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iamanartichoke · 2 years ago

Text

Thoughts on the trial verdict.

Cut for tw domestic abuse, tw domestic violence, tw gaslighting, tw johnny depp & amber heard trial, tw truly offensive length, tw gratuitous gif usage, not for reblog.

(Note: This is not tagged with either Johnny or Amber's names bc I don't want this post to show up in those tags, so I'm sorry if you have them blocked and this made it past your filters. You can block off-topic: johnny depp trial thoughts instead, to hide the post.

(Note: I started writing this last Wednesday, a couple of hours after the verdict, but it just ... well. I don't really know what happened here, I just had a lot of feelings, I guess. I don't even want to post it anymore, tbh, bc it's almost a week later and it's probably nonsensical and who cares, really, I doubt anyone is going to read this anyway bc it's like 10k words - but, well, I'm literally only posting it bc it's written and wtf else am I going to do with it?)

Warning: this is really fucking long.

The verdict is in, with Johnny Depp having won his uphill legal battle. I believe he won all three counts, was awarded $10 million in damages (or maybe 8, I can't remember now), and Amber was awarded $2 million in punitive damages. Case closed, literally. Justice for Johnny Depp achieved.

... But to me, it feels kind of hollow.

Don't get me wrong - I am very happy with this result. I think this is vindication for Johnny and I hope he finds peace and healing as he moves forward with his life. It's just that this trial has gotten so much bigger than all of that, and - in the last few days of closing and verdict watch, especially - I have been so disappointed in this world, in this culture. To be honest, after the travesty that has been the last several years, I didn't think I could possibly be any more cynical about our society or that I could be surprised anymore about ... I don't know, anything, really, but specifically how willfully ignorant a lot of people are. This past week has proven you can always be more cynical and more surprised.

So I can't be happy or even satisfied with the verdict without also being cognizant of not only Amber Heard's supporters crying foul but also the mainstream media framing this as a loss for women, for abuse survivors. And just being immensely - I don't know, troubled, I guess? about it. And there are quite a few reasons why, but I just need to talk about the biggest ones. Right off the bat, it troubles me how gross it is that, despite having proven his case in a fair trial (and it was absolutely fair, anyone who doesn't think so either didn't watch it or didn't understand it), the media would rather continue to peddle the narrative that Johnny is an abuser and that this is some huge step backwards for feminism than to actually admit that, hey, men can be victims too, and also women lie. Not all women; probably not even most women - but, some women. Having a vagina doesn't preclude someone from being a lying liar who lies, and this cultural narrative of "believe all women" simply bc they are women is so fucking harmful and, yeah, gross.

(Please forgive my obnoxious faux-academic formatting of the remainder of this post, bc it just got too big for me to try to maintain a consistent point [I was confusing myself], so this was for my own sake but also hopefully easier readability.)

I. What This Really Says About #MeToo (And Why It's Uncomfortable).

A lot of people are upset bc they feel (and the media is perpetuating the idea, but I'll talk about that later) that this is a huge step backward for #MeToo. This is an example of women not being believed, and we're supposed to believe all women. Now women will have a harder time being believed, men will feel vindicated in their misogyny, what's wrong with this fucking world, etc. etc. And, I mean, the fact is that this argument isn't wrong. It is a blow to #MeToo. Women will have a harder time being believed. Men do feel vindicated in their misogyny.

But that's not because of Johnny, it's because of Amber. And that's what people can't seem to wrap their heads around.

Ia. #MeToo as a Movement.

#MeToo was an idea that became a movement that was founded on giving abuse survivors a voice. It was supposed to empower people to speak up and say, this happened to me too. That's literally what it means. It was strength in numbers, several voices in unison, fighting back against a culture that blamed women for their own abuse ("Well, what were you wearing?" "Why didn't you just leave him?" etc) and made it notoriously difficult for victims to get justice, especially for sexual abuse. Rapists are rarely convicted. Women are interrogated about their behavior, as if wearing a short skirt or drinking too much or even just walking home alone at night meant they deserved to have been raped or assaulted because "Well, what did you expect?" Women weren't (aren't) believed, and it needed to change. Needs to change; it's a constant battle.

And I'm saying women, specifically, here bc it's just a fact, statistically, that women are usually the victims and men are usually the perpetrators.

Ib. Mostly Women Victims = Only Women Victims [citation needed]

But, somewhere along the line, the point of the movement became muddled. "Stop blaming women for being abused; stop siding with abusers; start taking this seriously" became "believe women when they say they're abused, no matter what," and completely excluded men as victims from the conversation.

I'm not saying all women do this, obviously, but I am saying that there are a lot of women who define feminism not as equality but as superiority. They think in absolutes - statistically, men are more often perpetrators of abuse so therefore when there's abuse, the man is always the abuser is their mindset. It comes from having such a deep resentment of the patriarchy and male privilege that it's as if these women want to hold every individual man who exists personally responsible for the oppression of women.

(Note - I'm kind of uncomfortable painting this entire subset of women with the "terf/radfem" brush, bc I don't believe most of them are, so I'm referring to them as UberFeminists, bc it's my post and I do what I want.)

I don't necessarily think that every woman who thinks this way is automatically a radfem/terf, but rather, I think that a lot of women have this anti-men mindset by default, even if they never follow it into actively-radfem ideology. They may not even realize they have this mindset - until something like this trial comes along and here they are, either siding with Amber or, if they accept she's lying, are still quick to point out how Johnny is "just as bad" bc despite his being the victim, they still want to blame him for something due to his maleness. So they attack his addictions, or his foul language, or his age. (None of which are things to be proud of, but none of which make him an abuser, either.)

My point is, a movement like #MeToo, which is meant to be empowering, can very quickly become toxic when it attracts UberFeminists and they claim it for themselves and treat the movement like a safe space for only their voices. When men who are also victims try to speak up and say, me too, there's this overwhelming response of no. Get the fuck out of our safe space. Let women have this. You're not a victim like we are victims, we can't overpower you. And even if you are a victim, your maleness still gives you privilege. This movement is not for you. Society already gives you a voice, stop trying to speak over ours. It's like the equivalent of building a clubhouse and slapping a big old NO BOYS ALLOWED sign over the doorway.

And that's the heart of the issue, this is what leads us back to where we are now with Johnny and Amber. That NO BOYS ALLOWED sign was a self-inflicted blow to #MeToo; it changed the narrative from "believe survivors" to "believe women" and effectively contributed to the toxic masculinity in this society that says men aren't "real men" if they show emotion, or don't adhere to traditionally masculine gender roles. In addition to men can't be emotional, men must be tough, men must be domineering, etc, denying male victims a voice adds men must own their privilege, regardless of their abuse; real men aren't victims, even if she hits and slaps him, she's not actually a threat, it's not really abuse to the clusterfuck that is toxic masculinity.

"You didn't get punched, you got hit ... I did not fucking deck you, I was fucking hitting you. You're fine. I did not hurt you ... I'm not sitting here bitching about it. You're a fucking baby" (Amber Heard).

Ic. #MeToo Made Its Own Bed Here.

Again, to clarify, I'm not trying to demean #MeToo, either as a concept or as a catalyst for change. I know many women support it without also supporting the toxic masculinity, and it has helped a lot of women with their trauma, even if it's just made them feel less alone. But this is why I feel like people are uncomfortable with criticizing the movement - bc it feels like criticizing the people whom it has helped, and that's not what I'm trying to do.

I think that the movement, however, disintegrated into something inherently harmful, and in doing so, began undermining its own credibility. UberFeminists adopting it and subsequently establishing a narrative of "believe all women, no questions asked" and excluding men from the movement set the stage for Amber - and for women abusers in general - to weaponize it and use it to accuse her ex-husband of abuse while never expecting to actually have to prove it. "I'm a woman, that's my proof" has been the one consistent thread throughout all of her accusations for the last six or eight years. The public, at large, was asked to take her at her word that Johnny was an abuser and the public, so inundated with "believe all women" was like, *nods* seems legit. Johnny's word meant absolutely nothing. Just like she knew it wouldn't.

"Tell the world, Johnny, tell them, Johnny Depp — I, Johnny Depp, a man, I’m a victim too of domestic violence” and see how many people believe or side with you" (Amber Heard).

Well, he did tell the world, and he brought the receipts, and when Amber got on the stand and said, "I'm a woman, that's my proof," the court said, "Okay but what else have you got," and Amber was like, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ , and the court judged accordingly.* The result? #MeToo's "believe all women" narrative collapsed, and the same type of people who fucked it up in the first place responded by blaming Johnny for its implosion. It's not his fault he was abused, and it's not his fault that what should have remained a movement giving all victims a voice was co-opted by women who came along with their NO BOYS ALLOWED sign and drowned out the very voices - those of victims - they claimed to want to empower.

(*I am massively oversimplifying the trial so much here it's not even funny.)

"It is imperative that people stop viewing this trial through the lens of the #MeToo movement and the supposed reversal of its progress. As Gaby Hinsliff says, “a justice system [is] founded on the principle of believing the evidence, even where that sometimes leads in uncomfortable directions ... All women really ask of men – and, arguably, vice versa – is the chance to be heard without prejudice.” Heard was. The jury gave up six weeks of their lives to painstakingly go through the evidence in detail. It indicated that Heard was not telling the truth. This should not create a challenge for the #MeToo movement, if it cares about the truth, and not condoning the egregious defamation of an innocent person, who happens to be a man." (Source.)

A sidenote that I agree with but am not going to go into (bc this is long enough already) was posted by this article:

"Never mind the fact that Heard has never presented compelling evidence to prove her claims, we’re supposed to accept her version of events by virtue of her genitalia ... [#MeToo] has exposed something deeply troubling at the heart of our media and larger society – the infantilization of women. To assert that a woman is not capable of defamation, malice, or lying, is to ask us to deny the reality of human nature. It actually reeks of a deep lack of respect for women and all of the complexity they have to offer. Women are, as feminists rightly claim, capable of anything that a man can do. This encompasses, of course, the good and the bad. The notion that we must take a woman’s word before being presented with evidence has been one of the most detrimental effects on our society ... Depp may have prevailed in his defamation suit, but how many other men have Amber Heards at home who attempt to ruin their lives based on hearsay and never get the opportunity to defend themselves?"

II. "But He Said There Wasn't Any Letter. He Said I Was Going Out of My Mind." - (Gaslight, 1944)

One of the most appalling things about this entire case, and probably one of the things I latched onto the most, was how much gaslighting there was, and how much gaslighting there continues to be, on so many levels. Since this post is mostly just about the public's reaction to the verdict, I won't get into how I feel about the gaslighting in the actual relationship, except to say that it was genuinely triggering to me to discover not only how often Johnny's addiction struggles were used against him (for example, Amber claiming Johnny was drunk when he wasn't, that he was abusive during "blackouts" and so he didn't remember, things like that) but also just the blatant manipulation of so many events.

Mostly, I think listening to the audio recordings was really eye-opening. I'll address this more later bc it's not really something I talk about on here, but I have been in an abusive relationship and I have been gaslit, both in that relationship and in general, and I know what it feels like to be made to feel like you can't trust your own perception of how things played out, or that the truth means nothing, and how going around in circles with someone who is gaslighting you can feel like - well, it genuinely does make you feel crazy. The audio recordings reminded me a lot of that.

IIa. "You Keep Using That Word. I Don't Think It Means What You Think It Means."

When Amber and Johnny's divorce was finalized, Amber was awarded $7 million, which she immediately announced she would be donating to charity. After the divorce, she repeated this a lot - that she "wanted nothing," that she had donated her entire divorce settlement to charity - half to the CHLA and half to the ACLU. However, during the trial, it came out that she never actually donated any of the money, she just said she did. So then she changed her story to say, well, I pledged it, and I was going to honor that pledge, but then Johnny sued me.

Camille Vasquez established that the entire settlement had been paid to Amber a year before the lawsuit was filed, and Amber had yet to donate any of it to the charities, so she had the money. And there's this weird back-and-forth in which Amber sits there and insists that she has donated it, because she uses pledged and donated interchangeably, and even after Camille says something like, I don't use them interchangeably; again, have you donated your divorce settlement to charity as of today? Amber just doesn't back down from insisting that she donated the money bc, to her, saying she would do it is the same thing as actually doing it.

Camille's reaction after asking, yet again, have you donated the money, and Amber answering, yet again, yes, I pledged it:

^^ I normally wouldn't make gifs of a regular person (which Camille is, despite her being in the spotlight right now), but her expression here - the pure exasperation - just couldn't be captured in screengrabs and speaks to how frustrating it is to go around in circles with someone who not only won't back down from a lie, but makes you feel like you're the one who's wrong.

To me, the "pledged vs. donated" thing says a lot. It's an example, in real time, of how Amber continues to talk in circles and assert things that either are just not true, or are only true in the sense that she personally defines truth (but are not actually true). Even when confronted with evidence, she will not back down. It's so telling to me that if this is what she acts like on the stand, under oath, then imagine (or don't imagine, just listen to some of the audio recordings) how much she lies, bends the truth, or blatantly gaslights Johnny (and others around her/them).

And as I said earlier, according to people's comments online, this is what made a lot of people start doubting her credibility. Bc she was so blatantly asserting her own version of the truth, and it made a lot of people be like, well, how much of what else she's said is her version of the truth (if not outright lies)? What's going on here?

Looking at it from this perspective, it makes sense that the most die-hard Amber supporters' arguments hinge on misrepresenting the truth.

IIb. Something Something Last Two Braincells.

Earlier I mentioned the UberFeminists who have more or less taken possession of the #MeToo movement and made it a space that excludes men. Now these UberFeminists are the ones who are most ardently supporting Amber. From what I'm seeing, there are two groups of people supporting Amber:

Group A, said UberFeminists (along with actual radfems/terfs) who hate men so much that they'd rather align themselves with a narcissistic liar than admit a man can be a victim of domestic violence, and

Group B, people who aren't so much invested in believing Amber as much as they are in not believing Johnny. They're brushing the whole thing off with "Both of them are just as bad as each other" and not only do they openly admit they haven't watched (and therefore don't actually know anything about) the trial but also act like those of us who are watching are the problem. "It's none of our business," "There are more important things going on," "I'm not interested in watching two people fight over money they don't need," etc

Of course, there is

Group C, people who genuinely give zero fucks, are not invested either way, or don't even know this is a thing that's going on, which, whatever, I'm certainly not saying anyone is obligated to care or show interest in anything they don't want to. I have no reaction to the zero-fucks crowd, ie no emotion, ie it isn't bothering me. (I kinda envy it, tbh.) My issue is with the first two groups (and by extension the mainstream media).

Anyway, so being a Johnny supporter arguing (either actively, or just by virtue of position) with Groups A and B feels a lot like gaslighting, too. Because Group A (and to a lesser extent, Group B) is full of people cherry-picking and twisting what's been shown in court to create "alternative facts," basically, so they can feel justified in supporting Amber. And when you argue, they say: you're misinformed, lol where'd you hear that, TikTok? do your own research, etc. (And when you say, I watched the entire trial, here's my evidence, here's where xyz was proven a lie, etc, they're like, lol well I didn't waste my time watching this trial, go touch grass like - you literally cannot win. Which can also make you feel crazy - being told you're misinformed, and then having your counterargument dismissed as they belittle you ... for being informed.)

Either they twist the facts to support their preferred narrative bc they are stupid, or bc they genuinely hate men - it doesn't really matter which one it is, the point is that this really gets under my skin bc I've had enough of the "alternate facts" brigade. It's made me feel like I'm losing my mind for well over two years and it continues to make me feel like I'm losing my mind bc this isn't a disagreement of opinion, it's having an objective fact exist and I'm looking at it like, oh okay, so that's a thing, and the other person is looking at it like, I do not acknowledge this as a thing, sorry, nope.

Or, to put it more clearly, it's like I and another person are looking at a big orange basketball and I'm saying, hmm, yeah, looks pretty orange to me, bounces, definitely a basketball, and the other person is like, are you stupid, clearly this is a watermelon, and it's like - how do you even respond? Like, that's exactly what it feels like to me.

So on the one hand, you have Those People, and then on the other hand, you've got the Group B "it's none of our business" people. And I don't think interactions with them feel quite like gaslighting, but rather, they make one more cognizant of gaslighting happening? I don't know if that makes sense, but the easiest way I can think of to elaborate is to address how the mainstream media - publications I have respected - is openly siding with Amber. Headlines about how the internet is "turning on" Amber Heard, how the only people siding with Johnny Depp are alt-right q-anoners (which, believe me, is not a group I want to be associated with even a little), and how big a step backward this is for #MeToo. (Nevermind how damaging these headlines are to victims who are men - their voices don't matter, obvs.)

That's egrigious enough, but they support these statements by straight up saying that people on Johnny's side need to stop getting their information from TikTok soundbytes and Youtube clips. The media is doing exactly what Group A is doing - supporting Amber bc she's a woman and trying to discredit valid arguments against her by accusing the arguer of not knowing what they're talking about.

One article writes, "in the face of an internet eager to pin everything on Heard, it’s important to remind ourselves of the facts — not the TikTok narratives."

I just - this statement is literally not what's happening. It is, in fact, projection. The portion of the internet who is "pinning everything" on Amber is the portion that watched the trial. Who saw the facts and evidence being presented, in real time, and came to their own conclusions. And the media's response is basically, "no, you didn't, but maybe you saw so many TikToks that you think you did. You should stop doing that and get informed of the facts. Read my article."

I mean ... that feels like textbook gaslighting to me. And Group A may be using these same gaslighting tactics as they dig deeper into Amber's trench, but Group B is full of the people who fall for this shit. Either they lack the critical thinking skills to see through it, or they're just too intellectually lazy to challenge it; they fall for the gaslighting because they are content with being told what to believe, bc the media's narrative aligns with their own biases. And when you point out that hey, maybe it's not as clear-cut as the media wants you to believe? they hit you back with, "it's none of our business anyway."

And it's like, well, actually it is our business bc a) the legal system in the United States should be transparent and accessible to the public, and I don't think "we shouldn't be privy to what happens in the courts" is quite the flex you think it is, and b) the implications of this case have a far greater reach than just being Johnny and Amber's personal business.

But no. Group B is latching onto the idea that Johnny's supporters are the misinformed ones so that they can continue to stick their fingers in their ears like la la la, I support women, I will not intellectually confront the idea that men can be victims too, leave Britney Amber alone!

Which is a disappointing thing to watch, certainly, but probably the most disappointing part about it is how many left-aligned people seem to be in Group B, including my personal friends. People who a year ago were speaking out against, like, anti-vaxxers/anti-science dumbfucks are now thoroughly enmeshed in this anti-facts narrative pushed by the media.

So it just ... not only does it make me question people I thought I knew really well - question their intellect, at the very least, but also question their deeply-rooted biases - but it also makes me question media that I previously, as I said, respected.

IIc. "They're Really More Like Guidelines." - the Mainstream Media re: the Rules of Ethical Journalism.

"Proving that corporate media is lazy and stupid ... the Los Angeles Times ... reported a Jason Momoa joke meme as real news. 'At one point, actor Jason Momoa, star of ‘Aquaman,’ testified via live video in support [of] his co-star Heard,' he wrote ... the problem is that Momoa did not testify at the trial. Winton would have known this if he actually watched the proceeding ... Instead, Winton got his news about the trial from TikTok and social media where this meme was making the rounds ... Lawyers who attended the trial in the gallery to report on jury reactions ... hardly ever saw any mainstream news media in the courtroom. Yet Big Media wanted to be the ones guiding the narrative of the trial." (Source.)

(Note - when I first started writing this, the day of the verdict, most of this stuff was just beginning to come out. Since then, tons more media coverage has been and continues to be published, peddling this false narrative, and Amber's own lawyer has gone around to multiple news shows to spew more misinformation about how unfair the trial was. Here's a small sampling of this trash fire.)

What the #MeToo movement has become over the years set the stage for the media to openly support it by taking Amber at her word that she's a survivor of abuse. By doing so, they have been complicit in perpetuating the "believe all women" narrative and portraying Amber as this brave survivor, at the expense of Johnny Depp's reputation, career, and character (not to mention mental health). This trial was six weeks of evidence to the contrary, and millions of people watched it. And instead of owning their error, the media wants to double-down and call Johnny's supporters misinformed, and turn this verdict into an attack on #MeToo. They'd rather stick to the (extremely harmful) narrative that men can't be victims by calling this verdict an injustice for women.

This is them saving face instead of admitting that a) they might have fucked up and helped ruin a man's life, or b) their journalism has been flawed this entire time, as none of them ever dug hard enough for the truth. They didn't examine Amber's "mountain of evidence" to find out if any of it held any weight. They hopped on the story without doing the homework. Now they don't want to eat crow, so instead, they are trying to control the fallout, and when Johnny's supporters disagree with it (hey, that's not what happened and here's the evidence), the media responds with, whatever, stop getting your information from TikTok you fucking misogynist. Projection at its finest.

One publication, I think maybe the NYT but I can't remember off-hand, wrote an article about how trials shouldn't be aired like this. I followed a twitter link and didn't save it, so I have no idea how to find it again, but it stuck with me bc I think it was the first time I remember seeing (or paying attention to) evidence of this, like, smear campaign against the airing of the trial and the fact that people were watching it for themselves.

It definitely bothered me at the time, though. The tone was very much, like - hey, wait a second, you're not supposed to be watching things like this, you're supposed to believe what we tell you to believe bc we know better, we have the facts. You're fucking up the script and it needs to stop.

And I thought

waitwhat.gif (Tumblr only allows 10 images per post; actual gif spared indignity of being part of this essay.)

- only to find that the "it's none of our business" -ers were (are) eating it up. (Edit: I copy/pasted the wrong part of this post here, and now I don't remember what my original point was with this, besides just generally being appalling. My bad.)

Anyway, after seeing that article, I started to pay attention to what the mainstream media was saying, and in the wake of the verdict, it's just gotten even worse. Over and over - these are the facts. Stop getting your news from TikTok. Read a real news source. Believe Amber, the woman. Perpetuate the myth that men cannot be abuse victims. #MeToo. Even if Amber did some bad things, Johnny's just as toxic. There's no such thing as a perfect victim - stop vilifying Amber for not being perfect. Also Johnny is obviously a lying, toxic abuser bc he's not perfect (he does drugs! He's an addict/alcoholic with a foul mouth! He's a(n older) man!). Round and round we go and it's just fucking exhausting and frustrating.

(Note - Johnny is not even in the neighborhood of perfect, I'm not saying I think he's some innocent angel in all of this, I'm just saying he's human and very flawed but more importantly there's a blatant double-standard here and in general re: "perfect victims" that needs to be acknowledged.)

And it's not like the media gives a shit about #MeToo or victims of abuse. They're not taking this stance here bc they genuinely feel like (or care that) Amber has been wronged. They're taking this stance bc media needs consumers to stay afloat, and people aren't going to consume their brand of shitty journalism (ie, pay money to be fed a version of a pre-determined narrative) if they can go directly to the source instead and come to their own conclusions. So they (the media) are doing everything they can to undermine the credibility of the source.

And like I said before - it's a gross manipulation tactic, if not outright gaslighting, but I could be disgusted by it without feeling emotionally harmed by it until I realized that my friends were falling for it. Friends I've respected and commiserated with and just plain like, as people. Friends whose judgements I've always trusted, whose intellect felt on par with my own, whose beliefs aligned with mine (which, I am not saying everyone has to agree with me about everything ever in order to be my friend, but they do have to agree with me - and with decent human beings - when it comes to things like not being homophobic, racist, sexist [snort], etc).

But now these friends are suddenly looking at this basketball and saying, looks like a watermelon to me. And I'm like, but earlier we both looked at a tennis ball and agreed it was a tennis ball, and that the pomegranate was a pomegranate, I thought we were on the same page? and they reply, well, the pomegranate wasn't a fucking wife-beater.

I may have lost my point somewhere, but basically, the media is contributing to the gaslighting that seemingly has permeated every layer of this case, from the actual relationship itself to how the public responds to the verdict. And with the media, it adds this weird layer, this feeling of being gaslit by proxy in addition to being gaslit by the anti-facters - and it's an uncomfortable feeling, yknow, it's hard to sit with the cognizance of this kind of manipulation and willful ignorance in the wake of what should be a victory - for equality, for male victims of abuse, for survivors. (It also feels like a blow in the wake of four years of Trump and his cult undermining and discrediting the media as they pranced down the yellow brick road to fascism, but I'm not even going to get started on that.)

And I'm just - could people just, like, stop lying about absolutely everything? Stop fucking lying. Stop misrepresenting shit. Stop trying to shove a gray world into your narrow-minded black-and-white box so you can feel more comfortable marinating in your own ignorant biases.

IId. The "Perfect Victim"

As I addressed that Johnny is not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, I want to expand on that by referencing this study (which is a fascinating read) re: the credibility of victim testimony in this case, bc it explains - far better than I ever could - that Johnny's foul language and drug/alcohol problems (which Amber's defense and, by extension, her supporters - leaned on most heavily to paint the picture of him as a toxic abuser) do not inherently mean he is violent or abusive:

"Of approximately 70,000 text messages exchanged between Mr. Depp and numerous others during his marriage with Ms. Heard, the defendant selected one as evidence that Mr. Depp threatened her. In this message sent to a friend, Mr. Depp wrote, "..." Nonetheless, this message was never sent to Ms. Heard, nor was it meant to be seen by her. Apart from the testimony of Ms. Heard, there is no evidence that Mr. Depp had either seriously threatened or intended to commit serious violence against her."

*I omitted the text itself bc it's gross and genuinely appalling to me, but you can easily find it in the study linked, or just online.

Furthermore,

"Although Mr. Depp’s drug and alcohol abuse is consistently documented and therefore this risk factor should be assessed as definitively present, it is noteworthy that beyond Ms. Heard’s allegations, there is no indication of Mr. Depp being confrontational, aggressive, or violent while intoxicated, with any of his previous partners or other persons, in other public or private settings, or during other times in his life. His substance abuse did not seem sufficient to impair his capacity for work, he has no drug-related criminal record, and he has no history of driving under the influence. Moreover, the couple regularly recorded conversations as part of their relationship therapy. Ms. Heard explained “ . . . they were also a tool to remind Johnny of what he would do when using drugs and alcohol because he would not remember or would deny what he did or said.” However, in the evidence provided, there is no recording that shows Mr. Depp intoxicated, nor committing abuse or exhibiting violent behavior that escalated while intoxicated. In this regard, I consider this risk factor ambiguous. Drug and alcohol abuse is confirmed, but it is totally unclear that it triggers violence in Mr. Depp’s case."

Note the gaslighting, though - that Amber accuses Johnny of "not remembering" things he supposedly did bc he was "blacked out," with no supporting evidence that that was ever the case. Makes you wonder, doesn't it.

(Btw, this study was posted in 2021 - after the UK trial, but before this one, so these conclusions were reached when the public still largely believed Johnny was the abuser, which is maybe irrelevent but I think adds that extra little layer of credibility, in that the author of the study wasn't being biased or influenced by any pro-Johnny press.)

III. Here's the Real Tea, Sis; Or, Why I Care.

The media would have the public believe that the trial was unfair, that this is a huge setback for victims everywhere, that this is silencing countless voices and will prevent people from coming forward in the future.

As I said earlier, there's truth in that, but it's not bc of Johnny. But the media would also have the public believe that Johnny's supporters are misogynists, or right-wingers, or just rabid Johnny Depp fangirls. And again, that's not even remotely close to the truth.

Here's where I'm coming from. I wasn't even a Johnny Depp fan before this trial. (I'm not sure I'd even consider myself one now, tbh. Just a sympathizer.) I'm probably more of a Jack Sparrow fan than a Johnny fan, and I'm not even that big of a Jack Sparrow fan. I enjoyed a few of Johnny's other movies and just generally viewed him as one of the better actors in Hollywood, but I don't really consider that being a fan. I knew absolutely nothing about this case. I'd heard things here and there about Johnny vs. Amber over the years (I remember the finger incident being talked about a lot a couple of years ago, I think), I thought that we probably weren't getting the whole story bc Johnny had never seemed like an abuser, but maybe he was though, and I never thought about it more deeply than that.

What caught my attention: I was killing time at work, and I started watching some of the testimony of Dr. Dawn Hughes, one of Amber's witnesses (specifically, the psychiatrist who diagnosed her with PTSD), and after watching her being cross-examined for several minutes, I remember thinking, what the fuck kind of psychiatrist is this? Not only were her diagnostic methods being called into question (she didn't understand the assignment), but she was contradicting herself, making sweeping generalizations that rang false, and just generally coming off as not a credible witness.

"Dr Hughes spends over 20 minutes of direct examination testimony describing various forms of domestic violence. EVERY example she gives uses he/him as the source of abuse and she/her as the target of abuse. She also makes excuses for women who exhibit behaviors that could be called abusive. Her excuses expose a belief that if women yell at, hit, etc their male partner it’s because he’s mean to her. To extrapolate from Dr Hughes’ DV description below, if women are abusive it’s because a man made her do it, and if a man is abusive it’s because he’s bad." (Source.)

(^^ The above source is a good, thorough breakdown of how Hughes was biased against Johnny bc she doesn't believe women are ever perpetrators of violence without provocation, which - among other things - undermines her credibility as an "expert witness" for Amber.)

Anyway, this was about three weeks into the trial, and my interest was piqued, so I started watching more attentively. The more interested I got, the more invested I got. I went back and watched as much as I could from those first three weeks, and then I listened to the audio recordings, and I read the witness statements and most of the testimony from the UK trial, and it all just culminated in this feeling of holy shit, this is fucked up on so many levels.

In other words, everything I know about this case, I have learned in the last 3-4 weeks - but, I learned it thoroughly. And I'm not unique - there are so many people, on Reddit, on Youtube, even on tumblr, who have said they got invested in pretty much the same way. They didn't know much, if anything, about the case, they started watching bc it was on, and as the evidence kept stacking up against Amber, they got hooked. There were lawyers live-streaming eight hours a day, watching the trial and offering commentary. One lawyer, live-streaming daily, would have literally 125-150 thousand viewers on her stream, many of them chatting, interacting, asking questions.

There were lawyers sitting in the gallery, watching everything first-hand. Hours-long "recap" videos of people examining and talking about the evidence from that day's court session. Among Johnny's supporters, there is a metric fuckton of people (myself included) who have invested hours, days, the full six weeks into this trial, and it's so fucking insulting to have that reduced to "stop getting your information from TikToks, you're so misinformed."

Also among Johnny's supporters are tons and tons of abuse survivors. Survivors of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, gaslighting. Again, myself included.

It's not really something I talk about on tumblr, bc I just don't feel the need to and it was a long time ago (and also I have repressed a lot of it so I wouldn't really even know how to talk about it if I wanted to, but I digress), but for context - I was in an abusive relationship for over two years. I was nineteen/twenty, and didn't know anything about anything. The abuse was mostly emotional, occasionally physical (but not severely so). A ton of gaslighting. People around me telling me it "wasn't that bad," "everyone fights," when I expressed wanting to leave the relationship. I remember feeling off-kilter all the time, knowing something was seriously fucked up but not truly recognizing the emotional abuse and gaslighting for what it was. So I assumed it was a me problem, instead, that I was horrible in some way for being so miserable. Eventually I got out but even to this day, once in a blue moon, my mom will bring up that guy and mention it's a shame it didn't work out (like maybe she'll find a picture or something that reminds her, it's not as random as it sounds), and I'll say something like, that relationship was toxic and abusive and I hope I never see him again in this life, and she'll kind of shrug a little, like, well, if that's how you see it I won't argue with you. And, I mean, I don't even know what to do with that, except to say that even to this day, even posting this right now, I feel like, maybe that is just how I see it, maybe it wasn't abusive at all, maybe it was just a me problem. So.

But even outside of that relationship, I've been gaslit. I have had my kindness taken advantage of. I have had lies told about me. I have struggled with addiction and I have mental health issues. I know how it feels, and I have some idea of how Johnny feels, and how it all fucks a person up, and I considered that alongside the evidence and landed where I have.

Again, I'm not unique in this. This Reddit thread, for example, is full of people talking about their experiences and their backgrounds - liberals, women, poc, queer people, survivors, male survivors, etc. These are the people supporting Johnny. And I feel like brushing us off and undermining us and gaslighting us in order to side with Amber, solely because she's a woman, does far more damage to domestic violence awareness than Johnny's win ever could.

And that's ... pretty much how I'm feeling. Happy for the verdict, but hollow as well. Disappointed and sad. Frustrated. Recognizing the victory but feeling like it's already tarnished by the toxic people who want to take it away.

So, yeah.

Me @ me, posting this:

Some disclaimers:

This was written literally as just a vent - or, at least, it started out that way, but as I said at the top, I started this on the afternoon of the verdict and I'm finishing it almost an entire week later. What started as a vent became just a space for me to really work out, for my own mental clarity, why all of this bothers me so much and why it matters. I don't expect anyone to be swayed in either direction by this; I don't expect anyone will even read it, tbh, bc it's just offensively long. I'm just explaining why this even exists. Basically, this shit is/was living rent-free in my head and it needs to be evicted.

This is all my opinion and my reaction; take it with a grain of salt. As mentioned, the formatting with headers, etc was just my way of keeping the post sensical for me, as I was writing it. I realize it's probably obnoxious, so, sorry.

I didn't provide links to Amber's quotes taken from audio recordings bc they're all over YouTube and I couldn't find either transcripts or vids that were cut down to just the portion I was quoting.

Between the day I started this and the day I finished it, tumblr introduced its "turn off reblogs" feature, which is super convenient. I don't want this reblogged bc a) I don't think it's particularly well-written, and b) I shared more personal details about myself that I didn't really intend to, and I'd just rather not have any of this floating around in the tumblrsphere.

#tw domestic violence #tw domestic abuse #tw gaslighting #tw all the triggering things #long post #mood gif #off-topic: johnny depp trial thoughts

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oselatra · 8 years ago

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Abuse again at Arkansas juvenile lockup

A guard was fired after choking a child at the Alexander Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center. It’s the latest in a long history of mistreatment at the facility. After years of scandal and allegations of mistreatment of juveniles, the Arkansas Juvenile Assessment and Treatment Center (AJATC), a 100-bed juvenile lockup facility near Alexander, was handed over last summer to a new contractor promising a fresh start. Michael Cantrell, executive director of the southeastern region for Rite of Passage, the Nevada-based for-profit company that was awarded the $34 million contract in 2016, said at the time that the company was committed to “transform a harder facility into a softer facility.” However, Amy Lafont, an attorney representing several families with children locked up at the facility, said that AJATC continues to take an overly punitive approach, which she described as “a culture of casual violence.” Lafont recently acquired a video captured by the facility’s cameras of an incident last December in which a guard jumped over a table, grabbed a 15-year-old, and pushed him against the wall with his hand around his throat. The child, who is Lafont’s client, did not appear in the video to be acting in a way that could be construed as endangering himself or others. The guard, Darrell Woods, whose official job title was group living counselor, was fired. The Arkansas State Police Crimes Against Children Division (CADC) investigated the incident and determined in January that Woods’ actions constituted child maltreatment and that Woods’ name should be placed on the Arkansas Child Maltreatment Central Registry. The juvenile and his family say he attempted to notify staff about what happened and had visible bruising on his neck, but no action was taken until two days later. Rite of Passage disputes both of these claims, arguing that it was an isolated incident of an individual guard failing to follow protocol and that Rite of Passage followed the proper procedure in notifying the State Police once it learned of the allegation. Department of Human Services spokesperson Amy Webb declined to comment, saying the agency was prohibited by law from answering questions about any specific child maltreatment investigations. A true finding of abuse by CACD at a facility overseen by DHS’ Division of Youth Services must be reported to DYS, and presumably was in this case. As a matter of general policy, Webb said, in such a scenario, “DYS also conducts its own review of an incident and takes any follow-up action necessary.” AJATC is one of seven juvenile lockup facilities, known as treatment centers, overseen by DYS. In total, 305 youths are housed at these facilities (there are also 14 county-level lockup facilities, where youths would first be taken upon arrest). They are called treatment centers because they are intended to be therapeutic and rehabilitative rather than punitive, and they are required to provide education that meets state standards and allows youths to continue on a path to graduation from high school. Before Rite of Passage took control last year, AJATC had a long history of trouble. In 2003, the facility was placed under federal court supervision after a U.S. Department of Justice investigation found various violations of constitutional rights, including unsafe conditions, inadequate education and forced participation in religious activities. In 2007, while still under court supervision, an internal state investigation found that the lockup’s staffers were improperly drugging children without their consent to control their behavior. That scandal led DYS to replace then-contractor Cornell Interventions with a new company, G4S (both are for-profit corporations), but more controversy came in 2014. The attorney general found that DYS was illegally taking DNA samples from hundreds of youths at AJATC. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that the number of violent incidents at the facility had nearly doubled after it was released from federal supervision. Multiple staffers were fired or resigned after accusations of assaulting youths. An investigation by the Disability Rights Center of Arkansas also found systemic problems at the facility, including accusations that staff members had used candy to bribe youths to fight each other. Some juvenile justice advocates argued that AJATC should be shut down. Paul Kelly, a longtime senior policy analyst for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families who retired this month, said research strongly suggests that large institutional settings like AJATC are harmful rather than rehabilitative for most children. “All of the youth justice advocates across the country and all of the states around us are saying that these are not good places for kids to be,” he said. He said it was of particular concern when such institutions were run by a private for-profit company. For years, Kelly said, Arkansas has systematically overinvested in institutions like AJATC and underinvested in community-based alternatives. Arkansas Advocates estimates that the state has fewer than 50 youths who need to be confined in a heavily secured lockup facility like AJATC. (Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families has contributed funding to the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network for reporting on juvenile justice issues.) The state made another major investment in AJATC in 2016, when it awarded a three-year contract to Rite of Passage, which won the bid over G4S despite a higher price tag. During a legislative review of the contract, Rite of Passage, which runs more than 40 other programs for troubled youths in 16 states, including similar facilities for juvenile offenders, was asked about problems that have occurred in some of its facilities. A staffer in Colorado in 2014 and another in Texas in 2016 were charged with offenses related to sexual contact with youths in custody. Multiple investigations of a facility in Nevada found poor conditions and rights violations, and riots broke out in December 2015, leading to a fire and the escape of 10 juveniles. Rite of Passage officials said that these were isolated incidents and that occasional problems were inevitable when dealing with this population.

***

The incident at AJATC that led Rite of Passage to terminate Woods’ employment took place on Dec. 1, in Building 19 — a building used for initial assessment when youths first arrive as inmates and also as a space to remove inmates from the general programming if they do not behave. Sometimes, youths are confined in small individual cells. “It’s a last resort,” said Cantrell. “It’s a space where kids can get themselves together and the ultimate goal is getting them back into normal programming as quickly as possible.” According to Rite of Passage, Jason — his name has been changed in this story to protect his anonymity — was sent to Building 19 on Dec. 1 because he had acted up in class and then again in the in-school-suspension classroom. The altercation with Woods took place in an open space in Building 19 after Jason had been briefly let out of his cell. According to Jason’s account, he was waiting to get word from the shift supervisor about where he was supposed to go next, but Woods declined to contact the supervisor and ordered Jason to go to his cell. Jason said he wouldn’t go to his cell until he heard from the shift supervisor. Woods’ statement in Rite of Passage’s own internal investigation doesn’t mention the request to see the shift supervisor; it simply states that Jason continually refused to go back to his cell. At some point during this dispute, Woods began to chase Jason around the room. According to Jason, he flicked a playing card and Woods threw a mesh bag at him. According to Woods’ account, it was Jason who threw the mesh bag, but on the video it appears that Woods threw it. Eventually, Woods jumped over the table and grabbed Jason. With his hand around Jason’s throat, he slammed him against the wall, holding him in this position for several seconds. “He was choking me,” Jason said in an interview with ANNN conducted at AJATC in March. “He said, ‘If I say, “You gonna go in your room,” you gonna go in your room.’ I was just trying to breathe. I was thinking in my head, I was like, ‘Dang, I hope he don’t kill me.’ If he would’ve kept choking me for about 10 more seconds, I know I would’ve passed out.” In his written statement to Rite of Passage’s internal investigator, Woods said that when Jason refused to go back to his room, he “end[ed] up grabbing him against the wall and asking him several times to go back to his room” and then “escort[ed] student … back to his room.” According to Jason, after the incident, Woods came to his cell and asked him whether he wanted candy, cookies or the use of his phone in an attempt to keep Jason from telling anyone about what happened. Jason said that he had severe bruising on his neck from the altercation. He said that he told a staff member about what happened, but no action was taken. He also said that he asked to file a grievance form but was never provided the necessary paperwork by Rite of Passage staff. According to Rite of Passage, Jason did not immediately tell any staff member and there was no visible bruising. All employees at a juvenile treatment facility are mandated reporters of child maltreatment, required by law to immediately report suspected abuse to the state’s Child Abuse Hotline. Webb, the DHS spokesperson, said that in a hypothetical scenario in which a staffer failed to report abuse, that staffer would be immediately terminated by DYS. She added, “If there is a situation in which a youth claims a staffer failed to report allegations that a youth disclosed, DYS would need to be notified by the youth, the youth’s family, or the youth’s attorney so that we can try to determine whether failure to report abuse occurred.” Two days after the incident, on Dec. 3, Jason’s mother came for visitation. According to her, she could still clearly see the bruising on his neck. She became upset, and a Rite of Passage grievance officer spoke with Jason and his mother and took the complaint alleging that Woods had choked Jason. At this point, Rite of Passage called the Child Abuse Hotline, which triggered the CACD investigation. Rite of Passage also began its own internal investigation into the incident, during which it took the statement from Woods. No written statement was taken from Jason, although the internal investigator did speak to him. Rite of Passage disputes certain aspects of Jason’s account. “The kid didn’t say anything until he talked to his mother on Dec. 3,” Cantrell said. He said it was “flat-out incorrect” that Jason had attempted to inform a staffer before then. Meanwhile, he noted that once Rite of Passage took the grievance complaint and began its own incident report, a shift supervisor inspected Jason on the afternoon of Dec. 3 and concluded that he “does not have any marks on him.” “There were no marks on this kid. There were no bruises. There was none of that,” Cantrell said. Jason’s mother, however, said that the bruises were still visible when she visited on Dec. 3 and that both she and another family member visiting saw the markings on his neck. “They were clearly there,” she said. “I saw them with my own two eyes.” The Rite of Passage incident report created after the facility’s internal investigation includes paperwork stating that there were no markings, but it is signed by the shift supervisor, not a medical professional. Cantrell said staff members sometimes do an initial “mark sheet,” but protocol would call for a nurse on site to also examine the child after an accusation of maltreatment. He said that a nurse examined Jason on Sunday, Dec. 4, and completed a mark sheet stating there were no visible marks. The incident report did not include any record of this, but Rite of Passage later provided the nurse’s mark sheet as part of a response to a Freedom of Information Act request. “If they’re trying to challenge whether or not it was serious because of whether or not he had neck bruises two days later from being choked by an adult, that’s a diversionary argument,” said Lafont, the attorney who, along with attorney Lawrence Walker, represents Jason’s family. “The video speaks for the assault that was committed on this kid. We shouldn’t be minimizing that.” The video review in the Rite of Passage incident report described the moment that Jason characterized as Woods choking him as follows: “GLC Woods slides over a table and approaches [Jason]. GLC Woods has him against the wall briefly then escorts him into his room.” Lafont said the Rite of Passage incident report was biased and inaccurate. “It’s a fraudulent document,” she said. “It doesn’t depict what’s on the video and it creates a paper record that is a misrepresentation of what happened. It’s evidence of malfeasance.” Lafont said it was disturbing that the video review referred to a physical interaction that happened earlier in the afternoon in terms of “horse playing”: “Woods has [Jason] up against a wall. Woods and [Jason] are horse playing.” This earlier physical interaction was also “not appropriate — he was not following protocol,” Cantrell said. Cantrell’s interpretation of the severity of the event differs from Lafont’s. “If you look at the video, they were joking, they were running around, being silly with each other,” Cantrell said. “But then when the kid was asked to go to the room, the kid refused to go to the room.” Nevertheless, Cantrell said, the response at that point from Woods clearly violated their policies and protocols. On Dec. 5, Rite of Passage fired Woods, who had worked at AJATC since 2014, previously in a similar position with G4S. Woods used “obviously improper techniques,” Cantrell said. “He wasn’t trained to grab a kid like that, around the head, so to speak. “We have a physical intervention policy. There’s a proper way to intervene with kids in a physical manner if they’re either a danger to themselves or a danger to others. There’s a protocol, there’s techniques to be used. If you don’t use those techniques properly, that is a violation of the policy, and he violated that policy.” Cantrell said that in addition to the technique itself being improper, “at that point, the kid running around the room did not appear to be a danger to himself or others.” “We made the decision quickly,” Cantrell said. “Mr. Woods violated policy and Mr. Woods doesn’t work there anymore.” Asked what had gone wrong that led to the problem, Cantrell responded: “I think there’s probably a couple of variables. The youth’s behavior — refusal to follow directions — obviously, he’s not innocent in this situation as far as his behaviors are concerned. But basically the staff member did not follow the protocol as he was trained. I think that the kid’s behaviors were not acceptable, but that’s not a reason for the staff member not to follow the protocol. To be quite honest, I think that the young man saw Mom, you know, and pumped it up. The reality is that this kid, he made a big deal out of it when he got to his mom on Dec. 3. But once we were made aware that he believed he was abused, we followed our protocol and called the State Police, and did the things that our protocol says that we should do.” Jason’s mother said that no child should be treated in the manner that she saw on the video and that she worries for her son’s safety in AJATC. “He’s a child,” she said. “I know he’s not going to get the treatment that he gets at home, but for [Woods] to throw the mesh bag at him, jump over the table, and actually grab him by the neck and slam him against the wall? It’s ridiculous. You could have actually hurt him really bad. I go to bed every night praying that God just keeps him safe.” Lafont said that two other clients confined at the facility have alleged maltreatment that she reported to the hotline; CACD has opened investigations, which are ongoing. She said she is exploring the possibility of a lawsuit on behalf of youths who she says have faced maltreatment at the facility. Cantrell said that Rite of Passage’s goal is to “take as great care of these kids as we possibly can, and our policies, procedures and protocols are designed to make sure that happens. In the real world, does it always work perfectly? It does not. But we’re going to take any kind of maltreatment or abuse of any kind against kids extremely seriously.” Cantrell said he was pleased with Rite of Passage’s progress in transforming AJATC into a “softer facility.” He pointed to investments in remodeling and improving the living units; sports programs, including bringing in basketball and soccer teams in from the community; more than 50 volunteers from the community coming into work with kids; the development of work and job-training programs; and replacing the previous prison-style jumpsuits with school uniforms. “It feels much more like a schoolhouse than a jailhouse compared to when we took over, that’s for sure,” Cantrell said Jason’s mother has a different impression. “No kid should be subject to that kind of punishment,” she said of the incident shown in the video. “They treat these kids like they’re caged animals instead of human beings that are kids.” This reporting is courtesy of the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network, an independent, nonpartisan news project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans. Abuse again at Arkansas juvenile lockup

#Abuse again at Arkansas juvenile lockup

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