This week, students will return home to spend Thanksgiving with their families and, though it violates one of the holiday’s cardinal rules, politics are bound to come up. Regardless of whether the conversation is good-natured or gets a little heated, it is important to know that even armchair politics matter.
This is especially true as recent news coverage has offered a deluge of sexual assault allegations levied against actors and politicians to fuel the dinner-time trial of public opinion. Sexual assault is a delicate topic, and the way that we choose to talk about it in a political context can have consequences in our personal lives and the lives of those around us.
After the downfall of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein opened up a floodgate of sexual assault allegations last month, Americans have had to wrestle with a million-dollar question: How do we choose whether to believe the accuser or the accused? For many, the answer to this question seems to be loyalty — whether to one’s party or personally to the accused. This is true now more than ever.
A recent focal point of controversy, Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore — accused of sexual assault by nine women — has been making an explicit appeal to party authority for several days by framing the allegations against him as a liberal-media conspiracy against conservative Christians. He’s gone as far as to call it the “duty” of Alabama conservatives to “stand up and fight back.” Several notable conservatives have heeded the call and come to Moore’s aid; among them Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, who still plans to vote for Moore despite the allegations and former White House cabinet member Steve Bannon who currently has two investigators working to discredit Moore’s accusers. It’s also worth considering that President Trump, despite making short work of Sen. Al Franken on Twitter for his alleged misconduct, has not yet tweeted anything about Moore.
Regardless of the veracity of the claims against Moore, with such a massive amount of energy and resources being devoted to making them go away it is easy to see, as trauma psychologist Joan Cook notes, why many sexual assault victims never come forward.
“When survivors come forward, some are disparaged, discredited, discounted, isolated, shunned," she said. "For most survivors, then, the lesson we learn is to never report it. The energy it takes to fight it, as well as the feeling that we must have been to blame, is depressing and exhausting.”
That is why, when conversations about the Roy Moores of the world take place in our homes, it is important to understand that our opinions don’t exist in a vacuum. When we make our opinions known to our families, or to our friends as we return to school next week, we are making a statement about how we intend to treat victims of sexual assault.
Statistically speaking, a member of your family or group of friends is a victim of sexual assault. Being so adamant to brush off allegations as political sabotage can damage trust and discourage them from sharing. So be careful and consider your motives when discussing a topic of this gravity, because while it might not seem important to you, the impact of your words and attitudes could be devastating to someone you love.