After four years since her case began, Chanel Miller comes forward with her story. Up until this point, the public only knew her as “Emily Doe”, a catchall caricature of what a rape victim might look like. You might not even know her by this name, but I’m sure you recognize the name Brock Turner and all of its connotations. That’s less of a reflection of a person as an individual, and a lot more to do with the culture we inhabit that first, privileges the voices of men; second, ignores, and at worst shuns and degrades survivors; and third, upholds whiteness as an ideal. So much so that just weeks after the story broke, headlines everywhere painted the picture of a helpless white boy whose whole life was about to be taken away over “one silly mistake.”
The work Chanel has been doing aims to recenter and re-empower the survivor in the cultural dialogue. In her short film titled “I Am With You”, Chanel shares how community support got her through some of the darkest days of her life. “Assault teaches you to shrink,” she narrates, “makes you afraid to exist.” She also alludes to how going through all of this in the public eye was doubly painful; she asserts that “nobody wants to be defined by the worst thing that’s happened to them.” And so, through this film, Chanel really reclaims and reconstitutes her identity as something a lot more positive. In the video this is characterized by her turning on the light after her assault – symbolized by a dark scribble or cloud – which threatens to consume everything that is beautiful in her life. Only by turning on the light, or in other words, speaking up, and sharing experiences with others, can Chanel heal.
I’m reading a book right now which is called “Trauma: A Social Theory.” It postulates that trauma is a communal issue and should be tackled as such; a sick society is one that is highly individualistic and is not equipped to support its members in healing through traumatic events. I think this is endemic of Western society at this point in history, and is particularly felt by women, and even more so by women of color. It’s no surprise then, that as a young Asian American woman, Chanel Miller went unheard for such a long period of time. Wrapped up in the politics of trauma is the politics of the body. Chanel – and women like her – does not have much power to wield over her abuser or the society and judicial system run by men that considers six months of jail time retribution for a night of unconscionable actions that will leave Chanel with a lifetime worth of trauma.
She may have little power over the society in which she is entrenched, but she has still found fairly incredible ways to empower herself and those in a similar position. Ideally, what Chanel seeks to achieve through this film is to share the burden of healing. To help people realize they aren’t alone. The animation style is simple and touching, and the content hits hard. Chanel and the almost wholly women-run film crew put together the video, which went live on Chanel’s IGTV channel and was uploaded to YouTube by the publisher of her book, Viking Books, as a means of communal healing. Along with the animation, Chanel released her memoir “Know My Name” just last month, and it has enjoyed – as far as I can tell – only excellent reviews. A Stanford professor has started a petition to have the memoir included in a university program that designates three required readings to incoming students. This, along with Chanel’s own desire to have quotes from her victim impact statement physically mark the area where the assault took place, has stirred up some controversy on Stanford’s campus. The intimation by opposers, including the prestigious school’s provost, is that the themes and quotations may be triggering to sexual assault survivors. However, what I think is crucial here is that survivors aren’t turned into a monolith, or used as pawns in what seems like a feeble attempt to make the issue go away.
Chanel’s mission of healing through community is something I’ve been striving toward for a long time, and it’s by no means easy. However, given all the impediments to healing for survivors, it seems like a worthy endeavour to try. And whether you’re a survivor or not is non-essential to this conversation – everyone’s trying to get through something, and we’ll all get there that much sooner if we support each other.
