Dr.
Christine Blasey Ford
c/o
Palo Alto University
1791
Arastradero Rd.
Palo
Alto, CA 94304
Dear
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford:
When
news broke in mid-September, 2018, that there were sexual assault allegations
against SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh, my Facebook feed spiraled downward into
the claustrophobic murk of a seventeenth-century English village in the thralls
of a witch hunt.
Brett
Kavanaugh has an expansive interpretation of presidential power. Democrats were
predicted to take congress after the midterms. Trump was under investigation.
Trump needed a justice who would protect him from a Democratic congress. You,
Dr. Ford, became roadkill. As I witnessed on my Facebook page, the vehicles
that ran over you were paranoid misogyny coupled with Republican expediency.
Friends
who had previously been allies in protest against misogyny exercised by Muslims
were suddenly A-OK with sexual assault – as long as the alleged assailant was a
white man and key to Republican success, and the accuser was a female PhD,
member of the hated coastal intellectual elite.
Friends
who had previously been indulgent of male victims of molesting priests, victims
who waited decades publicly to accuse those priests, were suddenly enraged and
incredulous that a woman might wait decades to come forward. I showed them
#whyIdidntreport accounts, now flooding the internet. "I didn't report
because I didn't want to hurt my father … I didn't report because my assailant
said he'd kill me." All these accounts were dismissed as crafty feminine
wiles cooked up to ruin men's lives.
Strangely
enough, in the midst of all this, I was violently assaulted by young, black
males while walking down the street of a tough urban area. No one doubted my account.
No one doubted a white woman talking about being violently assaulted by young,
black males. Speaks volumes.
Facebook
friends I had previously thought of as nice and normal began to post hundreds
of posts alleging that women want to "ruin men" or "destroy
men's lives."
I
mentioned Clarence Thomas, Donald Trump, Kirk Douglas, Woody Allen, Roman
Polanski, Sean Penn, Chris Brown, R Kelly, Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Marilyn
Manson, and too many rock stars to mention: all of these men have been accused,
and they all occupy the heights of success. No ruined lives. No destruction.
I
pointed out that virtually all women are likely to experience sexual assault,
attempted sexual assault, or sexual harassment in their lifetimes, whereas
there is a negligible chance that any average American man will face false
charges of sexual assault in court. I backed up these assertions with
statistics from reliable websites. The truth did not matter. Misogyny and
Republican needs mattered.
Posts
about Tawana Brawley, The Duke LaCrosse Case, and the Rolling Stone University
of Virginia hoax flooded my page. These stories of false rape allegations are
famous because they are man-bites-dog stories. We know about them the way we
know about lottery winners. Media coverage of lottery winners is in no way
representational of my chances of winning the lottery.
Those
eager to adduce these freak occurrences to discredit you never mentioned these
stories of false accusations in the context of allegations against Keith
Ellison. Ellison is a black, Muslim Democrat. Ellison's accuser is not black.
Ellison must be guilty. You accused a white Republican, key to Trump's success.
You are a member of the reviled coastal elite. You must be guilty.
Team
Trump, like a drug addict eager never to come down from his high, was relishing
the misogynist frenzy. It was certain, in spite of your testimony, that Brett
Kavanaugh would be approved by the Senate. They had their victory. They could
retreat from the field graciously. But no. When he knew he had the votes he
needed, when he didn't have to fight you any more, Donald Trump, the most
powerful man in the world, mocked you at a rally in Mississippi, that state
with a long, grisly history of lynching the innocent.
Trump
didn't verbally lynch you because he had to get Kavanaugh on the court. Trump
had the votes he needed.
Trump
verbally lynched you in front of a braying, mouth-foaming mob because it
benefitted him to do so. Trump has previously profited from his supporters'
white supremacy and antisemitism. In the wake of your testimony, Trump, like a
vulture, battened on your patriotism, your sacrifice, your pain, and his
followers' bloodthirsty misogyny. Team Trump cheered on every blow that Trump
struck at you. It was their dog fight, their cock fight, their blood sport.
They squirmed with glee as their bully savaged a defenseless victim.
After
Kavanaugh was confirmed, your face continued to flood my Facebook feed. Team
Trump posted meme after meme mocking you. Too ugly to be raped by a jock, they
sneered. She should have just enjoyed it, they laughed. "Used Ford for
sale to the highest bidder," they jeered.
Any
woman accusing any man of any kind of assault must confront such primitive,
subterranean ugliness dormant even in otherwise "nice" and "normal"
appearing populations.
Then
there were those who believed you, but said that women who are sexually
assaulted should just shut up. Brett Kavanaugh was the real victim! You
embarrassed him publicly. A man's honor is paramount. An American honor
killing. They would protect Kavanaugh by destroying you.
One
Facebook friend posted that if women didn't appear physically attractive, men
would not be "forced" to assault women. It was your fault. You were
physically attractive. You made Justice Kavanaugh assault you.
Another
poster, also a woman, said that women should shut up because if women make
noise about being assaulted, that will push men over the edge and men will take
away women's right to vote and own property:
"Historically,
men have held power … it is Divinely-inspired natural order, and it SHOULD be
that way … If push came to shove, the very male power feminists decry would
prevent us from voting, from owning property, etc. … If feminists keep up the
current shrill hysterical screamy insanity they're currently pulling, we will
eventually reach the tipping point, at which enough men get sufficiently fed up
that we DO end up in a Handmaid's Tale scenario."
My
Facebook friend C said that he didn't like how women ruin men's lives,
especially over "things that happen at a teenage party … Kavanaugh may not
remember." He said that those protesting against Kavanaugh were paid. He insisted
that nowadays "we must believe female accusers over men in all instances."
But C said that males can be believed. "I can think of plenty of reasons
why boys may not report abuse." T insisted that Senator Mazie Hirono had
stated explicitly that the concept of innocent until proven guilty must be
jettisoned.
I asked
C and T, "Can you please name one person in a position of power who has
said that we must jettison the concept of innocent until proven guilty when it
comes to sexual assault?"
Neither
C nor T could not provide any instance where a person in a position of power
said that all accusers must be believed in all cases of alleged sexual assault.
Instead of supporting his assertion, C denounced me as an "emotional"
man-hater. He then posted a truly disturbing photograph of an infant with a
bruised face, and shouted that a woman had punched that infant, proving that
women are no good.
I can
find no serious person in any position of power, no clergy, no politician, no
judge, no attorney, no activist, no essayist, insisting that all women must be
believed and that all accused men are guilty and that investigation can be
foregone.
Claiming
that women who report sexual assault want to eliminate innocent until proven
guilty is a misogynist smear. It is propaganda honed to silence victims, and to
protect sexual assailants.
Team
Trump chanted "Lock her up," about a woman convicted of no crime.
Team Trump supports a president who called for the death penalty of the Central
Park Five, young men of color, after they had been exonerated. Team Trump
vilifies you and Kavanaugh's other accusers as Machiavellian harpies who want
to "destroy men" and "ruin men's lives," who want to
eliminate "innocent until proven guilty." They vilify you as George
Soros' paid puppet. They do all this without a shred of evidence. That Team
Trump's lynch mob deploys "innocent until proven guilty" as a way to
silence women who allege sexual assault is beyond ironic. It is poisonous.
Scholars
and law enforcement officers, for hundreds of years, have been working on
methods to determine the truth value of narratives. Criteria include, but are
not limited to:
* Cui
bono?
* Occam's
razor
* Consistency
* Support
from known facts
Cui
bono means "Who benefits?" Facebook poster Ralph wrote that you
"will be rewarded with generous honoraria for speaking engagements and
lucrative book contracts. She will be a sought-after guest on shows such as The
View."
Dr.
Ford, you are a successful, self-made scientist. You teach biostatistics, a
highly demanding and remunerative discipline. You teach, part time, at Stanford,
one of the most prestigious and demanding institutions in the world. You own a
home in a wealthy neighborhood; you have a husband and children. You are
publicity-shy and private.
Since
your allegation has been made public, you have received death threats, you have
been smeared. You have sacrificed your anonymity, a precious gift in this age
of cyber stalking and viral cell phone videos. You have not been able to sleep many
nights together in the same place. Your children are traumatized, confused, and
endangered. I read the comments on right-wing websites and even now, after Team
Trump's victory, they are still gunning for you. They want you to suffer and
they vow to make you suffer. Given the fury and hatred among those who oppose
you, your life will never be the same.
Anyone
who believes that you are enduring what you are enduring for a guest spot on
The View is a misogynist beyond reason. Any woman who alleges sexual assault must
confront such irrational hatred, a hatred that further victimizes victims and
protects assailants.
Cui
bono is not in Brett Kavanaugh's favor. He benefitted by denying your claim. He
received a lifetime seat on the SCOTUS.
Occam's
razor dictates that the simplest explanation is the most likely to be true.
Occam's razor works for you. In 2012, you told your husband and therapist of
the alleged assault. The therapist has notes backing this up. If you were the
pawn of the alleged diabolical mastermind, George Soros, who they say controls
the world the way a puppeteer controls a marionette, you would have invented an
easier, more sensational narrative.
A tweeter
named Kimberly Strassel became very excited because she found what she claimed
was an inconsistency. One description of the alleged party included four boys;
another included three boys and a girl.
Whenever
I teach tests for truth in narrative to my students, I ask them, how does
consistency reflect truth? And my students always say, "If a narrative is
consistent, it is true." I smile and bide my time.
I
tell students that it is common for law enforcement officers to keep a suspect
for a lengthy period, and to require that suspect to tell a story over and over
again.
My
students guess, "The cops want to know if the story is told the same way
every time. If the story is consistent, it is true."
Then
I ask, "Have you ever told the story of a long past event over and over again?
Did you tell it the same way every time?"
My
students get that Aha look that teachers so love.
Consistency
is not perfectly correlated with the truth value of narratives. The Gospels of
Mathew, Mark, Luke and John disagree on some details. This inconsistency is cited
by scholars to argue for the historicity of Jesus. If everyone told the exact
same story in the exact same way, it is less likely, not more likely, that the
story is not true. What kind of stories are perfectly consistent? Practiced
alibis.
Dr.
Ford, you named other persons. None of those persons supported your account.
That suggests that you are telling the truth. You would not have concocted a
story that included four potential witnesses, none of whom would be likely to
corroborate what you said. Two of those others are your alleged assailants.
They have good reason for denying your story. Two others say they don't
remember such a party. They have no reason to remember it. It was unremarkable
to them.
If
you were lying, you never would have named Mark Judge as participating in the
alleged assault. You had to refute not just one assailant, but two.
Another
thing that adds to your credibility: the detail about being in a one-piece
bathing suit that Kavanaugh allegedly could not remove.
Why
would you add a detail that weakened your narrative, that turned it into
groping rather than rape, or at least naked flesh fondling, if you were a Machiavellian
femme fatale or a paid agent of George Soros? Occam's razor, when it comes to
these details, suggests that you were telling the truth.
Finally,
narratives can be judged by support from known facts. We credit Luke in his
Gospel because Luke famously mentions numerous historical personages and places
that are familiar to us from numerous canonical sources.
Dr.
Ford, you depict a Brett Kavanaugh who was blind drunk, who attended beer
parties, and who was capable of a callous, sexually exploitative view of women,
and interested in a male-male-female threesome. We have available facts that
support all these points. Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge made sexually
exploitative and humiliating references to Renate Schroeder and other women in
their yearbook comments and other documents. Kavanaugh mentioned a devil's
triangle, a threesome involving two men and a woman. That is exactly the
assault you described – Kavanaugh and Judge assaulting you. Friends report that
Kavanaugh was a heavy drinker who was disoriented and belligerent when drunk.
Kavanaugh's own calendar, yearbook comments, and a letter he wrote describe
parties devoted to beer consumption to the point of loss of self-control.
Inside Edition found a house, once belonging to Kavanaugh's friend, that
matches the description you gave of the house where you were allegedly assaulted,
in the neighborhood you mentioned. Kavanaugh's calendar mentions that he was at
a party at such a house during the summer you say the assault took place. Rachel
Mitchell attempted to ask Kavanaugh about this calendar entry. Republican
senators cut Mitchell off. Brett Kavanaugh lied repeatedly under oath. He also
avoided questions, whereas, as a Vox tally shows, you answered them.
Dr.
Ford, I don't believe you more than I believe Kavanaugh because of any
prejudice on my part in your favor. I don't believe you more than I believe
Kavanaugh because I am a stereotypical, Machiavellian, harpy straight from the
pages of the Malleus Maleficarum. I believe you more than I believe Kavanaugh
because the facts support you more than they support Kavanaugh.
Dr.
Ford, maybe you really are a stealth replicant cooked up in the underground
laboratories of Team Trump's boogeyman, the evil Jewish genius bent on
destroying the world, George Soros.
The
available evidence suggests to any intelligent, inquisitive, fair-minded person
that you are telling the truth.
That
being the case, my heart goes out to you. You said, "I was … wondering
whether I would just be jumping in front of a train that was headed to where it
was headed anyway, and that I would just be personally annihilated." You knew
that that was a possibility. Patriotism inspired you forward.
You
opened my eyes to subterranean misogyny among people I previously thought of as
"nice" and "normal."
But
you also opened my eyes to hidden heroes. Several men in my Facebook feed came
to your defense, and to my defense, when the misogynists rushed to destroy you,
and to go for my throat because I dared argue for the full, human, dignity of
women. Otto Gross, Mark Shea, Sandy McReynolds, Paul Kujawsky, Karl Jonsson, Walter
Perry. I had not realized, before this, how heroic these guys are. And now I
know how heroic they are, because of you. May God bless you.
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