The lights were bright down the cold, beige hallway. All of the doors were shut, next to little placards with names and commas followed by letters. Except for the last door, all the way at the end.
I walked in and made a beeline for the deep emerald couch. I nestled into the warm hug it gave me. She sat across from me in her magenta armchair, smiling. Like we did every time, she invited me to take a moment to think through all that I went through that day to get to where I am, on her couch, staring out her window.
She was used to me avoiding her eye contact by now. It was partly her fault, since the eclectic decor of her office was an ADHD setup. Plants crowded every surface against little figurines of animals and goddesses. Landscape paintings and plant drawings covered the walls, along with her diplomas and certifications. A relaxing yoga setup occupied a wide corner of the room. I didn’t know where she placed her speakers, but a lo-fi beat formed the backdrop, along with the lavender scent emanating from her essential oil diffuser.
The vapor from her humidifier gave the whole thing a setting that as a writer, I knew I’d have to describe at some point. One of those captured memories of places whose poetry we know must be felt.
My eyes’ favorite place to rest was out the window, to her left, as I watched the seasons pass, as we dove deeper into my past to reach for the patterns that explained the present. One day, she had to try harder to maintain my attention, so she proposed that I faced the closed door instead.
“How do you feel?” she asked, always focused on the somatic experience.
“Trapped.”
She raised an eyebrow, and scribbled on her pad. “Do you want to talk more about that?”
I didn’t. Because she had unknowingly stepped in something that I forgot that I forgot.
My vision blurred, as I turned back to the window. I thought it was raining for a second. I changed the topic, I think. I can’t remember the rest of our session, just the water that just wouldn’t stop falling in my lap.
***
The Daily Show not nominating Roy Wood Jr to replace Trevor Noah, seconds after he resigned, was the second worst decision they made during that time period. The first one was to invite Charlamagne Tha God to host. He is profoundly unfunny and does not know nearly enough about politics to be chosen for that role. And most importantly, regardless of how much misogyny in this culture wants us to forget, he is a predator.
I forgot how mad I was about that pick until I watched him be Andrew Shulz designated Black friend, days after he spent at least 10 minutes “joking” about raping Kendrick Lamar. The joke was Andrew’s response to Kendrick for daring to tell the Black men around him to stop tolerating White comedians’ disrespect toward Black women in their presence.
And there Charlamagne was, to use his black body to cover for that man’s rape joke in honor of the brotherhood they share, and the money and whatever else that comes with that. Kendrick was being the weird guy who makes it awkward when the guys are just trying to bond. “Who are you to say to stop, this is what we do! Are you even a man?”
***
I learned about Jessica Reid soon after the Andrew story. I’d heard of Charlamagne having a “weird case” before, but I didn’t know any details. The videos made the rounds on YouTube, including his own confession on the Brilliant Idiots podcast that he hosts with Andrew, in an episode where he discusses sexually assaulting a girl.
“In South Carolina, I got this girl real drunk, then I fucked her” Charlamagne said.
“That sounds so fishy ‘I got her drunk’” a co-host replied.
“Oh I didn’t just get her drunk, I remember going to the sex store and buying Spanish Fly” Charlamagne retorts.
“Oh, so you raped her?” Andrew Shulz said, chuckling.
“Shut up,” Charlamagne replied, “I’m telling the truth.” Andrew’s laugh echoed.
He retells this story however he needs to, depending on the circumstances and the audience. In an old interview with Akademiks, he adopts a nonsensical narrative where he invited a bunch of girls at a party, then left.
When he came back, his cousins told him that his other cousin was in jail for raping one of the underage girls who were at the party. He decided to go to the jail, and according to him, told the cops that he took full responsibility for whatever happened to her. Because that’s totally something a Black man would do in this justice system.
They took his DNA samples, then he was charged with delinquency of a minor because the cops had no other suspects, according to him. He only got 3 months probation, he says in the interview. And by the way, he added, his cousin wasn’t even at the jail in the first place. His other cousins were just jealous they didn’t get invited to the party.
This story, this “explanation” was good enough to sign contracts throughout 15 years on the radio and counting. This narrative was sound enough for all the decision makers of his accolades, including Comedy Central and The Daily Show.
Here’s what’s missing from his story, besides common sense.
She was 15, he was 22. He was a friend, like a brother. He met her mother and her actual brother. He picked her up from her house with her friend. He took her to a party with no women in attendance, only a handful of underage girls. There, Charlamagne kept forcing Jessica and her friend Malika to drink, even after her friend threw up multiple times.
Jessica suddenly felt lightheaded and like she couldn’t move. Charlamagne instructed two men to take her upstairs, Larry and Boo. They held her up and took her inside of the bathroom. They sexually assaulted her. Then, they took her to a bedroom where Charlamagne walked in after a while. He raped her vaginally and anally.
Her friend, Malika Joyner, was a bit more clear headed than Jessica because she vomited some of the drugs from her system. She said that Charlamagne also tried to rape her but ultimately gave up because she was able to still move and fight him off.
Some time after he left, Malika came to a little bit more and started to look for Jessica. She was surprised to find her upstairs, and could hear her screaming and crying. The door opened and she saw Charlamagne get up from the bed where he was with Jessica and flee. Malika managed to get her out of the house and they sat on the curb while waiting for the EMS. When they got to the emergency room, her mother and brother, alerted by Malika, were already there waiting for her. A rape kit was conducted.
Having been accused, Charlamagne was called down to the station to provide DNA samples. Upon confirmation, he was arrested. To her chagrin, Jessica’s mother refused to allow her to testify in court. So Charlamagne pled out to a lesser charge to the delinquency of a minor. He was on probation for 3 years.
She can only tell her story now. And we can listen and echo it. In a different world, we would also take action.
““This is my friend, he won’t let anything happen to me, and he betrayed me.”
***
I walked in her office that day, unsure about whether I’d finally open up about the thing I remembered that I forgot. I remembered more of it now, though a few pieces were still missing. It was all flashes, really. Of pain, confusion, and betrayal.
Our conversations circled my time in college a lot. It was the most challenging chapter of my life. I’d just moved to the US 2 years prior, after the earthquake in 2010. Along with learning a new language, prepping for standardized tests, applying to colleges, and working at Winn Dixie, I didn’t have a lot of time to be a teenager.
I was 17 during my first semester in college. As any overachieving daughter of immigrants, I thought I wanted to be a doctor. My first major was Biology. I suddenly found myself in auditoriums with faulty microphones and pleasant acoustics in buildings that smelled of old, moist wood. Out of place.
Since I started in the Spring, I missed all the Freshman activities to hunt for friends. I knew nothing and no one. Attending the second-largest university of the United States by enrollment, I felt completely alone in a crowd of 60,000 others.
My parents were in Haiti, trying to survive an epidemic of cholera, courtesy of the UN soldiers who occupied the country since 2004. The new arrivals after the earthquake were supposed to help. They shat in our water and demanded we thank them.
My parents tried to call. I answered sometimes. What was there to say? Whatever I was going through couldn’t compare to their own anxieties.
My sister and I stopped speaking for over a year, by then. 9 more years of silence were to follow. She was several states away up the coast. I texted her once. She asked “who’s this?” She apparently got a new phone.
When I came back to campus in the Fall, things were better. I had time to reconsider what I wanted to study. That time, it was Nursing and Psychology. I still wanted to be a doctor, but I wanted a plan B that could get me money if anything happened on my way to med school.
I got a job in Housing, patrolling their Towers Residence buildings from midnight to 8 am. At 8:30, I had my first class, Anatomy. I wouldn’t go home until after 4:30, to sleep for six hours, then back at it at midnight.
My job was on the complete opposite side of the campus. I was terrified to walk across the entire campus to get to work by midnight. There was an escort service offered by the school. They would come to pick me up at my dorm on a golf cart on some nights. When I really had to walk, I’d call one of my friends and talk to them until I got to work.
One of them was a friend who also worked nights. I remember calling him one of those nights, and while I was walking, I thought I saw a shadow and yelped. After I made a joke about how scared I was walking by myself through a campus at that time of night, he said something that I still think about every time I have to remember what happened:
“Oh I mean, they wouldn’t rape you, I mean, you’re so big…”
***
I met Lee while sitting at my desk, at work. It was a cramped rectangular box, no windows. It fit two L-shaped desks, a printer, three or four cabinets, a small TV showing the feed from cameras outside, and a dark gray carpet that held secrets of who knows how many sins.
I turned 18 a couple of months prior. He was in his late twenties. He was tall, kind of. Muscular. He wore the security uniform well. He had a radiant smile. The first time we met, he walked by the office, where I sat at the front desk. It was maybe 2 AM. He walked back a few minutes later and mock-knocked on the open door with his knuckles.
We met every day I worked. He’d buy us Del Taco and we’d eat in the office, talking for hours, while I logged patrol laps around the buildings that I didn’t take.
I wouldn’t have recognized the smell of weed in the hallways anyway. I had no idea what it smelled like. I had alcohol before but I wasn’t into it like that. Growing up as a Seventh-Day Adventist, I’d never seen my parents drink or indulge in any vice other than Jesus. Even though I was getting further away from that cult-adjacent church, I could count on my fingers how many times I had a drink and I wouldn’t need both hands.
Lee was also Haitian. He also had to come here without his parents. He was the eldest brother to a sister who was studying Nursing at a local community college and a brother who was finishing middle school. He was overprotective, according to his sister, he would tell me, laughing. He’d also talk about an ex girlfriend, but the story of their breakup was fuzzy.
He was the good guy who took care of everybody. I was the abandoned girl who needed someone to give a fuck. Someone who sounded like home.
I’d grown up with male friends. My house was that house where young people from church hung out. My sister was a social butterfly, and when she moved to the US a few years before me, as a good introvert, I inherited her friends. I was always partial to male friendships then. My best friend was a guy, and I was the “cool girl” who could hang. Lee just fit the pattern.
We’d talk about sex. College was this sudden chaotic universe where you could truly do what you want. I was openly fantasizing about girls. I even fucked one for the first time. We talked about that too.
He told me about POF as I started to date, and we talked about his favorite pornstar. We didn’t touch much. He was just a big brother that I was kind of attracted to and who was very kind and interested in what I had to say. We danced on some confusing line that I had no words to describe or anyone to describe it to.
Years later, I’d learn the meaning of the word grooming. Thinking of those past early friendships, Lee fit their pattern in more ways than one.
From time to time, he’d come by with the partner who was working with him. Sometimes it was a girl. She always looked tired and ready to go home, but Del Taco brought us all together. Most of the time though, it was a shorter guy, we’ll call him Marco. We didn’t click, it always felt like there was a lens between his eyes and me.
But Lee was there, so it was still cool.
***
In the warmth of my therapist’s office, I felt the words bubbling at my throat. They turned into a fist. She told me to breathe in, hold, 1, 2, 3, 4, exhale. Again, and again, until I felt a little light headed. She waited in silence for me to say the next word. Usually, it frustrated me when she did that, but that day, I was grateful.
It was a random day at work. I can’t remember what day of the week it was. It was a school night though, because I had class the next day. That time, it was the three of them. Lee, Marco, and an older guy, their supervisor. He must have been in his late thirties, early forties. We’ll call him Castor.
After greeting me, they removed the doorstop to close us inside. They walked in with a full bottle of Jack Daniels. I’ll always remember that black label, with a flash of hands squeezing it. They offered me the first swig. It was maybe my fourth time actually drinking.
We sat in a circle in the empty space between the two desks. The bottle rotated between us at the same frequency you would a blunt. Which was quite an introduction to a burn that wouldn’t fade. I don’t remember a lot after that. The images of that night swirl like a frenetic kaleidoscope.
After a while, Lee left the room. I asked for him but they wouldn’t let me leave the office even though the door was open. Castor kept me occupied with stories. I remember texting my male best friend about the moment as a joke, an unconscious cry for help. He called me, then asked to speak to Lee after a few minutes. Marco took my phone to bring to Lee.
When he came back with it, my now former best friend gave me an enigmatic “you should be careful with the guys you hang out with.” When I asked him what he meant, instead of explaining, he just said “just be careful,” and got off the phone. He never mentioned it again. I never told him what happened. I didn’t make the connections until years later, when I went no-contact with him due to his narcissism and the emotional abuse that colored our friendship for over 5 years.
The alcohol must have overloaded my system after that because I blacked out. When I woke up, my head was banging against the side of the desk. I had vomit on my neck and all over the back of my hand. I can remember the light orange chunks against the dirty gray carpet. I only had a moment to heave and breathe before Castor forced his penis back into my mouth. He was laughing and saying something to Marco that I couldn’t register, as I tried to figure out what was happening. Lee was not there. My brain fogged up and a chunk of time escaped me.
When I came to for a second time, I was bent over the desk and Castor was behind me, forcefully raping me, still laughing and talking to Marco, who stood in front of the closed door. Castor kept urging him to join in and Marco hesitated, with a smirk on his face. Shrugging, he gave in and approached and forced his penis in my mouth. Then, Castor tried to anally rape me but got frustrated midway and gave up, then started raping me again. I passed out. Again.
When I came to, I was sitting upright in the office chair and the door was open. It must have been around 6 am because a couple of people walked through the lobby and the building was starting to wake up.
Castor and Marco were trying to fix me up and whispered that Lee went to get his car and would be taking me home. They made sure to tell me that I would get in trouble if people found out that I drank at work and it could get me fired, or even kicked out of school. I should just say I got sick with food poisoning, if anyone asks. They must have wiped the floor a little but the smell of the moment was still there.
The next thing I remember is the building’s Graduate Assistant walking by. It must have been quite a picture. Me sitting there with my eyes rolling, barely opened, and two men standing there, one on each side, in their security uniform. I could barely speak so they answered her questions for me.
Yes, I got sick from eating something. They just saw me and came to help, and my friend, who works with them was on his way to get me so she didn’t have to make a report and I didn’t have to pay an ambulance bill. She asked me directly if I was okay. As I opened my mouth to answer her, only more vomit came out, covering the front of my body.
At that time, she moved to grab her phone and said that she’d be calling 911 because she was worried. To their relief, Lee pulled up in front of the building, and they loaded me up in the car. He took me to my dorm suite, mostly carrying me. He shushed me as we stumbled inside and he found the key to unlock my personal bedroom and helped me into bed, covered in vomit and with my shoes on.
The graduate assistant never brought it up. I don’t think I saw her after that at all.
I never saw his friends again.
Lee’s friendship continued for a few months, like nothing happened. The story was that I was grateful that he took me home. I got drunk at work. But I didn’t lose my job.
I could stay. Graduate. Get a job. Get my masters. Get a better job. Have health insurance. Afford to talk to a $150 per hour therapist every week to unbraid my life.
***
I ended my story in tears. It was the first time I’d said it out loud to anyone. It was the first time that I truly realized what had truly happened, the whole set up from the drinks to the ride home. He brought them, offered me on a silver platter, and came back to clear the table, take out the trash.
The tears grew into sobs. Soon, I was hyperventilating. She moved from the armchair where she was quietly listening while nodding with wet eyes. She moved toward me and informed me “I’m going to stand behind you and put one hand on your back, right under your ribs.”
She held and gently pressed there as I regained my breath and she guided me back to a baseline where I could keep communicating. I told her that I’d never told anyone before, and that I’m glad because I think this was the best setting for me to do that. She had a facial reaction that she quickly tried to hide. I interpreted it as her disagreeing, perhaps thinking that the best setting would have been a police station or some sort of reporting office.
But I was right.
***
The American Psychological Association offers a fact sheet around campus sexual assault (CSA). They discuss The Red Zone, the beginning period of a new school year, from mid-August to November. I was raped within that window, must have been late October. Research has found that 50% of campus sexual assaults occur during the Red Zone, especially for students who are new to campus.
1 in 4 female college students report that they’ve been victims of CSA. College women disproportionately experience CSA during the Red Zone, like I did. Specifically, college women in their first year have reportedly been at the highest risk for sexual assault compared to other college women after their first year, including drug-and-alcohol facilitated sexual assault as well as attempted or completed forcible rape.
At least 90% of assaults on campuses go unreported. The APA offers explanations around how the intersections of our identities play a huge role in survivors not reporting sexual assault.
As I listened to Jessica Reid’s story, I heard myself, but I also felt jealous. In her interview, her friend Malika said “I called her mother, her brother, I was the one that was there with her, so she wasn’t by herself.”
Jessica reported but didn’t testify in court because her mom tried to protect her. I didn’t report because my mom couldn’t be there to support me. I didn’t know whether anyone else would want to be.
The APA included the research conducted on campus sexual assault on international students, undocumented immigrants, first-generation, and low-income students. The barriers they face when deciding whether to report are similar and create the crossroads around my own reasons to choose silence.
Lack of social support, loneliness and homesickness, anxiety, lack of confidence. Additionally, it turns out that students who have difficulty paying for basic expenses have been shown to experience higher rates of campus sexual assault.
Being food insecure while still working and studying full time, feeling isolated with little to no family within at least 300 miles, holding on by the singular thread of getting a degree and a good job, I chose silence.
And I’m content with my choice.
As I watched Jessica Reid tell her story, I shook from trauma, but also with rage. As she tried to get through it, she’d take multiple breaks as her tears wouldn’t keep rolling. I could hear her mutter to herself multiple times, “I don’t want to tell that story again, I don’t even want to tell bits and pieces. Fucking over it. I don’t know why I do this. I cannot, I cannot do this.”
As I watch Charlamagne soar toward success despite her telling her story for years, as I think of her pain from screaming into the void, all I could think of was We don’t deserve her tears.
We don’t.
Why should we put ourselves through all this misery? What do we get out of it? What is justice? A few years probation? A caveat, sometimes, when his name is brought up? Seriously, what do we get? But blame, questions, side eyes, tight lipped smiles of pity, or desperate fidgeting begging for a topic switch. If he or they are famous, you get interviews from people trying to be fair, tied to the rail tracks of allegedly.
This one is for those of us who chose silence.
For whatever reasons, regardless of how you feel about it now, I’m proud of you too. Sometimes it is better to swallow it, it is better to repress it, until you’re in a space where you feel safe. You don’t owe anyone anything. The statistics of justice are not in your favor. Perhaps you were all alone or simply couldn’t afford it. It doesn’t matter. Release yourself of any guilt.
It’s harsh, but it’s truth nonetheless. Most of us are not perfect victims, it’s a ‘video or it didn’t happen’ world. A lot of us don’t look like people people care about. A lot of them were people that we cared about. Some of the times we didn’t even know what had happened. Some of us did what we had to do to forget it. Some of us were forced to stay quiet even though we tried, even though we fought to scream.
I’m proud of you too. Because you survived. For you.
You’re not a coward, and you’re not responsible for the next people that they might hurt, the same way that those who came before you are not responsible. You are not responsible for a world where being quiet after being profoundly violated is often the safest action. You are not responsible that the world would have more readily believed you if you died in the act. You’re not responsible for not wanting to carry any more shame, any more blame from people who have no idea what you go through to not end it all.
If you chose to keep your voice within to keep you alive instead of screaming into the abyss as the ground shakes beneath your feet, I’m proud of you.
***
This is my first time writing about this. I cried, rocked back and forth, shook uncontrollably, and paused to breathe every few lines. But it’s time for me to tell my story. Add to the horrifying tapestry of doubts, blames, silences, and backlogged rape kits.
I might be convinced that my story’s impact is negligible or only indirect, but I must tell it. I chose silence when it was the choice that could save my future. That could a ave my agency to protect it. The same way that I now understand that my silence can no longer protect me. Or perhaps, actually never protected me.
I protect me. As I kept pushing. As I now tell my truth. As I fight for me. As I’m here for me.
Jessica says “It’s not easy coming out, and having people scrutinize you, say you have hidden agendas, when you know deep down in your heart that all you wanna do is move on with your life and all you want is justice.”
For the first time since the video started, her face completely transformed. From the woman visibly reliving the moments of that night, to the woman who woke up that morning, and all the other mornings after that horrifying event, to tell her story out of pure conviction.
“But this is not over,” she added, staring into the camera lens. “I won’t stop speaking, I won’t be quiet.”
***
Justice is not just your rapists going to prison. Justice is a world that supports victims, believes that their stories deserve to be investigated more than a career needs to be protected. We deserve a world that takes all of us seriously, not just pretty actresses. A world that provides multidimensional support to victims across genders. A world that accepts and supports truth.
Until then, those of us who choose silence deserve the space and support to do what’s right for us. Those of us who can speak up from a safe place can echo all of our stories.
I hope that you reach a place where you can throw what it has done to you back in the world’s face. At the very least, it can be cathartic. And you deserve that. You deserve it all.
I’m proud of you.
***
Where is Lee now, you might be asking?
Well, he became a cop.
Powerful. Deeply saddened that you had to experience that and all alone. Grateful to you for releasing. I hope in writing this it did what you needed.
It’s so intriguing because my feed is showing me stories of bravery from those who have suffered in silence as I’m gathering the strength to tell my own. Also fuck Lee and all of em. Sending warmth and love your way ✨🧡
Sending you so much love 🤎