I’ve spent the last three weeks arguing about the word “grandfather.”
VPR v. VT DIGGER
Vermont Public Radio found the word “grandfather” too specific and VT DIGGER didn’t think it was specific enough. Both media outlets refused to broadcast/publish the piece as I wrote it, so I’m publishing it at the end of this post. My detailed account of the controversy was published in The Commons, and can be read here.
SEVEN DAYS
This week, John Walters wrote an account about the impasse with VPR in his weekly column for Seven Days, which you can read here. [You have to scroll past the first article to find #MeToo and the Media.]
THE SAGA CONTINUES
This week, Anne Galloway, publisher of VT DIGGER, requested the script for the on-line newspaper. For her, “grandfather” wasn’t specific enough. She wanted to know which grandfather. To my immediate regret, I told her.
She said VT DIGGER would run the piece if I’d identify my abuser as my maternal or paternal grandfather. Her email said, “I understand this is a difficult decision[.] For us it’s a question of fairness to the living and the dead[.]”
MY REPLY TO VT DIGGER
My reply follows, [words in brackets have been] excised to protect both the living and the dead.
Anne,
It turns out that this is not a difficult decision: My short answer: No, you may not run the piece with “[which] grandfather.”
If you’re interested in my reasons, read on. If not, thank you for your consideration.
- This is a first-person commentary, not a news story. It’s about why women stay silent about this sort of abuse.
- This is a commentary about a young girl who was sexually abused by a man described only by his relationship to that girl who loved and trusted him. The abuser is unnamed. I’m the girl.
- In “fairness,” I’m protecting the living; the dead had their chance.
- Both my grandfathers are long dead. Even though the dead cannot sue for defamation, I’ve rendered that issue moot by not naming my abuser.
- More importantly, I’m protecting [my abuser’s living relations].
- It turns out I’m speaking for many women and a few men who don’t have the wherewithal to speak for themselves and/or speak publicly. They have written to me, in response to The Commons article, and said so. None have been curious about which grandfather.
- The Commons lawyer signed off on my use of “grandfather” – with no further attribution. What makes VT DIGGER different?
- I did not allow VPR to use this with any further modification and therefore “in fairness” can’t ethically allow VT DIGGER to do so.
- In her letter to Christine Blasey Ford published in The Washington Post, Connie Chung didn’t name her abuser either, just her relationship to him. He was her family physician.
- I’m learning that familial sexual abuse turns out to be more common than anyone wants to believe – and will continue to be so until it’s safe for those of us willing to speak can tell our stories in our own words.
Thank you for reading this far.
I can spend no more time nor emotional energy insisting on the wording of this piece. It was kind of you to offer to publish it, but I withdraw it from consideration.
Yours truly,
Deborah
IS ‘GRANDFATHER’ TOO SPECIFIC OR NOT SPECIFIC ENOUGH?
One media outlet thinks “grandfather” is too specific and another finds “grandfather” not specific enough.
THE OFFENDING SCRIPT: Sexual Politics
[Host] Commentator Deborah Lee Luskin finds it entirely credible that Dr. Catherine Blasey Ford would stay quiet for thirty years before speaking out about a sexual assault.
[Luskin] It took me more than fifty years to admit out loud that I’d been sexually abused as a young girl by a close male relative.
I’d already learned that men were more powerful than women. My mother deferred to my father, and my brothers enjoyed freedoms and privileges not just because they were older, but also because they were boys.
It was in this crucible of male dominance that I concluded a female’s only hope was to write – and be read. So when a family injustice occurred I’d write my parents about it.
But I never wrote about my grandfather stalking me, cornering me, and crossing my boundaries.
For years I couldn’t speak of it or write it down, at least not as fact. But I have written a novel that draws upon that experience.
Ironically, it’s proving a hard sell. A typical rejection letter offers high praise. Editors love it, praise the story and the writing, but none have yet offered to publish it.
As my agent continues to look for an editor willing to risk publishing a book about the extreme outcome of an abused woman’s enforced silence, the case of Christine Blasey Ford is a sober reminder that speaking out is still dangerous.
The national narrative around sexual politics shames women who speak up – even when their stories are believed – and guarantees that our motives, character, and personal history will be dragged through the streets of public opinion.
But we still tend to ignore – even protect – abusers, especially if they’re men seeking – or serving in – public office. They may be captured on video bragging about assaulting women, or discovered to have paid hush money to a sex worker for extramarital sex, yet their status and power remain largely intact.
Fortunately there’s something both women and men can do – privately, without disclosing their sexual history – that may be more effective than either speaking up or writing about the sexual abuse that continues to be commonplace.
Any registered, legal resident over eighteen can vote.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
I’m curious to read all opinions civilly expressed.
For the time being, I’ll be publishing all my commentaries here, so I hope you’ll subscribe and even tell your friends. Thanks.
Jesus! The arrogance of the media ! I was stunned by VPR’s decision, and still can’t wrap my head around it. I will never support them again and have even considered asking them to refund my most recent contribution (a symbolic gesture, I know, because I’m sure they would never give a refund.) But the Digger–I’m not surprised. The hubris, the puffed-up-ed-ness of Anne G and her crew these days knows no bounds. I am so glad you continue to speak, write, and air these outrages. And am glad you have other outlets for your story and stories. You are tapping into the heart of the heart of the matter (and have been, for some time!) and your work is important.
Thank you, Amelia. Now I need help from my readers to spread the word. Please share, tweet, talk, send Morse Code – whatever it takes for people to learn that even the so-called Real News might “tell the truth, but tells it slant,” including by not telling it at all.
Well done, Deb. Thank you.
As a follow-up to writing you earlier to say thank you for your piece in The Commons, I will also say now that when I was doing some intensive therapy after being raped as a 25-year-old (by someone I didn’t know), flashbacks to being sexually abused by my grandfather as a less-than-3-year-old surfaced. I didn’t want those memories, but realized afterward that the thing I’d always called my “black hole” – which I’d tried very hard to avoid – had disappeared. That grandfather had by then been dead more than 20 years, but it still took a while to say anything to my parents. My father got very angry, thinking I’d said *he* had done it, and he didn’t talk to me for several years; my mother calmly said, “I wouldn’t be surprised”, and left it at that. (Seriously, Mom??)
So that’s what we’re left with: even if it’s majorly messed up your life, don’t expect empathy, and really don’t even talk about it, just move on.
What a heart-breaking story this is, Jenny, and how courageous of you to tell it. Thank you.
I’m very sorry for what happened to you and applaud you for writing about it here. Thank you.
Deb, Bravo to you for your courage to come forward to speak with truth and fortitude!!!!✨🙏
It is a subject that has been kept in the closet long enough.
Those of us with stories, feel gratitude to those like yourself, who use their talents and voices to speak for us all. ✨🙏☺️
Thank you so much. ✨🙏💞
We love and respect you even more for sharing and trusting your experience with us. ✨💞✨
Thank you for this affirmation and support.
The blog that is missing is your thank you….and it went into promotions and is now gone.
I sent you an email to thank you…I hope I am still on your Blog list…
Light and love,
Aylanah
Hi Aylanah, Yes, you are still on my email list – and I thank you for being a loyal subscriber for almost two years. I hope that more listeners and readers will follow your lead and sign up to have my weekly posts delivered by email. I do suggest you check your spam filter and make sure that my blogs aren’t being diverted there. Here’s the link to the post you missed. https://www.deborahleeluskin.com/thank-you-for-your-support/
All best, Deborah.
Deborah, this is heartbreaking from start to finish–from the initial years of transgression to the wheel of disfunction you experienced with the various media outlets, and now your decision to cease your blog. Though I understand perfectly, the last decision. We must direct our energies into projects and impulses that will most satisfy our souls. I believe I recall the story you allude to from Ropewalk days and if this is so, I had always from the get-go sensed the nefarious undertone of the work. too quiet???? it’s astounding. but then, that marketing for the masses. we’ve all been there. I wish you much good luck and peace, my friend.
Hi Donna, Thanks for your affirming comment. Please note, however, that I’m continuing this blog. I just won’t be writing for Live to Write – Write to Live anymore, nor for Vermont Public Radio. In fact, I’m attempting the very difficult task of building my readership here, at Living in Place. So I hope you’ll subscribe!
And yes, the novel I refer to has undergone numerous transformations, although the kernel remains unchanged.
Thanks for your good wishes, Deb.
Hallo Deborah, thank you for exposing the victim hazzling still going on even in the media even by female editors. I hope it will help people wake up.
I was abused by a male relative when I was 4-years old. I did not recall it until I was in my 20s. And, honestly I can’t swear that it really happened, but how would I have come up with that in my head? He was about 17 at the time. I never told my parents and they are both gone now. I can’t imagine what grief that would have caused. But, I do think about the grief it might have caused because I didn’t tell. Did he do that to anyone else?!
That being said, I do believe that some women falsely accuse because it is such a powerful accusation and in this day and age can immediately end a career. What are your thoughts on that?
Hi Trusty,
I’m sorry that a family member sexually abused you when you were young, and I’m not surprised that you repressed the memory until you were in your twenties. Survival is a strong instinct, and we do what we have to, which sometimes means repressing confusing memories. Children generally trust their abusers. In my case, I loved my grandfather; part of me still does. But I hate what he did to me.
I imagine there may be people who make false accusations, but I don’t imagine it’s worth it. For those of us who were abused, speaking out is dangerous. In my own case, people I knew, worked with and trusted at the radio station bent over backwards to protect the reputation of a dead man they never knew – at my expense.
Coming out as a victim of abuse in our culture marks you for more victimization. Only those with a compulsion to speak truth to power or with psychopathic needs for attention and/or revenge would do so spuriously.
To whom would you give the benefit of the doubt?
Thank you for writing about your experiences Deborah. You are both brave and right! Please keep writing, as there is still so much work to be done and so much that needs to be expressed and understood.
Thanks for your kinds words of affirmation and encouragement!
Thank you for staying the course. It’s hard to come out with our stories of early childhood exploitation. Worse to have to deal with present-day enablers.
Thank you for these kind and affirming words.