: They asked if they could release it. I didn’t think it would amount to anything. In my head, it was worth very little at this point.
AMY GOODMAN: Because they — this was now in the public record.
CHANEL MILLER: Yes, correct. So I just figured, “Sure, as long as you take out my name or any poignant details about who I am, then you can release it.” I didn’t think twice about it, because I didn’t think it would go anywhere.
AMY GOODMAN: But it went viral.
CHANEL MILLER: It went viral.
AMY GOODMAN: Four days, 11 million people read it.
CHANEL MILLER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: You changed California law.
CHANEL MILLER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you change it?
CHANEL MILLER: Now it eliminates probation as an option for penetration of an unconscious or intoxicated person.
AMY GOODMAN: So, he goes to the county jail, supposedly for six months, but is released after three.
CHANEL MILLER: Yeah. And I knew it would be three months the day of the sentencing. My defense — I mean, my DA explained that — something called a “day for day.” For every day of good behavior, you get a day off your sentence. So, after I read my statement and the sentence was announced, I knew it would be three months.
AMY GOODMAN: And then there is the recall effort for Judge Persky. People are so outraged by the judge’s sentence. Judge Persky was recalled by voters on June 5th, 2018. He is no longer a judge. In fact, he was hired by a local high school tennis team to be their coach, and he has been fired from that now because of community outrage. It was a women’s tennis team. But his recall, what did that mean to you? And what did it mean to you that it was Michele Dauber, the professor, that led this campaign?
CHANEL MILLER: Yeah, Michele is an incredible fighter and set out to do something that I don’t think most people thought was even possible. All of the volunteers were amazing, were galvanized into being out on the frontlines, while I was off in my little office writing. You know, I was protected in my little cave, figuring out how to get the book out of myself. Meanwhile, they were out collecting signatures outside of Walmart, at farmer’s markets, going door to door. And a lot of these volunteers were survivors, were vulnerable. You know, just collecting signatures at times, they were verbally accosted and had to withstand that. So, I have a deep admiration for all of them for fighting so hard just to put the judge on the ballot.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Chanel, you did all of this before the #MeToo movement. In fact, I think many would say that you helped to inspire the #MeToo movement. I mean, this victim impact statement gave so many people so much strength. What did it mean, as you were Emily Doe, for people not to know who you were, but to watch the #MeToo movement gain strength and women’s voices to be validated?
CHANEL MILLER: Yeah, I don’t think I would be sitting here presenting myself right now, if it weren’t for Tarana Burke and the #MeToo movement and all the women who have come before me, who have shown me that even knowing the environment is going to be hostile and abrasive, knowing that they’re going to be attacked, they still step forward, because they feel this duty to protect other survivors, to make themselves seen so we understand that there are ways of existing in the world where you don’t have to be dominated by the story of your assault. You can continue to craft yourself and be confident in who you are. So, they set the stage and made a path for me to eventually come forward.
AMY GOODMAN: And I wanted to ask you about Stanford University’s response. So often Brock Turner was called the Stanford swimmer, the champion swimmer, and you were called the non-Stanford student.
CHANEL MILLER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: What has happened since? How did Stanford deal with you? This happened on Stanford property. This happened behind a Stanford frat.
CHANEL MILLER: Ten days after the assault, I got a single call to inform me that he was no longer allowed on campus. So I said, “Thank you for that information.” And the call was over. And two years would go by before I would hear from them again. Only after my statement went viral, three months after it went viral, did they reach out to me and say, “We would like to offer you money for therapy, if you sign this paper saying you will not bring litigation.”
AMY GOODMAN: What did you do?
CHANEL MILLER: I told them I would not simply sign it. I had to meet with them in person, face to face, so we can discuss what can be done, so that a case like mine would never happen again. Only then would I sign.
AMY GOODMAN: And is that what happened?
CHANEL MILLER: I do not believe it was done with the intention of preserving my mental health or making real foundational change. For them, it was an act of self-preservation and protecting their brand identity, which really hurt me.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that signing didn’t happen?
CHANEL MILLER: The signing happened with all the promises in place. The promises were not followed through.
AMY GOODMAN: How did you decide to come forward and to name yourself? And talk about what that has done for you.
CHANEL MILLER: Only after the book was completed, fully, did I decide I would come forward. I needed to emerge as not just the person from this case. I didn’t want my name to come out, and they just say, “OK, now we can fill in the blank and put up her photo next to his.” I wanted to come out fully as an author, to be able to present myself alongside this book, which is filled with anecdotes and childhood memories and a spectrum of emotions, to say you can no longer deny my humanity. You cannot continue to limit me to the parameters of this case. I am so much more than this. And I felt confident that the book would be able to anchor me and have people see me as a person. So, only when it was done, done, done, did I come out.
AMY GOODMAN: Chanel Miller. Her memoir, Know My Name, has just been published. The book chronicles how Chanel reclaimed her name, her story and her life, after being sexually assaulted by Brock Turner, a member of the Stanford University swim team, in 2015. He faced 15 years in prison, but the judge sentenced him to just six months in county jail, of which he served three months. The judge, Aaron Persky, was later recalled by California voters.
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