"Because we have, and they have not"
Here is how I spent my last week of work before we closed the salon: telling one of my favorite coworkers that one of their closest friends is a rapist, and then dealing with the fallout. First, they stopped talking to me, clearly no longer sure how to, and then they complained to all my other coworkers about the position I’d put them in, and then they went to the rapist and told them what I had said and that I was the person who had said it, and asked if it was true. (Because, of course, rapists are notorious for admitting to it, the same way that a person has to tell you if they’re a cop.)
“Why did he have to tell me that?” they said to at least one other person. “I didn’t want to know that! Why did he have to tell me?”
And then, later, smugly to me: “You know, what you told me the other day really threw me, but I got it cleared up.”
(Just in case this is the first time you are encountering this kind of scenario, by the way, here is what I would urge you to consider:
You might not want to hear that your friend is a rapist. I guarantee that the person telling you is even less delighted to be in that position.
It is not about you. It is because they think you deserve to know, or to be warned, or because if they were in your position, they would want to know.
Here is what I would suggest you do:
Say “Thank you for telling me.” If you need some time to process how you feel, say that too. Then go and do it on your own time.
Here is what I would suggest you not do:
Press them for any details they haven’t already given you.
Say, “They don’t seem like the kind of person who would do that.” Nobody does. This is how rape works.
Go to the rapist, ask if they’re a rapist (do you really expect them to say “Oh yes! That’s me!”), take their word for it, and then tell them who told you.
If you are in this situation, I’m sorry. It isn’t fair. It never is, for anyone.)
Pressure changes people. There is nothing quite as indicative of who somebody is as what they do when push comes to shove, when the chips are down, when it really matters. I learned what my coworker really cares about, and that their priorities are not the same as mine, and that they are first and foremost concerned about themselves. Those were the last good days, ironically, when people still gathered, when Cleveland was not yet a ghost town punctuated only by solitary joggers and dog-walkers and printer-paper signs on closed business doors. “We’re going to see a lot more of that kind of thing,” Dylan said, meaning as people start buckling under pressure — as things start getting weird.
At the moment, we are almost crushed by the pressure of an uncertain future of unknown duration, the greatest existential weight there is. (On Thursday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) extended the state’s stay-at-home order until May 1.) I’ve mentioned before that I’m using the salon’s Instagram account to promote local businesses and share mutual aid resources. As of Monday, not one but two coworkers from our sister salon have messaged the account to argue that telling people that they shouldn’t be assholes to other people on the basis of size or race is “really political” for an independent business that bills itself as all-inclusive. The worse of the two insisted that it was “weird” to explicitly discuss anti-Asian racism right now. We had an argument about it, which did not make me feel better, and then they accused me of being “pretty judgmental” for pointing out that they, as a white person with no personal experience of racism, should perhaps reconsider telling people of color how to talk about it.
People so rarely say these things to one’s face. I spent the entire argument so angry, and I’m still angry. That even now people are willing to prioritize their own comfort, their own fixation on thinking of themselves as good people, to the point that they view any challenge to their worldview as a personal attack — it makes me furious. And this kind of bigotry thrives in a part of the country that privileges niceness over all else, that holds getting along as the highest possible good. You can sweep so much rot under that rug. If you believe that being nice to people is all that matters, then it might not matter to you whether you even think of them as people at all. It is the valorization of a kind lie over a hard truth, the elevation of going along to get along from an adage to a dogma. As long as you’re nice to your trans coworkers, does it matter if you misgender them behind their backs, openly speculate about their genitals, ask them invasive questions? Does it matter if you’re openly racist to your Black neighbors if you also wave hello to them every morning? If you go out of your way to make your hijabi clients feel unwelcome with everything but words? According to Midwestern values, it does not, and if you live around people who believe this for long enough, I think it is probably easy to forget that there is even another option. The most damning thing you can say about someone else in the Midwest is that they are unlikeable — but you also aren’t allowed to dislike someone as long as they’re nice to you. It is a system easily gameable by those who have no idea what it’s like to be born into anger, handed the short end of the stick as a teething toy. It works to the advantage of the worst kind of people. (On these arbitrary mores are elections won and lost.)
There is a little section of the script for David Fincher’s adaptation of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” that I think about quite a lot, more now that I live in Cleveland.
MARTIN Can I ask you something? Why don’t people trust their instincts? They sense something’s wrong — someone’s walking too close behind them — yet they don’t cross the street. You knew something was wrong — you even knew what it was — but you came back into the house. Did I force you? Did I grab you and drag you in? I just offered you a drink.
(pause)
You’d never think the fear of offending could be stronger than the fear of pain - but you know what? It is. They always come willingly.
They always come willingly. I think about that all the time. People come willingly to the beck and call of fascists, to hatred and violence, to perpetuate the endless humiliating dehumanizing grind of racism and all the other kinds of bigotry that operate by putting marginalized people in a constant state of hypervigilance, never sure who we can trust, which of our neighbors hate us behind closed doors, which of our friends care less about our personhood than their comfort. That’s always what hurts most, as well, that these people could be better, if they tried, if they were willing to do the hard work of admitting that they have room for improvement, as we all do — if they were a little less willing to take the easy road, a little more willing to admit there are more important things than being nice.
Part of loving something, for me, is learning how it could be better, and then getting angry about it, and then using that anger to change it. I’ve written before about loving Ohio, this weird and totally singular speck on the edge of a self-deprecating inland sea, and so now I am angry about it. Anthony Bourdain once said something about Cleveland that summed up the way so many people love this place so neatly that it still takes my breath away.
I like Cleveland. Always did. I find the much-maligned town beautiful. A stark reality up against a unique sense of humor and resignation, a surprisingly hopeful place for food if you only bother to look.
People here, and people from here who don’t live here anymore, really like that quote. For good reason, I think; it combines a certain amount of good-faith curiosity, a willingness to take Cleveland on its own terms, with clear-eyed honesty. There’s a poem by Maggie Smith about the way this quote makes me feel. You’ve almost definitely read it before.
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
Good fucking bones; that’s what I keep telling myself. With the right work, and enough people to do it well, and enough of it: This place could be beautiful.
—R.