This year has been one of the longest of my life. We’re barely into the second year of Macron’s racist, Islamophobic regime; his government of cronies seems bent on giving us a bitter foretaste of what a far-right governed country will look like in 2027. They keep coming up with new creative ways to make non-millionaires suffer. It’s like damn, do we have to go out on them streets every other day to protest? (yes, we do, and keep your fancy smart watches strapped on because protest steps count DOUBLE).
Palestine has obviously been on my mind (people who made it past the shadow-ban and still see my Instagram stories can attest). Day in day out, it has been impossible to not feel a physical ache while watching the cold blooded murder of tens of thousands of women and men and children live streamed through the square of my phone, witnessing in real-time the staggering resilience of Palestinians, journalists, doctors, civilians covered in dust and grime, digging with their nails and makeshift hammers through crumbling blocks, their exhausted frames desperately trying to uncover life amid the destruction wrecked by the Israeli genocidal apparatus.
You might think that I’m reaching, but I truly believe that the scale of mass gaslighting we are currently experiencing at an international societal level is highly reminiscent of how abusers operate within the intimacy of their relationships, and how they manipulate allies into maintaining their impunity.
That’s why what’s happening in Palestine has made me reflect a lot on how we, individuals, societies, communities, states, allow bad things to happen. By looking away, by not saying a word, by maintaining relationships even when we know that something is wrong; this complicity manifests itself in many ways which, inevitably, contribute to normalising injustices and, worse, entrenching them.
As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a person. In this piece, I suggest that it also takes a village to protect, enable, and uphold abusers, whether we’re talking about the genocidal state of Israel, Sean Love Combs (Diddy) or Harvey Weinstein.
And it pains me to say it, but I have been part of this village. This is my mea culpa, and an attempt to repair things that I have left unsaid.
I am pretty vocal, and feel very strongly about a lot of topics ranging from social justice, feminism and anti-racism.
And yet, I ended up enabling an abuser.
During the last two years I became good friends with a man who seemed to tick all the boxes. He is very soft spoken, kind, intelligent, charismatic but laid back; he would always give space to the women in any group to speak, would quote Audre Lorde and bell hooks and lend support in any way possible. He was a great listener. His friends adore(d) him. They would laugh and say: “He is a wonderful friend.” We would all nod enthusiastically. But as time would go by, a postscript slipped in:
“He is a wonderful friend, but gosh, he’s such a shitty boyfriend!” Cue exasperated sighs. “Sacré [name redacted],” they would say in turn, laughing dismissively.
Such. A. Shitty. Boyfriend.
A famous quote by Dr. Maya Angelou that gets thrown around a lot goes like this:
“When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
But sometimes that first impression is so perfectly executed, it can deceive even the most guarded person. Any potential red flag is blurred until any sign of pigment fades away.
But I can’t lie to myself - the signs were there. I chose to ignore them.
My deep friendship with him made me oblivious to the warning bells, or made me dismiss them. It was easy to tune them out; how can someone so caring, so generous to me, to other people around me, be capable of abuse? Especially towards a woman? We were witnesses to the mental load he would systematically dump on the women around him, specifically on his partner. But it was shockingly easy to dismiss. “Oh, she just isn’t talkative. She’s a huge introvert. She gives space to him because he’s a POC and she knows better than to intervene when the topic doesn’t concern her.”
As a group of friends, we made a distinction between the amazing friend and the shitty boyfriend that he was. Just like separating the art from the artist. We were duped by his intellectual feminist facade but failed at the time to connect dots between the veneer of his act and the way he isolated, silenced, manipulated and abused the women in his life. This is sadly a common occurrence, especially in activist spaces. So many men appropriate decolonial feminist discourse to make us feel safe with them, but don’t actually put in any work to address their own toxicity.
Eventually, the act blows up. It always does.
The only reason we started to dig into his abusive past is because he, as abusers always do, ultimately slipped and showed us “who he was”. A month or so ago, he gave me a taste, a small whiff, of the control he exerts on the women in his entourage. In that rare glimpse into his true self, I realised that I had fucked up. I had trusted an abuser. I had chosen an abuser over his victim.
These revelations made me question my sense of integrity and judgement. I, and many others in his friend group, had been a witness to his abuse, the type of emotional manipulation that shouldn’t go unnoticed if we pay close attention.
When recounting this story to a friend, she encouraged me to look up the “Violentomètre” which can roughly translate as a “Violence-o-metre”. It was created by the Observatoire des violences envers les femmes of the Seine-Saint Denis region, in collaboration with the NGO Avant Toutes and the Paris City Hall. It’s a tool for all of us, victims or not, to identify the first signs of coercion within a relationship. Unsurprisingly, he ticked quite a few of the items; the manipulation, the control, the desire to maintain power over, to crush, to blame the victim, to belittle and undermine their happiness, to convince the entire world that they are the good guys despite all evidence to the contrary.
The warning bells are never obvious because abusers are excellent manipulators. They make sure that the biggest chunk of the abuse is intangible. That’s the issue with emotional blackmail and psychological abuse - how can you prove it when it happens behind the closed doors of an intimate relationship? Individual actions, when not connected to one another, don’t have the same effect as when we take a step back, fit the pieces together, and start hearing the ominous din rising from the clanking bells.
It’s nauseating how convincing they are. Nobody would ever doubt or question them, even if it's common, accepted knowledge that they are “a shitty boyfriend”. It becomes a laughable anecdote that we swap over drinks without acknowledging the pain of the person who has to bear the brunt of their duplicity, who has to endure silently knowing full well that everybody in their circle adores their abuser. This feeling of isolation is already so violent when it occurs on our level of relationships - imagine the toll it takes when a public audience of enraged fans pour out in numbers IRL and online to pledge support to your abuser, as it was the case in the Depp vs. Heard trial.
I cannot properly convey how angry I have been these last few months, both at myself and the people around me. Seeing how some people in the friend group have reacted to the news of his abuse has sent me whirling into a haze of disbelief. I've now gained a deeper understanding of how friends uphold and enable abusers in their groups - from my own shameful firsthand experience, and also in the aftermath of the revelation.
Even when faced with evidence and testimonies, people still choose to entertain friendships, professional ties, romantic relationships, musical collaborations (Chris Brown, anyone?) with abusers because it’s EASY to ignore, to stay quiet, to pretend we don’t know anything. It’s less work. It’s comfortable.
You might be wondering why I am writing this. I’m not even sure why. This world is a playground for abusers - they make, set the rules and rig the game to their liking. But, naively, I hope that he and other abusers, wherever they might be on the scale of the “Violence-o-metre”, who stumble upon this piece, feel an inkling of discomfort. I want them to squirm, knowing that their role play, their mind games, don’t stand the test of time.
I also want this piece to be an opportunity for all of us to reflect on the way we react to systems of injustice around us, to pay attention to the way we protest, and show support. I’d like us all to reflect on the bigger systems, but also on the more intimate ties that grow in the different relationships we entertain. Every time a new abuser is disclosed by brave victims, one of the knee jerk reactions is to ask how? How could this have happened? But the question we should ask ourselves is how do we all, wittingly or not, allow abusers to abuse? What are the signs that we are choosing to ignore? What are the signs that we cannot see?
I said earlier that it takes a village to enable and protect abusers. It also takes a village to bring them down. It’s a collective responsibility that we must all bear.
There are many ways of going about it. It’s like BDS but for personal relationships. You boycott the person, you divest from the relationship and/or you sanction them by warning the rest of the village of their actions. I’d like us all to understand that our place should always be alongside those who are systematically silenced, oppressed and dehumanised.
There is a pattern. And, once you see it, you’ll never be able to stay quiet in the face of any form of injustice. I learned a very hard and humbling lesson, and you bet that I’ll never shut up as from now on.
If you’re reading this, know that we see you. We know what you did - and so will any woman you try to ensnare.
Sources:
It Takes an Industry: Hip-Hop is long overdue for its “Me Too” reckoning by Tigidankay Saccoh, creator of The Darkest Hue. [ENG]
Engagement-thirsty blogs and deceptive reporting amid Diddy Lawsuit by Tigidankay Saccoh, creator of The Darkest Hue. [ENG]
A lesson in collective gaslighting by Rami Younis for 972mag. [ENG]
Qu’est-ce le contrôle coercitif ? by 16jours.ch (shared by Lucie Ottobruc on Instagram) [FR]
Projection et gaslight by Lucie Ottobruc [FR]
Violentomètre [FR] (shared by Amanda K)
Chris Brown: Timeline of violence towards women by Luke Girgis [ENG]
Has Johnny Depp gaslit us all? By Amanda Kippert [ENG]
It takes a lot to write this. Much appreciated. It will help many others..Well done.