Know My Name: A Memoir

by Chanel Miller

I didn’t know that money could make the cell doors swing open. I didn’t know that if a woman was drunk when the violence occurred, she wouldn’t be taken seriously. I didn’t know that if he was drunk when the violence occurred, people would offer him sympathy. I didn’t know that my loss of memory would become his opportunity. I didn’t know that being a victim was synonymous with not being believed.

Up until then I’d envisioned a limitless future. Now the lights went out, and two narrow corridors lit up. You can walk down the one where you attempt to forget and move on. Or you walk down the corridor that leads back to him. There is no right choice; both are long and difficult and take indefinite amounts of time.

They seemed angry that I’d made myself vulnerable, more than the fact that he’d acted on my vulnerability.

To deny my messiness would be to deny my humanity.

You can walk anywhere you want. It’s not fair you get to unsubscribe from the videos. You get to turn off the feed, you get to see it selectively, I don’t have that option, to decide not to live it. I’m trying to show you what it’s like for me. It doesn’t matter what I do, it doesn’t matter what I wear, how I act, it’s constant, the harassment is constant. I have no money for a car, and even if I did, I enjoy walking, I want to keep walking.

Masculinity is often defined by physicality, but that initial kneeling is as powerful as the leg sweep, the tackling. Masculinity is found in the vulnerability, the crying.

It is not a question of if you will survive this, but what beautiful things await you when you do. I had to believe her, because she was living proof. Then she said, Good and bad things come from the universe holding hands. Wait for the good to come.

You want to know why my whole goddamn family was hurting, why I lost my job, why I had four digits in my bank account, why my sister was missing school? It was because on a cool January evening, I went out, while that guy, that guy there, had decided that yes or no, moving or motionless, he wanted to fuck someone, intended to fuck someone, and it happened to be me.

Why is it that we’re wary of victims making false accusations, but rarely consider how many men have blatantly lied about, downplayed, or manipulated others to cover their own actions?

The friendly guy who helps you move and assists senior citizens in the pool is the same guy who assaulted me. One person can be capable of both. Society often fails to wrap its head around the fact that these truths often coexist, they are not mutually exclusive. Bad qualities can hide inside a good person. That’s the terrifying part.

Those moments that you assaulted her were just the beginning; you took her down with you because you failed. You saw a drunk girl alone, incapacitated—why would you not try to find her friends? I was trying to find her. You nearly destroyed her spirit, but you did not succeed. You cannot undo the harm you have caused her, the darkness you have put us through, but you can now finally leave us alone to heal. The only sorrow I feel for you is that you never got to know my sister before you assaulted her. She’s the most wonderful person in the world.

Is an apology valid without change? If he says he’s sorry, but maintains he’s not guilty, doesn’t that resemble manipulation more than reconciliation?

The judge had given Brock something that would never be extended to me: empathy. My pain was never more valuable than his potential.

I am not a burden. I am not limited, I am ever expanding. Your suffering means something.

Oh but his reputation! That’s really where he suffers. My advice is, if he’s worried about his reputation, don’t rape anyone.

This ugliness was something I never asked for, it was dropped on me, and for a long time I worried it made me ugly too. It made me into a sad, unwelcome story that nobody wanted to hear.

The place to be remembered is not where I was assaulted, but where he fell, where I was saved, where two men declared stop, no more, not here, not now, not ever.

It took me a long time to learn healing is not about advancing, it is about returning repeatedly to forage something.

Fight because you know that in this life, you deserve safety, joy, and freedom. Fight because it is your life. Not anyone else’s.