On anger, compassion, and Kobe đ
I made the mistake of speaking up for Kobeâs rape accuser on a Facebook post yesterday. I received a reply from a stranger named Doug (who assured me has âthree daughters and lots and lots of female friendsâ).
âKristi, prove it. The DA couldnât. And why comment about it now? What have you done for the alleged victim over the last 14 years?â
Well, I stuck up for her twelve seconds ago, DOUG, I donate to womenâs organizations monthly, wrestle with my internalized misogyny, and endure dumbass questions like yours all along the way. (Based off his photo, the only leaning in Doug does is on a slalom water ski across Utah Lakeâs toxic algae. The metaphor really writes itself here.)
I was angry, but not at Doug. Dougâs an idiot. In my experience, when youâre angry at idiots, youâre projecting anger thatâs sourced somewhere else. I believe rage can be holyâbut to sanctify it, you must look at the source. I burrowed through my brain, past my throat, my heart, down into my molten core where reasons flow like magma.
There, I saw Joseph Smith coercing a fourteen-year old girl named Helen to marry him. He told her their union would ensure her familyâs salvationâand gave her 24 hours to think about it. I saw him esteemed as a prophet. I saw generations of my ancestors singing âPraise to the Man.â In the mythology of Joseph, Helen is mere collateral damage.
Forty years later, I saw one of my namesakesâmy great-great grandmother, Kerstina Nilsdotterâswallow her voice as her husband took a second wife in polygamy. Mary, her daughter-in-law, remembers visiting Kerstina late one night. She was alone, asleep in an old rocking chair in the kitchen.
âWhereâs Dad?â Mary whispered.
âOver at Amyâs.â
Mary cried softly in the darkness. âMother, I could never stand this unless the Lord came to me.â
âMary,â she replied. âHe came to me years ago.â
For endless reasons, Helen and Kerstina could not escape their lives in a religion built on misogyny. But I could, and I did, though no god came to me.
Iâve often wondered: do women matter?
If so, why are we so hateful when their lives cast shadows on menâs glory? Why do we control their bodies? Why do we shame and silence them?
Yesterday, I read the story of Kobeâs accuser as recorded in court documents. Many of the women in your lifeâincluding the one whose words youâre readingâhave experienced the nightmare moment when a manâs hands, lips, body presses down with too much firmness. Do you care? Does it matter?
Do you care that I held my breath? Do you care that I felt my heartbeat in my eardrums? Do you care that even writing this, sitting here on my goddam couch seventeen years later, closing my eyes and going into this memory ignites my nervous system? Does it matter that a boy named Billyâwho I am almost certain does not remember meâholds a key to my reptilian brain?
âShe wasnât that attractive,â Kobe said.
Kobe was accused of rape in 2003. Gigi was born in 2006. If Kobe had gone to jailâor even to trialâGigi might not have been born. Sweet, sweet girl. Sitting courtside with her dad, playing ball with her dad, laughing with her dad.
It looked like she had a really good dad.
Yesterday, an accused rapist died in his private helicopter. Under normal circumstances, I might huff, thinking others are far more deserving of my compassion.
But I thought of Gigi and Kobeâs final moments. No man deserves to watch his daughter die in horror. What I came to feel, although at first it made me bristle, is that love is not a finite resource. Compassion for Kobeâs death does not diminish compassion for his accuserâs life. This is the frustrating beauty of the human experience. There are moments when our job is not to act as judge or jury but to embrace this transcendent ache.
Anger and compassion, justice and mercyâpolarities have their purpose. But perhaps our most human moments are when we close those valves and say instead âCome, come, I can hold this, I can hold you. There is room in the cracks where my heart has broken.â
(This is the god that came to me.)
Thanks for reading Gemini Mind! Elsewhere, you can find me as @yokizzi đ«