It was just after 2 a.m. on a pitch-black Friday morning when Bernadette Greene-Placentia’s life changed. The Democratic candidate for Congressional District 8 strolled across a parking lot to repair a damaged campaign sign. It was a routine she’d followed all summer. This time, she only made it a few yards.
An attacker smashed her over the head. She blacked out. She woke up to find a strange man on top of her.
Greene-Placentia struggled to open her eyes. She felt a sharp pain below her waist. The attacker was pulling his penis out of her.
She heard him mumble something like, “-ic bitch, not a very good fuck,” which her mind filled in as “Democratic bitch,” she recalled. She wasn’t sure that was exactly what he said.
One leg was out of her jean capris. She wore brand-new tennis shoes and a campaign t-shirt. Another man came over. Greene-Placentia felt his weight nudging her left leg further apart. She began swinging her foot at him. “Not even worth it,” she heard the man say as he moved away. He wore black boots and had small feet, she recalled.
The two men left Greene-Placentia face down in the parking lot. The hatch of her silver Jeep Grand Cherokee was still open. The car was still running. She heard music.
She doesn’t remember pulling up her pants or picking herself off the asphalt parking lot. She doesn’t remember closing her Jeep’s hatch and putting her foot on the gas. She doesn’t remember pulling her car into the driveway and collapsing into her bed.
“It’s just these little tiny flashes of things that I do remember,” Greene-Placentia said in an interview with Phoenix New Times. “As much as I don’t want to remember, I’ve tried very, very hard to remember more stuff. But that’s where I’m at.”
It helps heal the decades where I was taught to be silent and subservient to men, that women should be seen and not heard, and that my opinion has no value or place in public. I do this for me, not to change your mind.
This is something I choose to do. I enjoy trolling back rape apologists and being stubborn in the face of vitriol for being an outspoken woman. I enjoy making this place more welcoming to other women and minorities.
I am not a product of you.
Well you have a pretty strong incentive to see people as rape apologists, then. Hurt people hurt people, I guess. I don’t want to end up a victim of yours or help you hurt others to heal, so I’ll just stop engaging. Good luck with your healing.
Accusing someone of having “a pretty strong incentive to see people as rape apologists” after they gave you >4 opportunities to clarify your earlier comment in the ensuing downstream comments is such an on-the-nose example of DARVO trolling that you can’t expect anyone to believe you’re making anything that resembles a good-faith argument.
Accusing? That’s a pretty negative interpretation. It’s just a reasonable hypothesis from what Velma explained of her life, which seems to relate directly to how my words were mis-interpreted through the lens of that preexisting bias. She did not deny it or even comment about it. So maybe yes and maybe no.
If there wasn’t so much hostility right from the start, hostility bourn possibly from that bias, I would have been more open to clarifying dialogue and continued. Velma, and you, don’t feel like safe people to do that with. You just add more hostility, that doesn’t signal that you’re here for clarity or understanding so I’m not going to feed that hostility.
Considering some of the views you’ve left on my posts, I welcome the lack of engagement.