The R Word

I felt as if no one else but me "got it" and comprehended the horrifying significance of that passage we read about Pecola and her father. Overall, it was seemed to have been taken lightly by many of my peers. This was easily dismissible with a slight look of disgust and a shake of the head. This was something to read fifteen minutes before class with SparkNotes and to overlook. Not many appeared to sit down and take the time to read this, to think about it. Had anyone bawled their eyes out like I had? Had anyone actually thought of this beyond the words on the page? I expected for my peers to say how they'd cried the night before like I had, and that they related to it like I did, but, that didn't happen. I don't know if that didn't happen because not many related to the topic, or because everyone was too scared to talk about what they read.

I think that this passage made many uncomfortable, as it is about something misunderstood and rarely discussed. I know, even as I blog, I feel odd if I say the word rape. Talking to a friend earlier that day, I was saying how I was very uncomfortable with our discussing rape in class and he said that it needed to be discussed because we need to bring awareness to and to personalize this issue. I knew this, but emotion had drown out all reason.

Toni Morrison's discussion of childhood rape was surprisingly controversial. During a class discussion, a peer and I were talking about how Morrison personalizes the rapists in her book, such as Cholly and Soaphead. By going into the background and story of these characters, I felt that Morrison was making light of rape and was giving a face to people who didn't deserve it because of their grave offenses. My peer pointed out that rapists are people too, and that a back story brings to light how often assault occurs. Disagreement caused our conversation to become quite heated, it later caused me to reevaluate my stance on seeing a rapist as a person; but my original hatred for rapists will never be overlooked.

Morrison concludes her book with "We had dropped out seeds in our own little plot of black dirt just as Pecola's father had dropped his seeds in his own plot of black dirt. Our innocence and faith were no more productive than his lust or despair." Morrison does a good job in her book of discussing rape without normalizing it. Rape culture is our societies normalization of rape, as we do not talk about it, we don't think about it, but it happens right under our noses. So many children are raped and harmed, and yet its taboo to even think about it. I know that personally, I can never talk about my experiences because of this taboo and everyone else's misconceptions of what I have suffered. This book was created to give a voice to that R word we are afraid to talk about and won't give the time of day for.

These past two weeks have turned my mental state into absolute trash; any of my friends will tell you how much of a mess this books has made me. This issue is a triggering one, and when I hear other kids making rape jokes and even just lightly talking about it, I have so much trouble handling myself. I never actually expected to write this, or post this, or even think about this. I didn't really want everyone knowing what I thought about. But, I felt that I needed to highlight something that stood out to be, that was bothering me. It is hard to talk about such a triggering topic when it needs to be talked about. This balance is a difficult one. I hope that this book made everyone more sympathetic to these horrors, and that they never had to go through what I went through or what Pecola's character went through. Pecola is a spokesperson for childhood assault and for rape, and the idea that this voice is trying to be extinguished by banning is almost as horrific as the deed of rape itself. Embrace the horrors life and use it to bring awareness and to bring comfort to those who Pecola is representing.