Not Like This

I was visiting a friend for the weekend. She and I had always had a lot of fun together so I thought I would go hang with her.

We went to a club we had always gone to and we had had a few drinks and had danced till closing time. One of the men who managed the club used to flirt with me and I flirted right back. It was nothing serious to me. He was an okay guy but not someone I would have considered getting close to. It was just playful fun. He joked about wanting to get with me and I managed to laugh it off and keep it light. I don’t remember but there may have been a time I sat in his lap or even hugged him. I know I didn’t do anything to make him think I wanted him for more.

I didn’t want to have sex with him. He really didn’t turn me on like that and I liked him for a friend but not someone I wanted in bed with me. I really didn’t want that with him. I just wanted to be friends. I told my friend that. I wasn’t interested in him like that.

So that night, we came home and I was in bed asleep. I was wearing a flimsy little nightie because that is what I usually wore. I toss and turn a lot and I have torn up nightgowns when they got caught under me. I liked something light and loose because I also got very warm at night and I wanted to be able to get out of it easily.

I don’t remember what caused me to wake up, but I did and there he was, in the bed with me. He had taken off his clothes and he was under the covers with me and he had pulled my gown up above my breasts so it was nearly around my neck and he was kissing and licking me while holding that gown tight. He was on top of me and I couldn’t move.

Was I dreaming? Was this an awful nightmare?

No. It was all too real.

He was large – probably 6’3” or so and muscular and very strong. I could not push him away nor could I get out from under him. I was trapped.

My mind was racing. What could I do? I wanted to get away from him but at the same time, I didn’t really want to scream or anything. I just wanted him gone.

Meanwhile, his hands were all over me, his mouth, touching me in places I didn’t want him to touch. I didn’t want him in bed with me. I didn’t want this. Not with him. Not like this!

I tried to joke with him or say something that would defuse him but it wasn’t working. I asked him to stop and he said no. He had wanted this with me and he was going to have me. He told me to stop fighting and enjoy it. I said I didn’t and he said “Fake it. That’s what you women do all the time anyway, isn’t it?

”

He had obviously put on some cologne before he showed up and I could smell it all over him. His body was hard and like stone. I could not move him and I couldn’t get away. I was furious. I hated the idea of having to have sex with someone I didn’t want but there wasn’t anything I could do. I just lay there and let him have his way.

When he was finished, he wanted to joke and play and tried to kiss me again and I told him to get his clothes on and get the hell out. He said he wasn’t finished and wanted to do it again. I said no. I slid out of the bed and wrapped the sheet around me and called him names and demanded that he leave.

I remember that he looked hurt and sad and said he didn’t understand why I was so angry. He had only wanted to make love to me.

That wasn’t love making! I hadn’t wanted it!

I was so mad I couldn’t think. I just wanted him to go

.

My friend was standing in the doorway as he left and she looked puzzled too. Didn’t I want him to come visit, she asked.

Maybe I would have earlier. Maybe if she had asked me. Maybe if it was to just sit and talk and get to know each other better. Maybe I might have liked him more later.

But to let him in without asking me and show him where I was sleeping and then leave me alone with him, no, that wasn’t what I wanted.

I had not wanted to have sex with him.

I was angry with her too.

The next day, I got dressed and I went home and I never spoke to her again.

I saw him years later at another club in another town with other friends. I made sure I stayed out of his line of sight though by then, he probably forgot me and what had happened.

But I hadn’t.

I didn’t think of it as rape. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it. I was a young woman who had had sex with men as I wanted, I went out drinking and dancing and I smoked weed and on top of it all, I was black. Who would believe me?

I thought about my life being broadcast in court and having all those self-righteous white people looking down their noses at me if they were in a jury. I thought about people staring at me and those thinking I had asked for it even though I hadn’t.

I had had a couple of the local police make a pass at me and I had said no. One of them had tried the same thing but I had been lucky enough to get away from him before anything had happened. They would not believe me.

And I had been flirting with him even though to me it was meaningless. What would they make of that?

I didn’t think anyone would believe me and so I just kept quiet about it.

As time passed, I told a few friends about it but mostly, I put it out of my mind.  

I was more careful though. I wasn’t as playful with men as I had been. I didn’t smile and kid around with them if I didn’t know them and I made sure I wasn’t alone with them unless it was what I wanted. I didn’t accept rides nor did I let men in my home unless there were other people there too.

I had several men get angry with me because they said I was treating them all like they were rapists. Perhaps I was. I just knew that to protect myself, I had to be far more cautious than I used to be. I didn’t intend to ever get caught like that again and I never was.

Last week, as my brother and I discussed Brett Kavanaugh, he asked me if anything like that had ever happened to me and I told him about it.

He was quiet for a long time and then he said, “You just told me that you were raped.”

We both sat quiet, not sure what to say. I really had never thought of it that way, but he was right.

I had been raped.

A man had held me down in the bed and had sex with me without my permission or my cooperation. I had said no, please no and stop and he had not stopped but had gone ahead and forced his way into my body against my will. And it wasn't my fault. I hadn't done anything wrong. 

I felt the tears burning but I didn’t want to cry and I fought them back. And I thought of all those other women who had had something like that happen to them. All those women who like me didn’t think they would be believed. All those women who had kept quiet for so long and had tried to forget it because they blamed themselves.

All of them who like me, had been with a man who was more powerful, who felt like he could do anything he wanted and did.

I looked at Brett Kavanaugh on television and I saw that anger, that rage, that how dare you tell me I was wrong look on his face. No one had ever challenged him and how dare a mere woman try stop him from getting what he wanted. I knew he didn’t think he had done anything wrong. But I knew he was lying. I knew he did it.

I looked at those men sitting there smugly agreeing with him and calling her a liar among other horrible things.

All those feelings of helplessness came back and once again, I fought off the tears. The anger came back.  

But that large lump of pain is still sitting there in my chest.

I don’t think it will ever go away.

The Night We Lost Dr. King

I was 17 when Dr. King was killed. I will always remember when it happened.

My brothers were paper boys and we had dropped off their money and they had their pay and my Mom loaded us all in the car and we were driving to Chicago to spend the weekend with our Aunt Bootsie and Mike and Keith. We were on the road when we heard that Dr. King had been shot. We were all stunned, shocked and for a moment, none of us spoke. We were listening to the radio and it just seemed like it sucked all the air out of us. Who would have done such a thing?

I remember that I had tears in my eyes and that I felt bereft and painful. We had lost someone who meant a lot to us all, but I didn't realize at that moment just how much we had lost. 

We were halfway there when the first reports of unrest in Chicago came up. Should we go home or should we keep going? Mom thought we would be all right, so we kept going. When we got there we knew we should have gone back home. We could hear gunfire and we saw smoke and things did not look good. Our Aunt lived on the west side where the rioting was happening and somehow we made it to her house. We parked the car and ran in the house and then we heard more gunfire. Should we have left the car there? Our Uncle Robert moved the car to the back of the house and we all huddled inside.

It seemed like gunfire was going off every minute. We didn't sleep in the beds near the windows. We slept on the floor just in case. It was terrifying.

While I don't condone rioting, I understand the rage that makes people do it. When you have been suppressed and oppressed and no one listens to you and you feel hopeless and powerless, and the rage just builds until you just explode. I get that. 

But this was my first time being in the midst of it and it was frightening but the little rebel inside me understood their rage and anger. Dr. King was a man of peace. Why would someone want to kill him? We knew it wasn't a black man who did it. But again, why?

We left Chicago after the National Guard came and settled things down. I wasn't so sure this was a good thing. People had a right to be angry. We had lost someone who meant a lot to us and as usual, Mayor Daley just decided to shut it all down and make everyone behave. We saw burned out buildings and lots of soldiers on the street and people did go inside but I knew the anger was still there. 

We were glad to get home where it was quiet and we could think about what had happened. I knew this was going to change the way we lived and that it wasn't going to be for the better. Dr. King spoke for the poor and the disadvantaged and nobody cared about us. Things were just beginning to get better. What would happen to black people and civil rights now?

But my biggest revelation was yet to come.

Back at school, we talked about it. We didn't understand why someone would want to kill him unless they just hated black people and hated what was happening. That had to be it.

The white people acted like it was no big deal. They didn't care about him. They had no idea how hurt and devastated we black people were. We were together in school physically, but we were still disconnected from each other in reality. This became apparent in the following days. 

The day before his funeral, the school administrators decided that if we wanted to stay home and watch the funeral and honor his memory, we black students could take the day off of school. I recall the anger that the white kids in my class exploded with. I recall I tried to explain to them then that they didn't know who he was or what he was trying to do and nobody wanted to hear it. These were people I had considered my friends and they showed who they really were with their reaction to that simple day off to honor Dr. King. I never looked at them the same way after that.

Fifty years later, I cannot recall names and faces but I clearly recall the rage and anger they expressed thinking we black students were going to get something they weren't going to get. But over the years, I have seen that same reaction every time white people thought we were being favored or chosen over them or given something they didn't get or just treated as equals to them.

Dr. King was a complex man as most people are. He tried to do good things but he wasn't perfect. He was just a man. Back then, not that many believed he was an agent for good. I heard more sneering nasty comments from white people than I want to think about. I got into many arguments about him.

Even my parents were afraid that somehow white people would get mad at us and would treat us even worse than we had been in the past. They grew up and endured horrible treatment because of Jim Crow laws. It was why they left the South during the Great Migration.

But now, everyone, even racists who do not believe in what he tried to teach us use his name. They quote him even if it's only part of what he said. He is recognized for what he tried to do.

I just remember how hollow and awful I felt looking at that casket on that mule drawn wagon, going down the street in Atlanta that day. I looked at the faces and I remember seeing Bobby Kennedy walking along in the procession. It was hot that day and he had taken his jacket off and he and Ethel were walking together. She was pregnant. He was going to run for President and I was sure he was going to make things better. I had faith in him.

Two months later, he was gone too. I gave up all hope for what our country was going to be. I didn't care anymore. I went to college but I didn't care. I just wanted to have fun. All the people who cared and tried to change things got killed. Nothing mattered.

Fifty years later, are we any better off? I feel that hollow and empty feeling every day when I get up and look at the news. Whatever progress we had made has been lost in the past year. So here we are.

What would Dr. King say about us now?