Ford paid tribute to Miller for Time magazine’s 100 Next, a list of 100 rising stars published Wednesday.
Chanel Miller embodied courage long before writing her powerfully moving book, “Know My Name,” Ford wrote. She recounted how in 2016, Miller, then anonymous, confronted her assailant, Brock Turner, in court with a victim-impact statement that immediately went viral.
Earlier this year, Miller revealed her identity in her memoir “Know My Name,” seeking to reclaim her narrative and tell her full story.
Thank you for getting on an airplane and sitting in that crowded U.S. Senate room and facing an interrogation in front of a phalanx of men who wanted you to fail.
You didn’t. You shone.
With your big glasses, your unadorned face and that wayward strand of hair, you were Everywoman. Everywoman with guts.
It’s tempting to call you fearless, but you weren’t. You were terrified. You said so. You seemed so. That’s what courage is — doing the hard, right thing even when you’re scared.
Thank you for your courage.
There’s no evidence that you ever wanted it to come to this, this spectacle in front of a Senate panel and the TV cameras, with your integrity on trial.
From the outset, the hearing was stacked against you. There you were, a psychology professor with no legal training, up against a whole lot of lawyers, including the U.S. Supreme Court nominee you say sexually assaulted you when you were 15 and he was 17 and drunk. At the hearing, only you and he, Brett Kavanaugh, were called to testify. No other witnesses were called, not even the other boy you say was in the bedroom the night you were attacked.
On Thursday morning when you stood up and raised your right hand, swearing to tell the truth, a few million of us held our breath: Would you be able to hold it together?
When you began to speak in a tremulous voice about the night you say Kavanaugh assaulted you, a few million of us felt shaky too.
Like you, women all over the country were trying not to cry. Some did anyway. Could you feel all those tears and prayers coming your way?
Some women cried because your description of the assault caused them to remember attacks they’d survived. When you described fearing that Kavanaugh would rape you or accidentally kill you, they remembered their own terror at the hands of some other boy, some other man.
And the part about the laughter.
When you said that what you remembered most was the way Kavanaugh and his friend laughed, women all over the country shared the humiliation and the fury. Other women know that laughter, that contempt, the multiplied power of men in numbers.
I’m saying “women” here even though there are men who have been sexually assaulted and even though many men were rooting for you too.
I’m saying “women” because so many women could see themselves in you. Looking at you, we could remember the teenage girls who still exist within our adult bodies.
Even women who don’t believe you about Kavanaugh — and there are many — can relate to what you described, so even the doubters are in your debt. By speaking out, you showed a strength that will surely inspire others to do the same.
“My motivation in coming forward was to be helpful,” you said.
You used the word “helpful” more than once. You said “thank you” and “sorry.” You were so gracious that some people felt compelled to mock those “feminine” traits.
You know what? It takes guts to be gracious when you’re under attack. Consideration for others takes courage. Being nice isn’t evil; the world could use more of it.
What you said Thursday will be used by people in both political parties for their own gain. That’s out of your control.
You did what you came to do, which was to speak boldly in a world that so often silences women’s experiences of violence. Thank you for the care you took with your words.
“I can only speak for how it has impacted me,” you said, but even with your caution you spoke for how sexual assault affects many.
Thank you for enduring it all — the doubts, the insults, the death threats — and for keeping your composure. If you’d broken down, you would have been mocked as an overemotional woman.
As you noted, it’s not up to you to determine whether Brett Kavanaugh should sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. You came, you spoke your truth, you conquered your fear.
For doing so, your life will be harder for a long time to come. Thank you in advance for those sacrifices.
You’ve been called a hero, but you don’t seem the type to crave glory. So let it suffice to say thank you for being a good and brave citizen.
If there’s something I learned from working with sexual assault survivors and being one myself, it’s that no two people deal with trauma the same way. Some laugh. Some rage. Some cry. The very last thing a survivor needs is to feel like they need to conform to some “typical” or “proper” way of reacting. This is why true advocates for survivors will never pressure them into speaking to the police or reporting. The most empowering thing you can do for a survivor is to deeply listen and let them make their own choices about what to do next.
Let’s do that for each other. Let’s make radically caring space for each other, OK? Let’s honor each other’s choices as survivors of the cishetpatriarchy. Some of us will be in the streets fighting. Some will be in the courts fighting. Some will be battling from the internet or our phones. Some need to tune out and not engage right now at all. None of us are “doing it” wrong.
Show this photo to your daughters as they grow up.
Show them that courage is important, even in the scariest of situations. This woman stood up and faced her fears, spoke her truth in front of a group of men while balancing the world on her shoulders. She is a hero. She is a representation for all women who are done being assaulted and abused.
I Believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford
Show it to them because our mothers didn’t show us this one:
Who is she? Anita Hill.
What’s she doing here? Testifying about the sexual misconduct of then supreme court nominee Clarence Thomas aka nowthe most senior justice on the Supreme Court.
