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A review by plantbasedbride
知晓我姓名 by Chanel Miller
5.0
What a heart wrenching, vulnerable, powerful testament to survival and justice. As a person who has experienced sexual-harassment more times than I can count and an instance of sexual assault that years later I still work to understand and qualify, I was incredibly moved by Chanel’s message.
I am lucky enough to have never been raped in my 27 years of life, and disgusted that I live in a world where I should be thankful that my experience of sexual assault has been minor relative to the overwhelmingly common experiences of so many women, men, and gender non-conforming people.
To those who have complained about the length of this memoir, I ask you to consider a pervasive theme throughout the trial and aftermath for Chanel. She was repeatedly silenced. Cut off. Her statements stricken from the record. Her ability to advocate for herself buried under minute, insignificant details such as whether she ate quinoa or rice for dinner, as if the distinction has anything to do with whether she was able to consent while unconscious behind a dumpster. Where can she fully express her experience, if not her own memoir? Can we not give her the chance to get the enormity of her thoughts and feelings around this horrifying event and what followed down on paper without telling her, yet again, to shut up? To condense? To make herself smaller and more digestible for OUR comfort?
Chanel Miller is taking back her identity and taking back her voice, and she has a right to tell her story in the way she feels most comfortable. In however many words she deems necessary.
I hope this memoir continues Chanel’s legacy of changing how the justice system addresses sexual assault for the better. Because this epidemic has been allowed to grow and fester for far too long.
*Trigger Warnings: Rape and gun violence.
I am lucky enough to have never been raped in my 27 years of life, and disgusted that I live in a world where I should be thankful that my experience of sexual assault has been minor relative to the overwhelmingly common experiences of so many women, men, and gender non-conforming people.
To those who have complained about the length of this memoir, I ask you to consider a pervasive theme throughout the trial and aftermath for Chanel. She was repeatedly silenced. Cut off. Her statements stricken from the record. Her ability to advocate for herself buried under minute, insignificant details such as whether she ate quinoa or rice for dinner, as if the distinction has anything to do with whether she was able to consent while unconscious behind a dumpster. Where can she fully express her experience, if not her own memoir? Can we not give her the chance to get the enormity of her thoughts and feelings around this horrifying event and what followed down on paper without telling her, yet again, to shut up? To condense? To make herself smaller and more digestible for OUR comfort?
Chanel Miller is taking back her identity and taking back her voice, and she has a right to tell her story in the way she feels most comfortable. In however many words she deems necessary.
I hope this memoir continues Chanel’s legacy of changing how the justice system addresses sexual assault for the better. Because this epidemic has been allowed to grow and fester for far too long.
*Trigger Warnings: Rape and gun violence.