June 14, 2000

The following is a rant I ranted last night. I honestly thought it was old news for everyone, but I’ve gotten lots of email already from people wanting links to stories about what happened, and so, I am providing some. The New York Times had some good stories yesterday, but, alas, their archives are not free (fascists). Here, however, are some links that will give you a good idea of what happened: The Daily News, Salon, The New York Times, and The New York Post. Sorry for not posting them earlier -- my computer at home is beyond slow, and I kept crashing every time I tried going to a complicated site. To my computer, Salon is very, very complicated.

And now: The Rant:

Okay, so I've been really angry for the last few days, and haven't felt much like being funny or witty or in any way entertaining. So I haven't been writing. However, I'm still angry, so I thought I'd best just get it out of my system and move on.

I am angry. I am livid. I want to hit something. I want to hurt something. This Sunday, after the Puerto Rican Day Parade ended on the south side of Central Park, at least 24 women were sexually assaulted. Their shirts were ripped off their bodies, their breasts groped, their asses grabbed. One woman was on her honeymoon, and she was stripped from the waist down and assaulted as her husband looked on while he was being held back. Another woman was roller blading, and men -- drunk, high, stupid men -- doused her with water, threw her to the ground, and tried to pull her shirt up and her shorts down. All in the name of fun, I'm sure. Ha ha ha. Boy, aren't we having fun?

For those of you who live in New York, you know all about this, but for those of you who don't, perhaps it hasn't hit the wires. This happened just after 6:00 p.m, in broad daylight. There were cops everywhere. Everywhere. And when the roller blading woman went to them for help, they did exactly nothing. They told her she'd been sexually assaulted (duh!) and that she should "calm down" and come back to the precinct the next day.

And there was video tape. I have been watching the same tape on the news for the past two days -- tape of women being drenched with water, topless, clutching their arms to their chests as faceless arms reached in to poke and clutch at them -- to pull whatever remained of their clothing -- of their dignity -- away from them. Women crying, wading through the crowd, looking not so much scared as angry -- so, so angry. As well they should have been. As well we all should be. 24 women. In the new, improved New York. The safer New York. Giuliani's New York.

Seeing the video tape -- of girls that look no older than 13 -- naked from the waist up as men around them laugh -- made me cry yesterday morning. Seeing it again today, and learning of still more attacks, made me cry this morning. I feel helpless and pissed off. Part of me is thinking it could have been me. That was Sunday. That was when I was wearing the backless shirt. Very easy-access, that shirt, a fact that a man muttered to me that day, and a comment that I easily brushed off. I almost went to the park that day. Not the parade, but the park. Instead, I went to the movies.

And I'm angry about what this has done to me. I'm angry that I'm glaring at every man as I walk down the street. I'm angry that anyone dares to be smiling. Didn't they see that tape? Don't they know? I'm angry that there has not been a protest organized yet, and I am angry that I am waiting for someone else to organize it.

I'm angry that I am in a man-hating mood right now. Even though I know not all men are like these men. Even though, on the tape, there were men giving these women their shirts, trying, eventually, to help, in some small way. But the ways they were helping were so small, and so late.

I'm angry because only two of these men have been caught -- two out of a mob of 30 or so -- and I have a sinking feeling they will get off. I'm afraid the fact that these women were not actually raped -- were just "fondled" -- will mean that they are sentenced to a hard, hard life of 10 hours of community service, at best. I'm afraid there will be too much reasonable doubt. I'm afraid this will happen again.

But, I'm more angry than afraid. And I don't know where to put this anger. I need to do something. Need something to be done. And I'm being faced with my own inaction, my own apathy, and that, too, is making me angry. I thought for a short, stupid moment about buying a gun, but then a sage old friend pointed out that "yeah, that's what we need. You with a gun. Half the city would be dead as you walked to work." And he is right. I should not own a gun. But I should be able to own my own body. And do with it what I will. And have a say in what is done to it. Something these women didn't have. I thought about taking a self-defense class, but, in a situation like what happened on Sunday, with 30-some odd men coming at me at once, would it really make a difference if I knew how to kick? I am not Buffy the Drunken Ass Slayer.

God, I am so angry.

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