{"id":236,"date":"2020-05-08T18:09:08","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T22:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/?p=236"},"modified":"2020-05-08T18:15:55","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T22:15:55","slug":"ignorance-is-complicity-averting-our-eyes-from-tara-reade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/phi345-sp20\/uncategorized\/ignorance-is-complicity-averting-our-eyes-from-tara-reade\/","title":{"rendered":"Ignorance is Complicity: Averting Our Eyes From Tara Reade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, I\u2019ve started opening conversations by asking, \u201cWhat do you know about Tara Reade<\/a>?\u201d So far, the answer is \u201cNot much,\u201d over and over. As frustrating as that is to me, I can\u2019t be entirely unsympathetic. Like America, I have had a habit of ignoring things I don\u2019t want to believe.<\/p>\n

In 2016, I was a senior in high school, and I was all in for Hillary Clinton. Although I was just barely too young to vote, I talked to people about Hillary, shared articles on Facebook, and ran phone-banking parties on the weekends.<\/p>\n

I remember talking to a woman on the phone, the week before Election Day, and having her tell me that she was impressed with my commitment, but she just couldn\u2019t trust Hillary to protect Black people. She may have mentioned Hillary\u2019s 1996 comment about \u201csuperpredators.\u201d<\/a> I felt panicked. I said something about how Trump was so much worse. And the woman on the phone said \u201cWell, thank you, but I\u2019m not going to vote this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, I was desperate for Hillary Clinton to be a hero. I was aware that people criticized her for her foriegn policy, for racist comments she had made, and for a range of policies she supported during Bill Clinton\u2019s presidency. Yet I chose to dismiss that criticism without looking at what it actually was, because I thought that I needed her to be perfect to defeat Trump. I was afraid of what it would mean if her critics were right.<\/p>\n

What I have learned is that ignoring something is accepting it, and accepting it is maintaining it.<\/p>\n

When my friends and family respond to questions about Tara Reade with assertions that they \u201cdon\u2019t believe Joe Biden would do that\u201d or that he is \u201cmuch better than Trump,\u201d I hear the process of maintaining American ignorance at work. I am reminded of James Baldwin\u2019s book, The Fire Next Time, <\/i>and his discussion of white America\u2019s prodigious effort to remain ignorant of the realities of racist violence and inequality in Black American life. <\/i>Dismissing Reade\u2019s accusation involves a much simpler, easier ignorance, but it plays into the same framework, protecting the powerful through a refusal to engage with the facts. My friends aren\u2019t really saying that they don\u2019t believe it\u2019s possible that Joe Biden is a rapist. What they\u2019re saying is, \u201cI know it\u2019s a possibility, I\u2019m afraid of it, and I\u2019ve decided it doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are various strategies for maintaining ignorance. For Biden, people are turning to the immunity afforded by character testimony.<\/p>\n

Hosts on the ABC talk show \u201cThe View\u201d responded to Lucy Flores\u2019s description of her discomfort when Biden kissed the back of her head at a Democratic rally with something close to anger that she would say such a thing. Whoopi Goldberg said \u201cThat pisses me off… I don’t want Joe to stop doing that.\u201d Meghan McCain added that Biden was a \u201cgood, decent man\u201d who had \u201cnever made [her] feel uncomfortable once.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox News pointed out in a recent article<\/a> that these same hosts strongly supported the credibility of Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford\u2019s sexual assault allegations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Yes, there is a gap between uncomfortable touching, or a kiss on the head, and sexual assault. Yet the same character defenses are being used to defend Biden from Reade\u2019s assault allegation. Regardless of whether he\u2019s a good man, he\u2019s been in politics so long, he\u2019s a Democrat, he\u2019s never seemed predatory to you, or anything else, the core of the #MeToo movement is that no one is exempt, no matter how powerful, or charismatic.<\/p>\n

And yes, the testimony of one woman, or of any one person, is not proof.<\/p>\n

In Tara Reade\u2019s case, however, we have much more than her own word. I could lay out for you the five pieces of corroborating evidence: testimonies of four people Reade described the events to more than twenty years ago, and a recording of a phone call made to the Larry King show that suggests, at least, that the Biden campaign is not telling the truth about never receiving a formal complaint from Reade.<\/p>\n

Maybe that evidence still doesn\u2019t command<\/i> belief. But who are we, if we see sexual assault victims as liars until they are proven beyond a doubt to tell the truth?<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help but think: if I were sexually assaulted, who would I tell? How clearly would they remember what I said? Would I be willing to tell my whole story publicly, at once, or would I start with a less serious version of events, knowing that accusing a powerful man of rape would get me death threats?<\/p>\n

Maintaining ignorance is not neutral. It is active, affirmative, contagious support for the status quo. Even if Tara Reade\u2019s allegations are false, dismissing them without considering them affirms that sexual assault victims don\u2019t matter, and that powerful people can abuse their power without consequences.<\/p>\n

Reade\u2019s accusation doesn\u2019t negate Meghan McCain\u2019s experience of Biden as a good man, nor does it negate every other fact about Biden, his history, and his policies. Only you can decide if it tells you who to vote, or not vote, for.<\/p>\n

But you owe it to Tara Reade, and to the thousands of people whose stories will never be heard to look squarely at the facts, and come to terms with them for yourself. Averting your eyes isn\u2019t going to change reality. Your thoughts and actions can.<\/p>\n

For more on James Baldwin\u2019s discussion of ignorance in <\/i>The Fire Next Time, Elizabeth Spelman has an article, \u201cManaging Ignorance\u201d in Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, edited by Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, I\u2019ve started opening conversations by asking, \u201cWhat do you know about Tara Reade?\u201d So far, the answer is \u201cNot much,\u201d over and over. As…<\/p>\n

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