An Open Letter to Dr Christine Blasey Ford — If You Choose to Testify, You Have an Army Standing Behind You

Dear Dr. Ford,

You deserved better than this. You deserved better than Senator Chuck Grassley casually dismissing what was, by any definition, an attempt to violently rape you, with “I hate to think what I was doing 30 years ago.”

Was Senator Grassley pinning women down and covering their mouths so they could not scream? Was he trapping a woman in a room for no other reason except to force himself on her? How could anyone ever forget such a moment? No victim ever would. Or could.

Not all women are fully on board with the #metoo movement. Some of us out there are worried about due process. Some of us are worried some women are making a lot out of what is nothing. Some of us are worried that so many accusations will be like the boy who cried wolf, or the girl who cried rape, so that there is no distinction between slapping a woman on the ass and holding her down and covering her mouth so that she can’t scream for help.

You have put yourself in a position where your family is being threatened, your reputation smeared, your privacy hacked. Those of us standing here on the sidelines cheering you on do not know what that feels like on such a massive scale.

But those of us who are assault victims know what it feels like to carry with you the trauma of an event that has had an impact on the rest of your life. Though we know what that feels like, we can’t know what it would feel like to put ourselves on the line like you are doing now. You are doing the right thing, the responsible thing, and your duty as an American citizen.

Like you, I did not come forward any of the times I was assaulted as a young woman. I was once held down by a drunk football jock who passed out on top of me before he could even unzip his pants. I was driven to a remote location in the middle of the night as a 14 year-old whose best friend’s boyfriend had offered to drive me home. Only if you do something for me, he said, and unzipped his pants. I did not have a choice.

I know what you know — that these things stay dormant. They live in your bones. They never go away completely. They erupt at the worst of times, when you really want to choose a different kind of happiness — there they are, back again. “Oh yeah, that.”

I want you to know that millions of us are grateful and relieved that you took the hit, that you decided to do what any of us would do — come forward at last, even after 30 years, to give the American people information they need to know about someone whose opinion will impact their lives and their children’s lives. Even their grandchildren’s.

That Judge Kavanagh has not even addressed what happened between you shows that he is willing to lie and cover up the truth. He knows what he did to you because there is no way it was the only time. He clearly has led somewhat of a double life — the public person he’s selling to the American people, and the man who decided to take what he wanted, no matter the cost and then lie about it. Here is our government, rewarding him for that.

No one can tell you not to testify. That is your choice and no one should pressure one way or the other on how to make that choice. But I can tell you one thing with certainty. If you do choose to testify — you will have an army standing behind you and up for you every single day, an army that will not stop until they stop. If they harass you, we will be there. If they make death threats, we will be there. If they try to smear your name publicly, we will be there. If they call you a liar, we will be there. There are more of us than them. If they want a fight, we will give them a fight. This you can count on.

We will stand up for your right to tell your story.

You know what we know — that he will probably be confirmed. You know you will be attached to him for the rest of your life, a piece of permanent history in the ongoing battle for the soul of America. That is probably the very last place you’d want to be. There he is once again, covering your mouth with his hand only this time he’s laughing. He’s laughing because he knows this corrupt administration will do whatever it takes to make the Robert Mercers and Charles and David Kochs of the world happy. They bought the America they wanted.

They will sacrifice the integrity of the highest court in the land because they know it’s now or never. They are playing the dirtiest politics in a generation because they can, because the democrats slept on the mid-terms and never fought for their place on the chess board, even losing the last big chess piece, the presidency. But we’ve learned our lesson. We are uniting and we are coming for them. This is not the end.

Your story matters. His integrity, or lack thereof, matters. The integrity of the Supreme Court matters. The rights of women matter. Their voices must be heard. Your voice must be heard. We stand behind you — not a few, not even hundreds, but millions of us. Millions.

They’ve unleashed the fury of millions of pissed off citizens who are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. One way or another you will be vindicated.

Your supporter and ally,

Sasha Stone