#emilydoe

[litsavantbookclub]

Know my name Book Review

Hello fellow readers!

Just this past weekend I finished Chanel Miller’s Know my Name, a memoir from the perspective of Emily Doe and her experience of the highly publicized 2015 assault that occurred to her on California’s Stanford University Campus. 

I personally remember reading about the case when at work at a CUNY campus and feeling horrified by the details and lack thereof. I remember the lack of identity and empathy that Emily Doe received from a select audience and the strange headlines regarding the defendant. But I digress.

This book was another perspective that adds to the me too conversation. It was refreshing, beautifully eloquent, and many things left myself tearing up in public on my commute. It is a visceral experience that is best digested. I personally savored it in chunks because it was intense and a lot to process. 

One of the most endearing and relatable things about the book is Miller wanting to protect those closest to her from the fallout. She states that she “...wanted to preserve their peace” (45). She mentions the story of her parents doing their best to not ruin Christmas for her and her sister. Even though they knew what really happened to the cat. And just like her parents, she compartmentalized moments and breakdowns. She would: “do what I had always done: detach, keep going” (44). But much like those jars that she would hide away in her metaphorical basement, they would come back. They would materialize out of thin air and to her dismay she would start the journey again, deep down. 

Miller alludes to her being like one of those departed students from the tracks. She writes: “so on that January morning in 2015...was like being read a letter...it was not about a death on the tracks ...this time, it was my name” (44). I personally remember being that far away from myself. I felt both everything and nothing. And that trauma is hard to describe to others. Miller did so tremendously. It is poignant. And that keenness is sharp and quick to the cut. Miller’s words are as powerful as any weapon but delivered with the soft vulnerability.

Rape, trauma, and the experience of being a victim are just a shortlist of the things that Miller touches on. Moreover, she also highlights the way society and education connect to mental illness. The complex way that things get put on hold and how we as human beings are not supposed to drop the ball even when we’re suffering. This is mentioned as one of the ways that Miller developed her coping mechanism of dissociating from the painful realities of the world: “...we settled for perpetual numbness.” (43). The content states the way Miller and her classmates were urged and encouraged to move on with their lives regardless of the fact that many of their acquaintances and friends were killing themselves. One day they were there, the next gone. No explanation or further harping of the “ugly truth.” 

This “perpetual numbness” echoed the idea that even though lives were being lost and morale was low students shouldn’t and eventually couldn’t run the risk of pausing. To be pause meant to stop, to stop meant, to lose momentum. This loss of momentum was precious and because you were going against the grain of what was expected of you. It meant there must be something wrong with you. Miller continues: “to be unstable meant to fall behind” (42). This is something that happens to many people but sometimes these moments can wreak havoc on our lives. But we are humans and we are not perfect. Yet it is expected frequently. And the shame that accompanies our failure to meet such expectations are searing. 

Before I get even more ahead of myself, the book was overall, a passionate and poignant account of a woman who lost her voice and identity but found that she always had it. Regardless, of all the smoke and mirrors those determined to tear her down had set up. Approaching the end of her book I’m struck by the following words: “hold up your head when the tears come, when you are mocked, insulted, questioned, threatened, when they tell you you are nothing...” (328). These words will comfort those that have ever been dismissed or sneered at. This empathy can provide guidance and kindness to those who need it.

Rating: 4.25

Keywords: Passionate, poignant, and emotionally wrenching.

[theemilydoll]

I'm baaaaack!! All new #MCWTD is brewing up nice and hot for you!! Love soon!!!! #MondayCoffeeWithTheDoll #EmilyDo #TheDoll #ADoll4All #Pinup #Vlogger https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu3yqxugiLT/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=vfgbiwqy8rgi

[thetestimonyprojectdc-blog]

Thank you #emilydoe for these beautiful words

[someoldbones]

what really fucks me up about the Brock Turner case is not so much that it was a male judge and i’m siding with the “oh yea of course a male judge is going to go easy on another male” because i try really hard not to generalize and i don’t think that all male judges would have made the same call as Persky. I think that what fucks me up more than anything, not just about the judge, but about Brock’s parents probably more so. Is that THEY HAVE A DAUGHTER. BROCK HAS A SISTER. IT COULD HAVE BEEN HIS SISTER. IT STILL CAN BE HIS SISTER. (I am not saying that I think Brock would rape/molest his own sister, but my point is that another male very well could) and if his family is fine with Brock doing it to someone, they should damn well sit down and shut up and look at any other male who has committed the same crime with the same eyes they’ve looked at their son. If someone were to touch Brock’s mom, I doubt her husband would tolerate sitting in a court room listening to how the accused was a yale grad, discovered the cure for AIDS, and has been a stand up guy who’s donated a solid portion of his life savings to charity. FUCK THAT. I don’t care, a crime is a crime and the lack of looking at the bigger picture here makes my stomach hurt. My skin is crawling, reading all these letters of praise, while a 23 year old woman has to hide in her own body because someone couldn’t handle being insanely intoxicated and HAD to shove their grimey hands and pine cones into an innocent females body? fuck that. fuck that a thousand times over. I know plenty of people who go to college, get arguably too involved with the party scene, and do some stupid shit. every night of the week for four years or better. but they don’t go around raping people and calling it part of a drunken stupor. (yes college rapes/assaults happen, and more often then statistics can even illustrate because of lack of reporting) but some of them happen while the rapist are completely sober. alcohol does not rape people. the same way guns do not kill people. there’s always a human connection between the two. fucking own your shitty actions and the fact that you ruined someone else’s life because you couldn’t knock back as many shots as you thought you could and still find some level of self control. her body was not for you, Brock. And you ruined it. I can’t fathom how a man with a wife and daughter (Dan Turner) could find so many excuses as to how the “20 minutes of action” should be brushed off the shoulder.

Fuck this entire situation.

I stand with Emily Doe, and I stand with the thousands of people throwing rocks at Judge Persky’s window. You suck. You’re inhuman, and frankly a fucking shitty person.