Just believe.
We see this phrase everywhere in December – on T-shirts and posters and advertising campaigns. It means different things to different people. Children see Just Believe and start asking for remote-powered cars and iPhones. Parents view the phrase as an unwelcome reminder that they represent an overly-boisterous, imaginary and magical fat man in a red suit. Some even see the two words as a testimony of the grace and love of the Savior of the world – the real meaning behind Christmas.
Santa Claus, from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, visits the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange before the opening bell, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2015. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
I now see the words as a desperate plea, a prayer, offered by men and women who are victims of sexual assault.
Please, believe me. Please, listen to me. Please, let me tell you what happened, so I can start to heal.
The Salt Lake Tribune recently featured TV journalist Kim Fischer’s story of living as a survivor of sexual assault. Fischer’s uncle abused her as a young girl. When she tried to tell her mother, her mother said, “Good little girls don’t talk like that.” Such a remark from a trusted adult would silence most children forever more.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) ABC4 News reporter Kim Fischer, in Salt Lake City Wednesday November 22, 2017.
Fischer shared that victims don’t always know what to do when being attacked, especially in a culture that often does not legitimize or recognize unwanted sexual contact as improper. Sometimes an instinct to fight kicks in. But sometimes a victim will be paralyzed with fear.
A few weeks after the delivery of my last child I was walking out to my car in the early morning. As I walked into the garage I saw someone in the passenger seat of my car and figured my daughter was getting her backpack. I opened the driver side door to get in and found myself face to face with a young man rifling through my purse. He had white, almost translucent skin, a feminine facial structure, a hollow face, sunken eyes and ratty light brown dreadlocks.
Startled, we made eye contact. I said something like, “Oh no you don’t,” and he took off down my driveway, still holding my purse. My fight or flight kicked in, and I took off down the driveway after him.
Now, I was three weeks post-delivery of my seventh child and let’s just say I wasn’t going out much. On this particular morning, I was wearing a ten-year-old, large, heavy, plush pink robe. That’s it. And I wasn’t about to lose my purse.
So I started screaming at the top of my lungs, “Stop! Thief! He has my purse!” while running after him in my cumbersome, pink robe down the middle of a quiet Salt Lake City street. After four or five houses, my post-pregnancy body started losing steam and the distance between us kept growing. Suddenly, my angel neighbor showed up in her car and said, “Get in.” She had heard me screaming while watering plants, and jumped to my rescue. I think she realized it could have ended really well, or really horribly.
We caught up to the tiring, dreadlocked felon and started yelling at him from the window of the car. He dropped the purse but kept running with my wallet, at which point I got out to secure the purse and my neighbor continued on to recover my wallet. She had a conversation with him that went something like, “I’m broke.” “Well, you can’t steal people’s stuff.”
At no time did my neighbor hear my screams and wonder to herself, “Michelle sounds like she’s in trouble. But maybe she’s really not.” At no time when telling this comical story to friends and family afterwards did anyone stop me and say, “Did this really happen?”
Because we don’t usually question when someone gets robbed or assaulted.
Yes, there are deranged individuals who concoct stories about fake crimes. Usually these claims include elaborate, nonsensical details that the police quickly ferret out. Fischer herself has reported that only 2 percent of sexual assault cases are false. Two.
And no, this is not guilty until proven innocent. In court, in legal proceedings, in criminal protections offered the accused, he or she is innocent until proven guilty. But the very first reaction to a claim of sexual assault cannot be I don’t believe you, or what were you wearing? We must create space for victims of sexual assault to come forward and trust that their claims will be heard and investigated.
Because now, we believe.
Michelle Quist is an editorial writer for The Salt Lake Tribune who knows it’s not wise to run after criminals but would probably do it again.