Harassment, Insurrection and Personal Communication pt. 1

Further Thoughts on Personal Development

Now to return to myself not because I am better, more important, or any other way of prime example, but only because I know my own personality and the development of my personality, both parents allowed me to develop my curiosity pretty much unassisted I became incessantly independent of any attempts to control me simply because I never had many controls put upon me.  On the other hand I had very two different parents, one who let me explore my ideas intellectually and the other who tried to make me into a conformist.  By starting with the particular, I hope to refrain from the mistake that leads us to false presumptions of groups. Stars exist, but stars are individualistic and to see them as all of one group before viewing their individual particularities, we limit our comprehension of the commonalities. 

My father was a get along type who needed to be a part of a group and needed to have the group reinforce his ideas and needed to also reinforce the ideas of the group that he was within. As a youth, he was slightly more liberal but as his group shifted when he made a couple of lucky investments and received an inheritance through his second wife, he became increasingly more centered on belief in the group that was what might be termed “wealthy”, even though he was never amongst the upper wealthy leaders.  But he was able to mingle with a class that had more substantial access to resources and reinforced himself with their ideas that poverty was deserved.  I became a prime illustration to his new friends of a person who proved the point that poverty was due only to those who did not apply themselves. Of course, he was both correct and incorrect.  I did choose to become as independently economically  as I could and therefore refuted, as much as possible, to be dependent on others for my personal economy.  But this was a choice I was able to make because of exposure that allowed me to have the option.  But everyone does not have the exposure and everyone does not have the option, Most have the exposure through media about, and the advertising to create the desire, but many don’t have the exposure of experience, and lacking the exposure, and convinced by advertising that the option to have more is more necessarily, they have limited options to actually experience whether economic success is actually a choice placed upon them because it is preferred for all, but it may not be an optional choice since the culture blankets them with the desire to feel economic participation in what others have.  So those who may be able to become economically wealthier never have the experience to choose if they individually prefer economic independence or economic dependence.  The premise itself that promotes one’s personal efforts as the path to economic stability contains within the assumption that to become economically independent, one must first become economically dependent.  Unfortunately it is a false premise.  Those that are able to attain both economic success and economic independence almost either inherit economic success and never need to be dependent, or like a Steve Jobs in moden times, or a John D. Rockefeller from bygone days, they maintained an unsuccessful (in monetary terms) independence until they might achieve an economic success in financial terms. In fact, the rags to riches story of success by hard work and self-effort, as we all know, seldom has the opportunity to actually establish individual independence both individually and economically.  But even rarer, is to achieve both by first becoming dependent.  Even rising to a big company CEO often leads the CEO in a position of ever-increasing dependence to maintain their supposed economic success.

 My mother could never become a part of a group, I think,  because she couldn't accept anyone's dominance over her, so I suppose I might have inherited some of her personality type but hers had been suppressed until she had become isolated and unable to feel comfortable in any social group. I suppose I might have been the vicarious boldness that she had been prevented from exhibiting in her early life. Of course I wasn't there, I only know a little, but I know that she was forced out of her house as a teenager, became pregnant and married at 16, and was very disappointed in that marriage But even though she never found anything I suggested probably had much  agreement with her own ideas, she never tried to suppress any direction or thought that I wanted to pursue, in fact she would encourage it even if she might think it were wrong and likewise not have to agree with me to stand up for me against those who tried to suppress my thoughts.

 If both parents had been like my father and I had had the freedom to wander the community and not the freedom to explore my own ideas I would have been a very different person than I am today, but likewise I might have been a much kinder and gentler person if both parents had responded differently. Or I could have been violent.  I could have never learned any self-control, or I could have conformed to be a part of the culture that I would have been expected to become a part of.

Because I'd been allowed to wander the streets more or less at a very young age,  I was able to walk into many groups that I probably wouldn't have been able to, if I had been older, and  as a consequence I never learned to belong to a group.  This allowed me a window into many cliques,or or groups, and as I mentioned as a youth it was seen positively amongst my peers, but that might have, once again, been made possible only  because of the circumstances of the schooling that I participated in, the overseas military schools that were seemingly classless among the students. I might have had a different childhood again, and a different life as an adult if my experience in the schools that I was able to attend had been somewhat different, if I'd been in one school all of my life, I might have not been allowed as easily to wonder between cliques, then I might have become, like my mother, an isolationist, somebody who couldn't belong to any of the groups in my school and was one of the social outsiders.  What I'm trying to get at here, though, is that the parent-child relationship creates the first environment and if that relationship isolates a child into a specific clique, he will not be able to not identify himself apart from that clique because he will lack experience of other groups.

So experience— especially early experiences, earmark the personal development of divergent personalities and both the acceptance and the suppression of the personality in early childhood develops the first emotional links to developing the thoughts and behavior of the individual personality,

 Next in life comes the events the personality that has been allowed to develop or that has been attempted to be molded into a more acceptable personality to the parents, shape the responses of  the personality,  and how the personality  will react to the rest of the community beyond the nuclear  community.  Now despite the social consequences of my little story about attempting to see The Robe with a black family, there was a great deal of emotional response that developed into how I would continue to relate to the world for the rest of my life. It was not, however, the singular experience that developed my emotional thoughts about white-black society or any types of groups or associations, it was the sum of the observations, a mere minor. who was  able to become an observer who nobody thought was really observing, or had the ability to do so. It was not the experience of most white children in Muncie Indiana, most of them had no true comprehension of the effects of a segregated community, all they could comprehend was the blacks were treated as inferior.  Some of those might have grown up to not think of blacks as inferiors, and others would have grown up to never expect blacks to challenge their role as inferior. Likewise, my experience, was not that of the black children who were segregated, and I never experienced that segregation every day that forced them  into suppression of their very beings as inferior to whites. 

I didn't have that experience and I could never say that I did, but the experience at The Robe, or trying to attend the movie theater to see The Robe was really a shocking event to me.  I was more aware of the segregated society than many other white children who probably didn’t really comprehend how the signs that permitted blacks to enter stores only during certain hours, if they could enter them at all.  But nevertheless, like other white children I had never experienced the actual consequence of being not permitted to do something because of my skin color. But just that one moment of being in the middle of a segregated rebuttal that would not allow me to watch a movie with black children made me feel segregated against and was probably (perhaps in some eyes) something my parents should have prevented from happening.  But nevertheless I developed a sense of allegiance that day to the concept that no one ever had the right to make themselves more important by suppressing another for any reason whatsoever.

I developed a defensiveness and independence that would never again accept anyone’s right to be right just because they claimed to be.  I might have had to learn to suppress my actions in order to not be confined apart from the community, and so I became eccentrically centered more on the independence of my thoughts than my actions.  And so I could never accept anything anyone told me as the answer, And so when the teacher told me what I was supposed to believe I would seek to find another source that suggested otherwise.  And there were always alternative ideologies or answers.  I doubt there is a single subject where there is not someone who has not suggested a difference of opinion to any expressed opinion.   I would seek alternative ideas, though, not, as some supposed, because I thought alternate opinions were more correct, but simply to discover there is no definitive correct answer to any question.  However, answers that try to suborn followship of belief lead me to believe that definitive answers that don’t take into account opposing answers are usually in themselves wrong-headed. Not wrong-headed in being definitely wrong, but wrong-headed because they are divisive.  And I have tried to maintain my independence, not because I have the only correct answers, but because when I challenge the accepted answer, I maintain my independence to question and not become enslaved to someone else’s thoughts of what is the correct perception, or the incorrect.

If we become stuck in our perceptions, we become stunted by those perceptions, and limit ourselves to even comprehending our perceptions.  In a court of law, prosecutors love an eye witness because an eyewitness who saw or experienced an event is generally perceived by jurists  as an infallible witness.  Once upon a time I was called to testify in a trial as a victim.  I could have definitely told the jury that the person who was on trial was the perpetrator.  But actually I had no such definite perception until he was caught and the police asked if he were the person who had attempted to rob me.   And it was only then that he became impressed upon my mind as being the criminal.  I had been driving the perpetrator in my cab, and never had a clear view of his full face.  When he had pulled out a knife and grabbed me by the neck and told me has going to waste me after having me hand over my money, at the next traffic light (this is pre cell phone days) I had pulled up behind another cab.  I flung myself from his grip without even taking the cab out of gear with such speed  that I had dived into the back door of the cab in front of me before my cab plowed into the cab I had just entered. The cab driver had a passenger of his own in the backseat, and both of them obviously looked at me with some alarm. “My passenger just robbed me, call dispatch on the radio  and tell them to call the cops,” I pleaded. By this time, my passenger had slid into the passenger seat and backed my cab up and taken off. I got out of the cab I had entered to enable him to complete his ride and waited for the police to respond. The police had little doubt of what car to pursue, because cabs are kind of noticeable and they are marked with a number.  In addition, I had a unique model.  All of the other cabs that were on the road were either large plymouths or checkers and mine was an experiment in gas savings, and was a small plymouth horizon.  It probably took the police ten minutes to locate the car and chase it into a parking garage where they cornered the perpetrator.   I was picked up by other officers and taken to the parking garage to identify the robber.  When asked if he was the person who had robbed me, though, I saw him for the first time from a full frontal facial view, and so I answered I believed so, but could not be definitive.  They asked if the clothes he was wearing were recognizable to me as the clothes the robber had been wearing.  Yes I identified the clothing as being the same, a green khaki shirt and blue jeans.  

So of course the city attorney questioned me about my hesitant identification and I explained that he entered by coming in the front door but had approached it from the rear and I had not seen him until he gotten into the car.  At that point I admitted I had glanced at him momentarily but I didn’t believe it was long enough to definitely identify. While driving I never looked at passengers, but might glance at them at stop lights and see them from a side perspective.  The city attorney said, okay, we will nor present you as an eyewitness but as the victim.  I never spoke to the lawyer of the suspect, I am not sure if they are permitted to do so, but at the very least he should have had access to my statement to the police.

When I was called to the stand, I was asked to state my name and the events that led up to the robbery and then how I had escaped.  After that the prosecutor mentioned that I had not been able  to definitely identify the suspect to the police.  I said “yes, that is correct because my view was only occasional side glances to the left side of his face.”  “Do you recognize him now as the person the police officers showed to you upon his apprehension.”  “Yes I am pretty sure  he is the person the police presented to me as the suspect they had apprehended driving the cab.”  At this point the prosecutor asked me if I thought I could identify him from the left view.”  “I’m not completely sure,” I replied.  But the prosecutor had him stand and turn his left side to me and asked if I could identify him now.  I demurred once again, and said it was a completely different perspective from sitting in a cab and occasionally viewing him from the side.  I said the cheek and jowl seemed similar, but he was wearing a ball cap that obscured the upper portion of my perspective of his face and I am unclear as to the lip and jaw area even from this perspective.

“Okay.  Now you also informed the police that you did recognize the clothing of the person they presented to you as being the same type of clothing as the perpetrator who had attempted to rob you was wearing, “ holding up a pear of jeans and a green shirt,  he asked if I were able to identify the clothing as the clothing the perpetrator had worn.  “Well,” I replied, “they are certainly the type of clothing he was wearing but I don’t know if those are the same clothes he was wearing.” “thank you” 

Now it was the defense attorney’s opportunity to question me.  From my perspective he did a poor job.  A victim who could not identify his assailant, had I been on a jury, might lead me to have some reasonable doubt. I thought a  good defense might be able to make hay with the jury and present possible doubt.  But the attorney first asked if I could definitely identify the clothing as the clothing the perpetrator had been wearing.  I looked up to the judge and I said to him, “i believe I didn’t say that, I believe that I said they were the appearance of the clothing he was wearing.”  The judge very kindly replied to me and said, “yes I know.”  Then he told the defense attorney his question was improper because I had already stated they were only the appearance of the clothing and the chain of custody would be presented into evidence to establish whether they  were the same clothing.  At this point the defense attorney (I presume he was a P.D.) seemed at a loss, then he turned to me once more and in a very accusatory tone, “so how can you say this is the man who robbed you?”  This time I answered him directly and said “I  never identified him and I explained I never had a clear view of him to be able to do so.”  But you just stated he was the man you identified to the police officers.”  "No, I said he was the man the police presented to me as the man they had caught driving the car and I identified him today as the man they had presented to me, but to them I did not identify him as the man robbed me,  and just now in court repeated ,I could not identify him because I never had a clear view of him.”  The judge intervened on his own imperative this time, and turned to the jury and told them that they had to disregard the defense’ questions because I had stated I was unable to identify the witness and other witnesses would be necessary for identification. This witness was only called to establish that the crime did occur and the jury must totally disregard any questions the defense asked about the witness inability to identify the suspects because he had stated under direct examination he had never had a clear view to identify the defendant.This witness testified as to the crime having occurred. He has never claimed to be able to be an eyewitness and any attempt to impugn his testimony as such must be disregarded.”  Then to the defense attorney, “do you have any questions about the crime which is  the only thing this witness has knowledge of?”  “No more questions.”

Well there went any reasonable doubt, at least I would have been able to not have any reasonable doubt about the identification had I been on the jury. Well of course I am not all jurors, but I have sat on civil trials, and everyone in those deliberations would immediately point out any position that might be contrary to the judge’s rulings.  And whenever there was an interpretation we would send a request to the judge for clarification. The thing I discovered is that even despite the different backgrounds, the common ground that allows juries to work to any extent is that the jurors seek to set aside those backgrounds and work together to find a consensus.  And even though we were only required to have a 10-2 plurality, the judge had asked us to try to reach unanimity and we did.  The case was kind of a Fox case, in that even before we were seated, the fault had already been stipulated and the defendant had conceded to pay medical damages, so we were only deciding compensatory and/or punitive damages.  My experience was enlightening because it proved to me people could really work together to reach an agreement.  It was also enlightening because it taught me the importance of all those court appeals about the instructions given to a jury and the judge’s remarks during the trial.  Everyone of us were free to engage our own opinions, and yet it was really important to each of us to conform to the legal interpretation we had been given as to what we were able to decide.

The point I am making in this story is that there is always doubt if we limit our perceptions to only the facts we are supposed to believe are true.  If a must be true, then there is a possibility that someone might think b could be true.  If a victim cannot identify an assailant, it might be true that the assailant might not be the assailant.  But since I myself did not rule out that the assailant might not be the assailant combined with a defense that attempted to attack my credibility after I had already stated I was unable to identity allowed the judge to step in and state that my inability to identify the defendant did not mean b was possible because I was not there to identify the assailant at all.

So let’s go to bees and wasps.  Many people think they are the same thing and they are afraid of being stung.  Others will take the approach that bees won’t sting you unless they are afraid for their own lives because they die if they sting you. 

Now the truth is most of us can’t identify bees from wasps, and wasps, and some bee species do not die when they sting you.  I am not expert enough to identify bee and wasp species but I can identify honey bees and I don’t care if they are around, I don’t care if they land on me because if I am still I have discovered they will not sting me. But I can’t determine other species of bees and wasps by appearance, I don’t know which might sting you even if you are still, and which might actually be frightened off by waving your hand in front of them.  Because different species can have different reactions, so it is actually false to assume that one is safe if one never attempts to swat them away, but is also false to assume swatting at them will always lead to one being stung.  So all assumptions about when or how a bee or wasp might react and whether you will be stung depends both on the species and individual temperament.  So in this instance the possibility of b occurring (being stung) is not dependent on a (your reaction to swat or not swat.).

Likewise people will have different perspectives and different reactions to different stimuli depending on both the diversity of individual personalities and the experiences that have shaped those personalities and lead to individually unique responses.  A prime example is “sexual harassment.”  The “Cuomo” defense was not really a bad defense because it actually is the problem with sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is an issue of communication and must be defined through communication.  At one point in my life I was presented as a “boss” and asked to intervene (fire) someone who was perceived to be harassing some of the females.  Until that time, I had been aware I was the boss, I had thought we made decisions as a group and no one was the boss.  We had been working together as a group for some time.  When we would be working on a project we might lean over another’s desk, we might place our arm around another’s shoulder.  The five of us had been involved with this project for some time, we were familiar with each other, and no one seemed intimated or feared that such actions were attempts of sexual suggestion.  In other words, what we did was acceptable to our small group and no one seemed to object. We spent a lot of hours with each other and learned to trust each other.  The others were all in their early to mid twenties, three women and one other man, and I was about ten years older.  

At this point, a bestselling author became interested in our project and volunteered to assist us and we were all thrilled because he had the contacts that might lead our project to be more widely recognized and because our work had not yet borne any tangible responses.  We kind of bunked at one of the women’s apartment, and were being supported by her boyfriend who vended flowers on a street corner.  In other words, we were near the end of the line, and the younger members who believed in the project, nevertheless were ready to “grow up” and get paying jobs.  So, they, especially, were eager to welcome him. He was older, probably at that time nearing seventy.  He saw our behavior towards each other and felt that he was now able to emulate us.  It was not acceptable to any of the women and they came  to me to “fire” him for harassing them.  At first my response was that I was not able to fire or hire anyone and he was voluntarily offering his assistance.  No matter, they told me, I had to tell him he was unwelcome to work with us any further.  I then asked if they felt harassed when I or the other man might drape our arms around them and they said, no, because they knew we were not making a pass at them.  Well how can I tell him what I do is not sexual harassment, but when he does the same thing, it is.  But it’s not the same thing, they replied because you don’t make us uncomfortable and he does.  Did you tell him that he is making you feel uncomfortable when he touches you, that we’ve been together long enough to form a bond of trust but you don’t feel comfortable with his behavior because you haven’t that same bond?  No, we want you to tell him.  

So of course I had to tell him that some were not happy with his involvement in our group. I thanked him for his willingness to lend support but it wasn’t working out and we would prefer he no longer assisted.  I said if he  believed in the project, then please feel free to try to promote us with your contacts, but some  of us have a selfish interest in the actual details of what we are doing.  Of course he never promoted us and he sensed my discomfort and kept wanting to know how he had offended me.

Now everyone knows of the Clarence Thomas hearing when Anita Harris appeared to accuse him of sexual harassment.  She actually was very careful with her words and did not actually accuse him of sexual harassment.  She described the events and comments he made to her, mostly comments, that had made her feel uncomfortable but when asked if he she thought he was sexually harassing her and why she didn’t file charges, Anita Hill carefully (during the hearing)  refrained from saying whether it was harassment or not.  She replied, “I didn't know what to think, but I felt uncomfortable and so I decided to seek employment elsewhere.”

But that is the key, the feeling of discomfort by actions of words, and why the Mario Cuomo defense that attempted to say he treated everyone in the same manner and some did not find his behavior uncomfortable.  So it has to be about the discomfort one might feel, not about whether the actions are really right or wrong.  It will be the personal feelings of discomfort, maybe the discomfort is simply because of a lack of bond, perhaps it’s a discomfort created by the words or actions that one person finds discomforting and another not. Or perhaps some might actually respond more favorably simply because of a personal attraction that might not be shared by another to that person but might be accepted because of an attraction to a different person.   So since sexual harassment falls into all kinds of cracks, it becomes difficult.  Prosecutions of such allegations want to find copycat patterns of behavior, and others who might have experienced similar reactions.  Clarence Thomas actually attempted a Cuomo defense by getting others to testify they never felt discomforted by him, but they couldn’t find any copycat accusers and so the charge was not applied successfully, even though the accusation has continued to haunt Thomas.

I don’t think we need copycat offenses.  You don’t have to kill two people before being charged with one.  You don’t have to have a pattern of any criminal behavior, and in fact, courts generally frown on allowing copycat behavior into a trial of most crimes, as prejudicial to the crime being charged.  So I don’t see why harassment should need to follow a pattern.  But harassment is primarily about personal feelings of discomfort and about the different personalities and the different responses that different personalities will have to different actions to different people and because many react differently to different persons as well as have different comfort levels of tolerance and/or acceptance about comments or actions, it has to be about communication. If it is not overt acts of groping or aggression, then it must be established by the person who is being made to feel uncomfortable, they must tell the person who is harassing them and say if the comments or behavior occur again they will seek harassment charges.  No one can know whether something might be acceptable.  Once I was discussing movies with a woman and she said her favorite actor was so-and-so.  I replied I did like his acting, but I didn’t like movies he directed because they dragged on too long.  She suddenly became extremely hostile and stood up before the entire auditorium where we were at, and yelled at me, “Why are you being so mean to my step-brother?”.  So I stood up and said to the auditorium “I must apologize.  " '' I did not know my disparaging remark was about … brother and I am very sorry to have unwittingly offended her and I must learn to be careful about saying negative things about others who might have different opinions than I about someone I might be disparaging.”

If someone is made uncomfortable I think they should need the courage to say, “That remark” or “That behavior” makes me uncomfortable and then if it happens again we have a case of sexual harassment and it should be prosecutable because now the offender should be aware he was offending.  It shouldn’t need to develop a pattern of offensive remarks, because once it is on record, the offender should not commit the offense again.  I am not talking of any type of sexual aggression or overt sexual overtures which are clearly legally defined offenses, and I’m not talking about attempts to gain sexual favors because of one’s presumed authority over another.  I am writing here of sexual harassment that the harasser may not know he is creating discomfort if he doesn’t know he is making another uncomfortable with the same actions or words.  But once informed of the other’s reaction he crosses the barrier into overt and knowing behavior of creating discomfort in others.  

So let’s take a different line.  January 6th as legitimate political discourse, or Jan 6th as an insurrection.  Now we once again have a dispute about the truth.  If your political discourse accepts the concept that violence can be utilized to overpower a government you find non-acceptable to you, then it is legitimate discourse.  And certainly if it had succeeded in maintaining  Trump’s authority  it would have been legitimate political discourse in changing the power structure from what had been to what it now would have become.  If it falls out of favor later, it could be viewed retrospectively differently from either an insurrection or political discourse.

What we have in its aftermath, however, is an insurrection because it did not succeed, thus it was not legitimate discourse, but a criminal attempt to change the power structure.  

What we have left are feelings of discomfort by some, however, that still wish it had been a successful overthrow of the existing power structure.  But if the attempt failed and became a criminal action and an insurrection, then continued proponents that it was political discourse are, in reality, proposing a renewed insurrection and they themselves could be viewed as encouraging another attempt at transforming an insurrection  into legitimate political discourse.  If the insurrectionists that participated in transforming the power structure through a violent political discourse—and history is replete with examples of successful violent overthrowals of existing governments that did succeed and become political discourse retrospectively, and the participants do sometimes take on heroic propensities to later generations at times, and at other times become demonic personalities if their legitimacy is overthrown at a later time.

Since the events of Jan 6 did not succeed in overthrowing the existing order, or preventing Joe Biden’s presidency to continue the existing order, then it was an insurrection and not political discourse, at least not “legitimate” discourse.  So we are in a similar situation to the harasser who is told his behavior—his words—are offensive and if he continues to use those words, by telling him he is offensive by using them and if he does so again he could face punishment.  His right of free speech has been curtailed by their offensiveness and if he continues to behave and use the same words he can be criminally and/or civilly liable.  So if the political discourse to prevent Biden’s ascendancy

fails and the discourse is now an insurrection and the participants are now criminal, why do those who might still claim it as discourse not have their right of continuing the same dialogue curtailed and why is not the continued assertion that the events of Jan 6th legitimate, not criminal?

I am not trying to make the feelings that created a need for certain people to feel displaced enough to participate in or continue to believe that the government remains illegitimate.  Because a government does remain illegitimate to those who don’t accept its legitimacy.  If an insurrection occurred, which it did, since it did not succeed, then a democracy cannot overlook the reasonings or feelings of illegitimacy that existed and still exist.  The chaos and disorder still exist.   The solution cannot be in denigrating the other.  But neither can the solution be to allow the harasser to continue to harass after being told to refrain.  

What we need is to convert the dialogue from accusations against each other, to a dialogue about what makes a government legitimate and why do a significant amount (roughly 1/4 which sounds like a lot more than 25%) feel the government is illegitimate.  Instead of continuing to express outrage against proponents of disharmony, (which I do), those who believe in the legitimacy of the existing government must listen, not to the voices of those trying to gain power by promoting the government’s illegitimacy, but to the voices who can explain why they—the individuals feeling that the government is not representing them— feel that way.  Not the grievances of race or ethnicity, programmed into them as the causes of their discomfort, but to actually sit down with them and listen to their pain, to allow them the throne to explain why they feel so empty and unrepresented.  If we discard all rhetoric about other groups being the cause and let them tell us the issues, we might find ourselves surprised.  We might find their real grievances are not as dissimilar to ours, that our goals can be united into a consensus of common goals. The truths may not be the same, in fact we already know we don’t accept the same truths, so the starting point is not to enshrine a definition of truth, but to allow them the opportunity to explain how their truth is the truth to them.  From there we can proceed away from answers, to talk about the common questions that just might lead us to a more harmonious society.

But to do this you have to take the megaphone from the hands of those who profit either financially, or by hoped-for power from those who follow their call into magaland…

To be continued….

Note:  To be fully honest and not attempt to paint myself as Simon Pure,  long before sexual harassment was a terminolgy, back in 1962 when I was in 7th grade, I was more or less accused of it.  The story is that we had English class immediately after lunch.  So the students began gathering in the class prior to the teacher on most days. We had our seats assigned on the first day of class by the teacher, but all the students in proximity to my seat were girls.  As we gathered we talked about current music or the girls would gossip about some event in their lives.  Mostly I just prompted the conversations, as they would begin to take their seats I would ask what was happening and the others would answer, and if anyone didn’t seem to reply, I would turn to them and ask, “how do you feel about…?”  or something to insure everyone contributed.  I was against the wall, next to the door, in the second seat. And I would turn towards the girls with my back to the wall, and usually remained in that position even after the teacher entered and they faced forward. But there was one girl who never joined, who sat directly in front of me and she never looked at anyone from the moment she entered the class.  And everyday I would try to include her.  Everyday I would say, “Hello, T…, what’ve you been up to? And as my wont, when someone said something I would attempt to include her and ask how she felt.  The back of her neck would turn red, but she didn’t ever reply.  I very well knew I was making her uncomfortable but, in my weak defense, I kept thinking I needed to make her a part of the conversation, that somehow that would make her feel more a part of the group.  Occasionally I even asked others to try to engage her, that maybe it was because I was a boy.  They would sometimes comply, but usually shrug me off by saying, “T  never talks to anyone.”

Well, one day after class, the teacher asked me if she could have a word with me. 

 Now I have to say that she was the teacher I thought was the best teacher because she never told us the answers.  She would assign a book to read, or she would have us write a paper to read to the class.  In session she would let the class respond as they will.  She would never say a student was wrong, she would ask how they came to that conclusion.   

Well I smiled and was glad to be asked to converse privately for a moment.  When everyone had left, she walked around the desk and stood near me, and then a stern voice (not loud, but stern) I had never heard from her and said, “You are making T. very uncomfortable when you talk to her.  She has asked me to ask you to not speak to her.  Don’t say hello, just don’t acknowledge her existence.”

I guess it was the ultimate moment of embarrassment in my life.  For the rest of that school year, I not only did not talk to T, I ceased participating in the pre-class discussions with the other girls.  One of them confronted me out of class and said they all wanted to know why I was no longer participating and I replied that the teacher had informed me my participation had made one of the students feel uncomfortable, and she asked me to not speak before class.  The girl replied, “Oh it’s T.  We told you you shouldn’t try to include her.” 

They had been right, I had been wrong.  I didn’t learn anything.  Four years later it happened again on the base at Guantanamo. It was a small school and many a day, there were afternoon parties at the beach.  One girl never attended.  Never went to any of the sporting events, never went to any dances, never joined us at any of the outdoor movie theaters.  In the spring we were planning a big gathering on Easter sunday, with multiple events planned, and everyone in the school was participating in the planning, except that one girl, and as we were leaving school that day, I departed the crowd and walked over to her, (we usually departed as a group, but she walked separately and some distance from the rest of the students) and told her I hope she would come to the Easter event, and said, “if you need a ride, let me know, someone will gladly bring you.”  

I think that was the Friday before Easter because on Monday, as everyone was walking towards the first period, the school counselor came into the courtyard and yelled at me to come to his office.  He informed me that the girl had said I had attempted to rape her  and he wanted my side of the story.  I told him what I have related above. He said  for the time being I would come to his office every morning and remain there for the school day.  A couple of weeks later she was sent off base, somewhere.  She was the exec’s daughter. (If you are unfamiliar with the exec’s role on a naval base, his rank is comparable to being vice-president, but his power to shield the Captain is similar to the chief-of-staff’s, and his judicial authority on maintaining order grants him the power to make decisions if any crime occurs before involving the Captain, who will seldom interfere unless he feels there is a blatant miscarriage by the exec.). Shortly after her departure, her brother, whom I didn’t know well because he was in junior high, told me his father wanted to speak to me and asked if I could come to their house after school.  The father told me they had sent his daughter to the states for counseling, and he wanted to apologize.  He told me the other students had corroborated that I had merely asked her to come to the Easter party and I was in no legal trouble.

It was not the case at home.  The first day, the Monday after Easter, my mother had confronted me about the accusation, when I denied it, she slapped me.  My mother had never slapped me in my life.  She never apologized for slapping me.  I don’t know if she ever believed after being exonerated that I had been innocent. 

 Well I have no clean hands to talk about harassment and rape, you can believe what you will, if I am proclaiming innocence falsely or not.  Because I don’t feel I am innocent.  I am not innocent because I did accept the clear “Hands Off '' signs that were plastered before my eyes in both instances, I did make approaches I should not have made, I made a couple of girls uncomfortable who had clearly indicated by their behavior that my overtures were unwanted. I had approached them and violated them because I willfully ignored those signs.  My motivations notwithstanding, I violated  them from their perspective.  So in both instances it was clearly harassment on my part. Even if I had no sexual motivation…harassment is a type of bullying and certainly those girls felt I was violating them, at the very least of bullying them, and from their perspective, making them feel demeaned.

So I have no clean hands.  And you can take the rest of the article from the perspective that I am as guilty of the actions of which I have written about.

Please feel free to share your feelings and your disagreements.

I don’t expect anyone to agree with everything I write. I would hope you don’t.

So tell me where you reject my analysis and tell me how we can find points of agreement when you disagree.