cheyes@ualberta.ca

Key references:

Brison, Susan. 2002. Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self. Princeton University Press.

Cahill, Ann. 2001. Rethinking Rape. Cornell University Press.

Guenther, Lisa. 2012. “Resisting Agamben: The Biopolitics of Shame and Humiliation.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 38:1, 59-79.

Miller, Chanel. 2019. Know My Name: A Memoir. Viking.

Heyes, Cressida J. 2020. “Dead to the World: Rape, Unconsciousness, and Social Media.” In Anaesthetics of Existence: Essays on Experience at the Edge. Duke University Press.

Taylor, Dianna. 2020. Sexual Violence and Humiliation: A Foucauldian-Feminist Perspective. Routledge.

Waterhouse-Watson, Deb. 2019. Football and Sexual Crime: From the Courtroom to the Newsroom: Transforming Narratives. Palgrave Macmillan.

Quotes:

A body on display:

“The whole time I was lying there, left nipple out, ass bare, stomach skin folded, while polished shoes stepped on mulch around me... I was photographed on the ground. These photographs, included the ones at the hospital, would be put up on the project for everyone in the courtroom to see” (Miller 2019, 173-4).

“I felt like a pawn—a helpless, passive victim—caught up in a ghastly game in which some men ran around trying to kill women and others went around trying to save them—rescuing them in tractors and ambulances, pushing them on gurneys, giving them oxygen and injections and pills and examinations, taking depositions, doing detective work, making composite portraits, showing mug shots, tracking down assailants, and writing up news reports” (Brison 2002, 89-90)

“I understood their [the SART nurses’] gloved hands were keeping me from falling into an abyss. Whatever was crawling into the corridors of my insides would be dragged out by the ankles. They were a force, barricading me, even making me laugh. They could not undo what was done, but they could record it, photograph every millimeter of it, seal it into bags, force someone to look. Not once did they sigh or pity or poor thing me. They did not mistake my submission for weakness, so I did not feel a need to prove myself, to show them I was more than this. They knew. Shame could not breathe here, would be shooed away.” (Miller 2019, 13-14)

“The assault in my mind was always a scene constructed by dialogue narrated to me” (116).

When her mother witnesses the projection of courtroom images: “My eyes became hot, my head pulsed thinking can somebody cover her eyes please. I wanted to say, That’s not me, me is right here, sitting in front of you” (169).

As Miller’s father leaves the courtroom, after seeing photos of her at the crime scene for the first time, he emerges “shaking his head and muttering to himself.” He walks past Chanel, “dazed,” but she stops him. He asks, “Have you seen that photo, the one of you lying by the...? I shook my head. You look dead, he said. Like someone tried to toss a body into the dumpster and missed” (197).

“Why should I carry the shame for the things that were done to my body. I had a plastic beak stuck in me, I said, I had Q-tips in my anus. They painted my vagina blue I think to look for abrasions. They spread my legs. Photographed me. Photographed me naked. So yes…I’d stated my truth unapologetically, and for a moment I’d held the power, made the men fidget, cast their eyes down” (115).

Identity: the deviant and the Everyman

“I remain anonymous, yes to protect my identity, but it is also a statement that all of these people [her supporters] are fighting for someone that they don’t know. That’s the beauty of it. I don’t need labels, categories, to prove I’m worthy of respect, to prove I should be listened to. I’m coming out to you simply as a woman, wanting to be heard. Yes, there’s plenty more that I’d like to tell you about me. For now, I’m every woman” (Miller, statement to the press 2016).

“If I had come out with my identity the room would have collapsed, its roof weighted by distractions; my history, ethnicity, family” (2019, 252).

Miller recounts being asked by the police for her boyfriend’s full name, “how long we’d been together, at what point it got more serious than just talking, FaceTiming, email, and texting, if we had an intimate relationship, if we were exclusive …when I had last seen him before the assault, if I’d seen him since. I was then asked what my feelings were for him…My answer to all of these questions was Brock Turner fingered me while I was unconscious” (65).

“I was holding a secret fear, that there must be a cap, an end to this road, where they’d say, you have achieved enough, exit this way. I was waiting to be knocked back down to size, to the small place I imagined I belonged. I had grown up in the margins; in the media Asian Americans were assigned side roles, submissive, soft-spoken secondary characters. I had grown used to being unseen, to never being fully known. It did not feel possible that I could be the protagonist” (250).

The past and the future

“One year later…a new dialogue emerged. Brock had a strange new story, almost sounded like a poorly written young adult novel with kissing and dancing and hand holding and lovingly tumbling onto the ground, and most importantly in this new story, there was suddenly consent” (342).

“The latest script he had crafted was too blatant to be real, too convenient to believe. His reconstruction was just poor writing, almost comical. It was insulting to be on the other end of this dim-witted dialogue” (191).

“Campus drinking culture. That’s what we’re speaking out against? Not awareness about campus sexual assault, or rape, or learning to recognize consent. Campus drinking culture. Down with Jack Daniels. Down with Skyy Vodka.” “I don’t see headlines that read, Brock Turner, Guilty of drinking too much and the sexual promiscuity that goes along with that. Campus Sexual Assault. There’s your first Powerpoint slide” (348, from Victim Impact Statement).

“He was talked about in terms of his lost potential, what he would never be, rather than what he is. They spoke as if his future was patiently waiting for him to step into it” (281).

“Privilege accompanies the light skinned, helped maintain his belief that consequences did not apply to him” (282).