I watched it. Very powerful. Very inciteful. I have taken this from a full transcript, and this struck me as she spoke the words:
Quote:“Hosts, reporters, journalists, I say to you – listening to survivors is one thing – repeatedly expecting people to relive their trauma on your terms, without our consent, without prior warning, is another. It’s sensation. It’s commodification of our pain. It’s exploitation. It’s the same abuse. Of all the many forms of trauma, rape has the highest rate of PTSD. Healing from trauma does not mean it’s forgotten, nor the symptoms never felt again. Trauma lives on in ourselves. Our unconscious bodies are steps ahead of our conscious minds. When we’re triggered, we’re at the mercy of our emotional brain. In this state, it’s impossible to discern between past and present. Such is retraumatisation.
“I cried more than once while writing this. Just because I’m been recognised for my story doesn’t mean it’s fair game anywhere, any time. It doesn’t get any easier to tell. I may be strong, but I’m human, just like everyone else. By definition, truths cannot be forced. So grant us the respect and patience to share them on our own terms, rather than barking instructions like take us back to your darkest moment, and ‘tell us about being raped’. The cycle of abuse cannot be broken simply by replaying case histories, we cannot afford to back track. Else, we’ll go around in circles, trapped in a painful narrative, and we’ll all get tired, both as speakers and listeners. We’ll want to switch off and give up. And retreat once more into silence.
I dunnno whether the Press picked up on what she was saying but in reality it was a red hot poker delivered right into the present eyes of media pariahs. No dagger in their back delivered in some dark alley, it was thrown directly at them in the glaring lights of broad daylight and live TV coverage.
I suspect that in their arrogant self righteousness "we fart perfume and our schit does not stink," it went right over their heads.
As Tame spoke that words, I immediately recalled Press coverage on a civil landmark stalking action a local identity brought against the perpetrator. She had reached the end of her tether after years of attempts to bring it to an end, and the only avenue left to possibly achieve that and end to what she was enduring was to initiate that action. The perp defended, and in that defence, he threw every but of absolute garbage he could imagine at her in the witness box. His garbage was outright rejected by her and her witnesses (and also, ultimately by the Trial Judge.) What he said in the witness box was scandalous, salacious almost straight out of a soft porn video.
How did the local rag deal with it? With sensitivity, with respect, with an awareness that what the perp was spewing was mere allegation, allegations the plaintiff and her witnesses vehemently denied? No, no way. There was a dollar to be made.
The local rag took advantage of it. Daily headlines, over the many days the Trial took, big bold print, highlighing every bit of gutter garbage the stalker uttered sold to readers as being established fact, as opposed to the exact opposite. It went on for days.
Ultimately, the Trial Judge, one morning at the resumption of the hearing delivered a scathing rebuke of the rag's behaviour and he correctly commented that had it been a criminal trial before a Jury, he would have had to abort it. In fact he said, the rag's conduct forced him to consider having to abort it even though there was no Jury. He decided not to for sound reason.
What was the rag's response. It continued as before, despite what the very senior Judge had said. The Editor later boldly asserted that he stands beside what his rag did.....as if he had a choice to say anything else. He had dug his hole and the only way out was to brass it.
Now, to bring that back to what Tame said. The Judge found for the victim Plaintiff and awarded her almost $200,000.00 in damages and costs. (The prick never paid it in full.) She won the case, the legal battle. But, she lost the War at a very personal level. The years on ongoing stalking had been painful enough to endure (in fact, at one stage she attempted to end her own life,) but then, when she took appropriate action, she was forced to re-live it all in public, severely exacerbated by how the media reported on the Trial, on a daily basis.
She was already suffering from PTSD, and what the rag got up to just made it all the worse.
Every now and then, the newspaper will revisit that coverage as anniversaries come and go, and the Editor still, every time, boasts about what a great job he did, again triggering an adverse personal response within the victim.
That is why what Tame said was a stand out to me:
Quote:“Hosts, reporters, journalists, I say to you – listening to survivors is one thing – repeatedly expecting people to relive their trauma on your terms, without our consent, without prior warning, is another. It’s sensation. It’s commodification of our pain. It’s exploitation. It’s the same abuse.
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