Last week journalist Mac McClelland wrote a brutal, exceptional essay for Good where she plainly discussed her experience with PTSD and her desire for violent sex as one means of coping with the atrocities she had witnessed as a human rights reporter. Early in the essay, McClelland writes about being in Haiti. As a Haitian American, I immediately tensed and worried about what she might say.
All too often, when people write about Haiti, they portray the country in really incomplete, troubling ways. There is no easy way to write about Haiti because the country is so complicated that almost any approach will sound wrong. How do you write about the beauty and the strength and the poverty and violence of that island? I don’t know if it is possible. Haiti is a country, I often feel, that exists beyond the realm of understanding.
I write about Haiti sometimes, mostly as I try to understand a place that cannot be understood. I don’t know if I get Haiti right because I only know Haiti as a Haitian American who goes to Haiti and sees the best parts up close and the worst parts from a safe distance. This means I know very little. I fill in what I don’t know with my imagination, which I can do because I am a fiction writer. My family is there though and so I hear, regularly, about what life is like there now, in this new after—after the earthquake, after the election, after the hurricane. In Haiti, there is always an after. My father and youngest brother work in Port au Prince. They are engineers, hell bent on rebuilding. My father is ardent in his love for his country. His faith is unwavering and incorruptible. They commute between there and South Florida, going for a week at a time, maybe two weeks, then they return here for a few days of quiet and calm before heading back. Sometimes my mother joins them. More and more she does not for reasons that are her own. My family has the luxury of escape. Too many others do not.
In her essay, McClelland wrote about a man in Haiti who persistently propositioned her for sex. She wrote about how in Haiti there are many, many guns. She wrote about a wealthy man who started stalking her even though, in his words, he wasn’t a rapist. She wrote about a very traumatized rape victim who had an ugly breakdown when the victim saw her rapist while they were driving through the city. After I read the essay, I called my mother who is always concerned about how Haiti is represented inaccurately and read her the parts of the essay about Haiti. My mother said, wearily, “There are a lot of guns in Haiti. These things are true.” Like McClelland, my mother only speaks to her own experience but I am comfortable in believing McClelland’s experience was not imagined or sensationalized as has been suggested in other quarters. More importantly, Haiti is not the point of this essay. I don’t understand how people can’t see that.
McClelland also writes about trying to deal with the effects of PTSD and the feelings of doubt she experienced because the traumas affecting her weren’t explicitly her traumas. She writes about meeting up with a friend in San Francisco who would satisfy her need for violent sex and how he helped her and then held her. She writes about how she is getting better and reporting on sexual violence in other parts of the world. Rape is, after all, everywhere. The entire essay is worth reading. Few pieces of writing have moved me more. I related to nearly everything she wrote, for different reasons, certainly, but I related. I understood exactly what she was saying and appreciated how well she articulated the desire and need for violent sex to deal with violent issues. It was refreshing to see someone approach this topic unapologetically, without pathologizing it.
I have been surprised and disappointed to see fingers pointing at how McClelland has represented Haiti. If she had written about a man in New York who persistently propositioned her for sex (the website Hollaback exists, by the way), if she had written about a gang rape victim in Cincinnati, if she had written about a grabby rich guy, no one would have said anything because these things happen every day in every city in every country around the world. Men pursue women. Men don’t take the first or second or tenth “No” for an answer. This happens whether the men are American or Haitian or Canadian or Thai or Australian. McClelland wasn’t making a grand pronouncement about Haiti or the country’s men. She was talking about a particular kind of a man and a specific set of experiences in a specific place at a specific time. It does no good to assume some kind of nefarious agenda lurks between her words.
Those who object to McClelland’s essay are, in many ways, the ones who are showing their racism and narrow understanding of Haiti. They are deciding McClelland is painting all Haitian men as savage black beasts, as I saw someone somewhere, say, because that is an idea embedded somewhere in their own psyches. I believe shrinks call that projection. Perhaps it is that, as my friend Rion Scott said when we briefly discussed this matter, we are “so used to white writers using their pens to exploit and be condescending toward ‘other-folk’ that people reflexively act like every instance of a white writer writing about experiences in another culture is an example of ugly Americanism,” even when such is not the case. McClelland is talking about a handful of men, who also happen to be Haitian. Bad people are everywhere and a marginalized status does not exempt one from reproach. If you read McClelland’s piece and somehow think it makes Haiti looks bad, it would probably be better for you to examine your internalized issues about Haiti because it’s a real stretch to go from what she wrote to, “That white woman is telling lies about those poor, poor Haitians.”
I talk a lot about Chimamanda Adichie’s TED talk where she discusses the danger of a single story because her words are so critical to how we talk about the world beyond America’s borders. There is, indeed, a real danger in telling a single story. I, like many Haitians, am completely burnt out on the phrase, “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere,” because that is the dominant, single story about Haiti. When I see that phrase, I want to punch something because Haiti is not only her poverty.
There is so much more to Haiti I wish people knew more about, that I wish journalists shared more about. The water holding that island in the ocean, the clear blueness of it is unparalleled. The faith and pride of the Haitian people are profound even in the face of tragedy upon tragedy. You should know about Tabou Combo. When I was young, my father played their records and I thought I was listening to the most perfect sound. My opinion hasn’t changed. Haitian art is probably the best kept secret in the world. The paintings are bright, colors so crisp they draw you in and keep you entranced. There is sculpture, abstract metal bodies, gleaming in the sun, carved wooden masks, the curve of a woman’s body cut from cherry. The food is so good my mother can’t stand going to restaurants anymore. There are nightclubs where you can dance all night to the same music we dance to here. The women are breathtakingly beautiful and fierce as hell. Haitian humor is sharp and hilarious. There are beach resorts where you can sit beneath an umbrella and enjoy fruity drinks. There are boutiques where you can buy the latest fashions for exorbitant prices. There are landmarks like La Citadelle, high in the mountains. At the top of La Citadelle, you can look out and feel like you’re seeing the whole of the country. If you ever have the chance, do not hesitate. See the country for yourself. You’d be surprised by how many Americans visit Haiti and never leave.
Haiti is wonderful but there is a single story about the Haitian elite, that they are uncaring, that they only seek to continue to oppress the poor, that they are cruel, blind to the realities around them as if such a thing were possible. There is a single story about the lawlessness in Haiti, that the country is overrun by gangs and corruption. There is a single story about the pervasive poverty, the sexual violence, AIDS, and on and on. I understand why many people fail to see beyond these single but incomplete stories because Haiti’s problems are as overwhelming as the country’s beauty, strength, and vitality. However, it would be just as dangerous to imply Haiti is an idyllic country free of strife as to imply Haiti is strictly a hellhole. The defensiveness many of us who love Haiti feel is natural but sometimes, that defensiveness is misplaced. In this instance, the defensiveness is misplaced. The truth, at times, it hurts but it must still be told.
Certainly, McClelland told only one story about Haiti. In the Good essay, though, she wasn’t reporting on Haiti. She wasn’t writing a bucolic travel piece for a magazine. She wasn’t reporting at all. She wrote about her personal experience in a personal essay so her only responsibility was to tell her story, to tell it true, to tell it well and that’s what she did.
A group of journalists and others who know and work in Haiti responded to McClelland’s essay in a letter published on Jezebel. They wrote how they had experienced relative safety in Haiti (relative to what, one wonders) in one breath while detailing the tragically high threat of sexual violence in the next (a contradiction). The open letter suggests that its signatories’ experiences could, and worse, should negate McClelland’s experiences. We could do this all day, this countering of experiences, this volleying of our understandings of Haiti. We could all point and say, “That’s not my experience,” and “That’s not my Haiti.” Those narratives would probably all be true but those narratives shouldn’t be pitted against each other. They should work in concert to present a more accurate view of one part of the world.
The writers of the open letter said McClelland’s piece lacked context, one of the more ironic things I have ever read given how they read the essay completely devoid of an understanding of context. McClelland also talks about working in the Gulf, here in the United States. She talks about Oklahoma City. She talks about living in New Orleans before Katrina. She explains, though perhaps not in so many words, that Haiti was the breaking point after months and months of reporting on trauma around the world. By doing these things, she provides a context for her experiences in Haiti. She provides an explanation for why it was sitting next to a screaming gang rape victim that became the straw breaking the camel’s back. For critics to read the essay so myopically as to not see the context is irresponsible. The expectation that McClelland address the entirety of the Haitian experience in a personal essay is unreasonable.
Other critics have even gone so far as to chastise McClelland for writing about sex that isn’t vanilla or neatly packaged in the missionary position. These critics suggest that the frank way in which McClelland writes about her desire for violent sex encourages rapists to think all women want to be raped. Forgive my ineloquence but that is the stupidest, laziest thinking. That kind of thinking is as careless as it is offensive. Whenever a woman chooses to offer a counter narrative to commonly accepted narratives about sex and violence, others are quick to shame her into silence. It frustrates me to see that happening here and in such condescending ways.
It is already known that female journalists are hesitant to discuss the personal experiences they have with sexual violence while on the job. The disheartening responses to McClelland’s essay only work to further silence these women. These responses tell female journalists that they are right to keep quiet because they will be judged, harshly, for telling their truths. It is such a shame.
To suggest women should not write about desire, in all its complexities, for fear that a rapist will somehow extrapolate a justification for violation is the same as telling a woman not to wear short skirts and revealing blouses or drink too much so she doesn’t get raped. It is absurd to imply that there’s a man out there who is sitting on the fence about committing rape but will be pushed over the edge by reading McClelland’s essay because he finds permissiveness in her words. She is writing about consensual, violent sex. How that can be read as an apologia for rape is astounding. At some point in our human evolution, we have to get a place where the sole person responsible for the act of rape is the rapist, without exception. I am baffled as to how we have not yet reached that place. Until we get there, the least we can do is to stop slut shaming, and to stop surrendering to rape culture by policing what women say, wear, write, or do. We need to stop stripping responsibility from rapists and placing that burden on women. That is so unfair.
Perhaps it is uncomfortable to hear a woman who has witnessed the atrocious after effects of rape say she wants to be thrown around and overpowered and fucked at gunpoint, maybe hit a little or a lot. Perhaps it is uncomfortable because this is not the story we normally hear about women and sexual desire and sexual violence. Perhaps we are uncomfortable seeing how PTSD can affect not only the victims of violence but those who report on violence because that makes us more vulnerable. I have tried to understand some of the negative reactions to this essay but I can’t. Maybe I see too much of myself in the essay, but I think it’s more than that.
Just as there cannot be a single story about any country, there cannot be a single story about women and desire and sexual violence and how those things knot themselves together. One woman saying she wants or needs violent sex does not negate another woman’s disgust at the idea of violent sex but it is damaging to try and silence either of those perspectives. It is damaging to try and silence the many, complex stories rising out of Haiti. It is damaging to see demons where there are none. No one is obligated to like or agree with what McClelland wrote but there are better ways to express dissent than public shaming, cries of racism, and scarlet letters.
***
Mac McClelland is a friend of the Rumpus and yes, that is our Managing Editor Isaac Fitzgerald mentioned at the end of the Good article discussed in this piece, a reality we acknowledge with no intentions of informing Roxane’s piece.
49 responses
This is imo a great defense of McClelland’s essay and good argument against short sighted generalization of women and Haitians. My only criticism concerns how ‘men’ are generalized in what I would imagine is exactly the same way the author would not like ‘women’ generalized: “Men pursue women. Men don’t take the first or second or tenth “No†for an answer. This happens whether the men are American or Haitian or Canadian or Thai or Australian.” Obviously women, especially today, often openly pursue men or other women. There is nothing wrong with pursuing other people, if pursue means here seduce or charm or act-im-a-way-that-makes-clear-you-want-to-be-sexually-involved. But the way in which this is written seems to imply that the author thinks that all men are rapists. This is exactly the kind of loose rhetoric that, I believe, often discredits well intentioned advocates of women’s rights in the eyes of people who could be easily won to their position.
Thank you for writing a comprehensive and compelling response to what has been (for the most part) horrifying criticism of Mac’s essay.
I was especially freaked out about the early debate in the comments about whether or not her essay would be “appropriate” to teach to journalism students. How quickly the specter of knowing-better-than-thou rears its head.
Whew. I was beginning to think I was crazy.
well put. I have to say I appreciate all the controversy because it is driving people to read Mac McClelland’s essay which I think is an important dialogue to have. Yeah let’s talk about rape and women journalists and sexuality! I agree that this piece was not about Haiti it was about a woman’s experience with PTSD. Just like Danzy Senna mentioned in her recent interview she does not write solely about race, that is not the plot it is a theme. This all kind of reminds me of the API community being up in arms about Lois Ann Yamanaka’s depiction of filipinos in her work. Later she reflected on how important it is when we write not to have this committee over our shoulders censoring us. The worst fate for a writer to be overly conscious of their responsibility to us, Mc Clelland’s essay is not to represent women, or writers, or Haiti, or rape, but one person’s exchange with humanity.
Damn. This is a great piece and it effectively answers many of the critiques lobbed at Mac McClelland’s essay. It is human to cling to the safe one story we weave about journalists covering other people’s countries and other people’s violence. It is safe to have one story about sex and what it means to people. Mac’s story runs counter to the worldview people want to embrace. It isn’t safe and it isn’t tidy. This essay does a great job of explaining (and deconstructing) much of the reaction. Thanks.
Thank you, Roxane Gay, for taking the time to write this thoughtful and nuanced response. This offers a much more useful (not to mention generous both to Haiti and to women) response than some of the knee-jerk responses that seem to have been written by people who decided what they thought about Mac McClelland’s essay well before they finished reading it, much less thinking hard about it and taking the time to read McClelland’s (not-about-her) reporting on Haiti. This response allow McClelland her experiences while complicating U.S. views of Haiti. Thank you, too, that multiple narratives are our only hope of every understanding anything.
People should engage with McClelland’s piece and how it may or may not participate in tropes of “disaster porn” or stereotypes of bands of black marauders or what-have-you. People should engage with any piece that deals with complicated or difficult subjects; that’s just what criticism is. I can easily imagine that some of the images McClelland uses might end up playing into an uncritical reader’s problematic ideas of what Haiti is, even if McClelland’s account is truer than anything you or I could ever write.
But I absolutely agree with Gay that if the result of such criticism is that frank discussion of a particular problem faced by particular Haitians cannot be had, then the criticism has gone too far. When the topic is sexual violence–whose ubiquity is in fact one of the points of the piece– I start to think that criticism might be a tad defensive. And re Adichie’s talk– I also start to think that these critics know that there’s only room for one story about Haiti in the US, and they want to make sure it’s “their” Haiti, possessive pronoun and all.
What really bothers me, however, is that as a reader I don’t want to–and I shouldn’t have to–sign off on the moral purity of the piece vis-a-vis the fairness of the depiction of Haiti before I can say that there is something deeply moving, truthful, valuable, profound, even transcendent about the piece. As a reader I have disciplined myself to find the irreplaceable value in Ancient Greek tragedies despite their sexism, Nabokov despite his homophobia, Eliot despite his anti-Semitism, and so on. Sometimes those kinds of flaws undermine a writer’s work, or the ideas put forward. And sometimes, as Gay says, those flaws are not the point.
Here’s what’s profound about the piece. The man, Isaac, has a connection with McClelland, a history, a community. He says, “You know I love you, right?” And then he proves that he does, not so much because he allows her to indulge in her desire, however problematic it might be, but because in their relationship he somehow knows that it will help her and heal her, not harm her. He’s the only one in the piece who knows it, really knows it, is brave enough to put it on the line, and competent enough to avoid harming her. That’s the significance of the pillow. And not only has he healed his friend and lover, a mercy we should all be so lucky to experience, but he has allowed a great and principled reporter to continue her vocation, her pursuit of justice and truth. He has given a gift to the world, which he also loves.
We live in a world where that kind of love, of gift, cannot be discussed. It makes me very sad. At best, people caveat it with phrases like “complexities of desire.” It may even be that the complexities and particularities of a relationship where such love is possible cannot be put into language. But I feel immense gratitude to McClelland for trying.
Fuck yes. Well put, Roxanne Gay.
McClelland’s piece stands bright, tall, vulnerable. She wrote powerful, she made human, fragile statements. You both reflect what is at the source of all of us. Balance, poise and a necessary reminder, just how slowly these big bodies move.
Thank you for your honesty, clarity and patience. You always deliver.
I liked her essay… and while I havent had the experience of PTSD she has, I have had extremely intense jobs and the more intense it was, the more intense I liked my sexual experiences- like BDSM. thats how some of us are wired, and it works.
Thank you for writing this, Roxanne. More and more, I am reading the most rational responses to media flurries here on Rumpus. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to come here and find such compassionate, grounded sense and sensibility.
When I read Mac’s piece posted by Sugar on the Rumpus, I was so absorbed her Mac’s personal story that I never dreamed it could be taken as an exposition of Haiti. She didn’t mention any thing about black men or men in general or how everyone should approach PTSD – it was all very specific and about her efforts to come back from trauma. I was indeed a brave piece and yes, maybe it was too soon for people to read about women’s nuanced sexual desires and experiences not wrapped in pretty paper and tied with a bow, maybe the mainstream isn’t ready for it and doesn’t know what to do with it. There was little ‘ideal’ about any of the experiences Mac related – she was telling it like it was for her. Anything as honest and straight as that may be bound to shake people up. We are all too ready to read articles and essays as if you can extrapolate their points as messages and generalise them as wisdom. Time to move on.
HV, I hear what you’re saying and you make excellent points. Women absolutely pursue men. Women can even rape. Not all men are rapists. In the context of this essay and the GOOD piece, though, we’re talking about predatory men and so I focused my discussion. No one can address everything in any piece of writing.
Hear, Hear! This was my exact reaction to what I thought was an incredibly powerful, honest and brave essay about one female journalist’s personal experience moving through PTSD. We need to encourage this kind of sharing, this level of intimate dialogue, rather than discourage it because it doesn’t fit our notions of sex/women/violence/international relations. Adichie’s TED talk is fantastic support of that. If we want the world to see the “real” Haiti, the “real” PTSD, then we have to be willing to listen to everyone’s experiences of those things.
More here: Mac McClelland Talks to Ms.: PTSD, Haiti and Women Writing About Sex
great essay. thank you.
Excellent rebuttal of the Jezebel letter. There are so many lazy readers/writers out there, prestigious as the names signing the letter might be.
Asserting that “the image of Haiti that Ms. McClelland paints only contributes to . . .[the] continued marginalization [of Haitian victims of rape]” is absurd. I’m not even sure how they came to that conclusion.
Essentially, they are taking a very complex personal story and cramming it into a box. Thanks for writing such a thoughtful essay in response.
I am also Haitian-American and I respectfully disagree. I am sure if this were Nigeria
she was talking about. Ms. Adichie, whom you reference here, would consider it as part of “the single story”
of her country. This may have been healing for the writer,
but if we are to have a real dialogue, we ought not–and she ought not as she does in the Ms. blog–
so easily dismiss others who challenge the premises she outlines in her essay. In the 1990s during the
military coup period, when rape was being used as a political weapon in Haiti, there was similar
outrage when the US embassy declared that rape was part of our culture as the writer does
in an interview that went along with her original Mother
jones article, which was also more about her than the victims
she sought to portray. I hope that the woman called Sybille in her story will come out and tell her own
story, in her own voice. I hope she is given her own platform to speak. I hope the writer will find healing in her work.
I hope Haiti becomes the country all Haitians would like it to be. I hope we can respectfully disagree
without calling each other names. My prayer is for she is who is labelled Sybille, who was the true (and not simulated) rape victim in this and who will not get this much attention or financially benefit from her true horror and who has not even gotten the kind of sympathy form you and others on this page that the writer has. I am praying for the woman the writer has labelled Sybille and all the women of Haiti who have been actually raped. I hope they will find solace and one day justice and I am praying for Haiti.
AYITI PAP JANM PERI
Yvette, I respect your point of view but I don’t see McClelland as being dismissive in the Ms. interview nor do I see her work as that of someone who is maligning Haiti as having a rape culture. Again, her piece in Good, is not about Haiti. Her experiences there were a catalyst for PTSD, a condition that had clearly been developing over time. I’d also say that there is no one benefitting financially from writing about this. Most of us do it without compensation. We do it because we care about these issues. I too hope Sybille and all rape victims throughout the world find the peace and justice they deserve but I would also caution against using terms like “true horror” and “been actually raped,” as though to minimize McClelland’s experiences. She herself points out that she was not raped and thinks through, in the essay, her own concerns about being a secondary victim to the traumas she reports on. It does little good to engage in a trauma measuring contest. People should be allowed to discuss their problems without others saying there are others who have had worse experiences. Context, context context, truly is everything.
I think this is excellent; and you make great points about the way people view Haiti and other non-suburban USA areas in genera. And in case no-one pointed it out to you yet, McClelland did do a series of articles while in Haiti; they’re all up at mother jones under her byline. There is good and bad covered, but all of it well writen.
YES. Thank you Roxane, for saying so eloquently and thoughtfully what I’ve been trying to make sense of in regard to the bizarre Haiti criticism toward Mac’s piece.
I really, really admire McClelland’s courage–how she confronts ptsd/complex ptsd and the confusing associated behaviors. I hope this conversation (roxane’s piece, etc.) pushes some folks to the side of more compassion. The cruel comments on the GOOD essay are irresponsible.
Roxane, in large – almost entire – part I agree with you, especially in that in my reading the essay was not “about” Haiti. I think where I have more trouble going after Mac’s critics is that most of them do, in fact, have some personal experience of Haiti to draw on, aren’t just acting out internalized issues. I mean, Edwidge Danticat is on that list. Not that this means that their words should be taken as gospel. Only that I think you may go somewhat too far. I think that in some of these criticisms are merely doing exactly as you suggest, by offering an alternative picture to what they saw as the single story being reinforced by Mac’s essay.
Also: some of the comments about what constitutes the “right” therapy for PTSD and victims of sexual assault are unsettling. as if there’s a one-size-fits-all treatment approach confirmed somewhere. i think it’s really important to acknowledge how much we *don’t* know about how different people respond to different stressors and why some people are more resilient than others. McC’s healing process isn’t so outlandish, given that some of the most effective therapies for anxiety involve controlled exposures. I feel as if some people are just upset that she’s talking about an uncomfortable subject, and some are bitter because they see their own experiences as being more significant or horrific.
Michelle, thanks for your comment (really). I do push in this essay. I also feel that with regards to that letter in particular, some of the response was reflexive instead of reflective. I too have felt relatively safe in Haiti, relative being the key word. I have every reason to feel safe in Haiti as an American citizen, safe neighborhood, knowing where to go, never being alone, etc etc. I’ve also felt unsafe in Haiti, just as I have felt safe/unsafe in Montreal, New York, Omaha, wherever. What bothered me (among other things) is that McClelland doesn’t say she felt unsafe in Haiti. She discussed very specific encounters where anyone would feel unsafe and they just happened to take place in Haiti. These are also encounters many women have dealt with so it’s not like she introduced some kind of wildly implausible scenario. She also talks about a disturbing encounter in Oklahoma City and also on the Gulf. She’s not isolating Haiti. I read the co-signed letter, in part, as a denial her experiences and putting words in the writer’s mouth. It bothers me.
There is a recent CNN short 2 part series on rape as a tool of war. The first piece focused on the PTSD experienced by those whose job it isto listen to, and record, the testimony of rape victims wherever there is conflict: Africa, Central America, the Middle East, etc. It was a fascinating examination of trauma, of the weight of being a witness, and of the personal strength needed by those who do this work – and need to continue to do this work. (Link here: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/06/23/war.rape.interviewers/index.html )
On topic, this essay was on point. Thanks for it, Roxanne.
Roxanne, I am glad you are bothered because that is what allowed you to so carefully deconstruct and shine a light on some of the most troubling responses to the original essay. Mac’s essay was disturbing – the reality of trauma and suffering and our all too human reactions is hard enough to read about, and her approach wasn’t safe. But some of the reactions to the essay and to her were troubling.
She shook the boat of our comfortable narrative about reporting/women/power/suffering/sex and other and also about a million other things. I dig her essay even as it made me wince. I work to embrace being uncomfortable – i can be a sign that I have an opportunity to grow. Sadly discomfort often makes people lash out against challenges to their world view. That is human.
People reacted in a lot of ways, some of which were a little awful themselves. You gave a measured and deeply thought out response that I found extremely useful. At times I despair that nuanced articulate thinking seems to be a dying skill. I am glad to see it at work in your essay.
Roxane, of course I agree with you on a good chunk of that, and defer to you (and McClelland) on much of the rest too, as I’ve no experience of Haiti or even crisis reporting generally to draw on whatsoever. (I’d like to get to a place where I can approach these debates as a fellow traveller rather than an internet critic but not quite there yet.) Also, on a purely textual level I didn’t myself catch much of the “Heart of Darkness” imagery the letter writers refer to, and where they do cite particular points in the text – “ugly chaos” – it seems to me too vague to support the comparison all that well. McClelland was not channelling Conrad, here, at least not in my understanding.
That said, when I turn this over in my mind I keep trying to maintain a position that makes room for both McClelland being able to write openly and honestly about the issue troubling her, and for others to rightfully ask that we keep one eye on the larger picture. See, I do think that criticisms like the ones in that letter deserve to be taken seriously, though I think they would be better targeted at the “system” of narratives that emerge around crisis reporting rather than at this piece particularly. There is a long history of journalists “making themselves the story,” and the gesture is not politically neutral when it comes to coverage of the Global South. Time at the megaphone is limited, but the issues are urgent nonetheless, and people feel frustrated when they see themselves as crowded out. Maybe that’s what’s informing some of the overstatements here, at least that’s my guess. I’m just trying to understand them.
As I say, to my mind McClelland’s story is not a particularly objectionable example of any of this. Still, I can’t help but observe that her story has provoked a certain volume and tenor of response in a way that I cannot see happening were we all talking about a straightforward piece about Haiti, even a deeply reported and equally beautifully and movingly written one. There’s a disparity of cultural attention-span here that does trouble me. To suggest that McClelland herself is responsible for that, or even should think about it when writing something as good as she did, would be silly, even monstrous under certain terms, as you suggest, of course. But it feels like the question is worth bringing up and thinking about as a matter of journalistic ethics. I guess what I am saying is that I feel like some aspect of this conversation is worth having, if not every iteration of it strikes me as valuable or well-grounded.
Michelle, there are definitely many aspects of this conversation worth having. This essay is just one part of that conversation. I’d love to see a real conversation about the journalistic ethics of reporting beyond American borders. The GOOD piece was a personal essay though. That’s how it reads and that’s how she frames it in a follow up interview. It wasn’t reporting so it shouldn’t be held to journalistic standards. We can’t conflate job titles with everything someone writes.
Now, I do take the criticisms in the letter seriously. How could I not? In considering some of McClelland’s other reporting, there are instances where I’ve seen her insert herself into the story to some extent. That doesn’t bother me because I actually like to see reporters not dispassionately engaging with the world. But. I am not a journalist and I understand how that can be seen as problematic. There is no possibility for political neutrality when writing about much of anything anymore. It then becomes a question (I think) of how journalists can write politically but ethically and fairly. I like what you said about people feeling crowded out and I agree that’s some of what’s going on here. In reportage on Haiti, all too often, the people crowding the proverbial microphone are persistently spewing the same tired, narrow stories about Haiti. I feel the women who cosigned that letter are reacting to issues so much bigger than the essay in question. I wish they had framed their response as such. It is also… telling and rather depressing that this is what it takes, as you note, to provoke a vigorous conversation about Haiti. That says a lot about what we value as news.
i am with roxane. context – it is everything.
as i see it, mac did two very separate things:
1. she did some excellent and captivating reporting on haiti for mother jones that attracted a whole new group of people that otherwise might not have cared to listen
2. she shared her personal story about her own experience in the essay in GOOD.
both are important stories to share, and i feel, for people to hear.
thanks for this clear and thoughtful piece, roxane.
@Michelle Dean: relieved to have read your take on this in response to Roxane’s article. Roxane went some way toward insisting that there must be more than one story, and it was precisely on that account that I was confused about why the group of 36 women would not be permitted to offer their side.
@Yvette Auguste, I stand with you in voicing concern for Sybille and other women like her.
@Roxane Gay, I think that if a reporter works for Mother Jones and then publishes an essay based on her experiences as a reporter, and she gets a byline for this essay and it gets a lot of notice, she *is* gaining from the writing of it. Respectfully, for a writer, being a known name often leads to bigger and better things, so that if Mac is not benefiting financially from her essay, her career almost certainly is. Nonetheless, Roxane, I appreciated your engaging in this topic with passion. Thanks for the discussion.
Thanks for engaging, too Lissette, but nowhere do I say that the 36 women aren’t permitted to offer their side. They published their letter on one of the most popular blogs on the Internet. I responded with my opinions. I did not try to silence them, nor would I.
Roxane, this may be one of the best things I have ever read. I am totally serious. Both this essay and that by McClelland are examples of an open-minded, intelligent, mindful discourse on gender and race (amongst other topics) that I hope will become more prevalent. Sincerely, thank you.
Thank you for unraveling so many threads in this post. As I share your concerns about some of the negative reactions to McClelland’s essay, here a few more thoughts about possible motivations for the amount and cruelty of this criticism.
McClelland chose to inflict harm on herself as a way of healing. That’s a very desperate measure, of high risk and unforseeable outcome. Then she published her story – again exposing herself to harm, this time for her career, as well as personal insults. These may not have been wise choices – but then, maybe she has thought this over carefully and has a really great support system, and then decided to endure all this to fight for freedom of expression or whatever might outweigh this forseeable harm to her.
Now, how does being confronted with such a degree of desperation and risk-taking makes us readers feel? Probably shaken, helpless and full of fear (after all, if a reporter who’s seen quite a bit can snap just by listening to somebody else’s terror, how then can I be sure of my mental health? There are just sooo many ridiculing comments invested in denying that she did indeed snap…). To me, these emotions resemble very much the feelings McClelland must have had when sitting next to Sybille and being exposed to her terror, though not to the same degree.
And as she chose to inflict harm upon herself as her way of coping with these feelings, maybe some readers chose to inflict harm on her (I have read slurs like “self-indulgent bitch, racist white slut, asshole”, just to name a few), as a way of coping with theirs?
Apart from the inherent hypocrisy, this would be an even more destructive way of coping, as it resorts to inflicting harm on others, as opposed to oneself. And how some of these commentators could combine their staggering lack of empathy for McClellan with an appeal for more empathy for victims of “real” trauma, is simply beyond me.
But yes, how to explain all the toxic commentaries? And how to find less harmful ways of coping with extreme emotions? I think your piece might just be the right way to do just that, so thanks again for writing it.
Am I the only one here who didn’t miss this?
–Our managing editor Isaac Fitzgerald mentioned at the end of the Good article discussed in this piece.
Aren’t you kind of like, defending your boss and his girlfriend?
Hi Marcia Jean,
You’re probably new to The Rumpus community, so I wanted to take a moment to let you know that none of the Rumpus contributors are paid, which means I’m not Roxane’s boss. To be honest, there really is no “boss” around here. Roxane, like all of our writers, is an author who submitted an essay that she felt compelled to write (concerning a subject she has written about before).
Now, obviously I am still an editor of the site (of which there are many), so when we collectively decided to publish Roxane’s piece it was important to everyone involved to be completely open about the connections between Mac McClelland and The Rumpus. That’s why the disclaimer you’ve pointed to appears at the end of the piece. It is also there to ensure our readers know that those connections in no way influenced Roxane’s essay.
Hope that helps clear things up. Thanks for reading The Rumpus!
-Isaac
Hi Marcia Jean. As Isaac pointed out, no. I would also add that I do not know Mac McClelland (though I would write this even if I did). I’m defending what I think is right and offering an alternative perspective to the really disturbing backlash and personal attacks on a woman who dares to discuss trauma and sexuality unapologetically. The better question would be why isn’t everyone defending my “boss” and his “girlfriend”?
All: I’ve been reading these comments for the past couple days. Thanks so much for engaging in this discussion with me. I very much appreciate the kind words and the great discussions even when we disagree.
This is fantastically well said. I was thinking about the “Single story” video too when reading some of the responses, and it’s great to see such a reflective piece. I live in Bangladesh and struggle with how to portray it in a way that does it justice without marginalizing my own personal narrative within that, and somehow keeping the humility and confidence to say this is just MY story, not THE story. Writing about complex issues is tough, but it’s powerful, as you’ve demonstrated so brilliantly here. Keep it coming!
You all must have seen this.
http://www.essence.com/2011/07/09/edwidge-danticat-speaks-on-mac-mcclelland
I hope it sheds more light on this issue for all.
Yes, this woman had a right to tell her story.
But didn’t K* have any rights?
I think Chimamanda would cringe at the way her work has been used here.
I think if she had to choose sides, she would have chosen to stand with K*
AYITI PAP PERI
Yvette
Yvette, I have seen the linked article and I stand by my essay, more than ever. I think you’re reading McClelland’s essay incorrectly and refusing to consider anything but what you believe. That’s fine, as it is your right. K absolutely has rights and I believe her rights are sacrosanct but 5 sentences of the essay in question dealt with the author’s experiences of being *around* K rather than K’s story. I have nothing but empathy for the victim. The issue of sexual violence and how victims are affected by that violence is one that is critically important to me. You continue to suggest that we are forgetting the victim. Such a thing is impossible. And still, the essay in question was not about the victim. The reason we’re not talking about the victim is because this essay was not about the victim and because we do not have that right. We do not know enough to talk about her story. It’s a matter of respect whether you see that or not. As a person, as a woman, I hope she finds peace and healing and remains strong. I thank you, again, for participating in the discussion.
It seems to me that all of this focus on Haiti is a smokescreen, a diversion from the very uncomfortable feelings provoked from reading about the subjects of sex, violence, love, consensual violent sex, and using it to heal. I have thought about this article off and on nearly every day since I read it, and not once did I even remember the mention of Haiti.
DK helped me see what was troubling my mind…at first I thought, well, she could have gone to a therapist, done some more gentle trauma releasing exercises…and yet, in the back of my mind, I knew she was right to follow her own wisdom. I don’t have a single person in my life who I could trust or who loves me like Isaac demonstrated to her, and I could feel in my gut it is truly love. And that her way was absolutely right for her. And that I am a very lonely person in a great deal of pain writhing in my my own nightmare of PTSD and despair, hungry for the kind of passionate life and trust I imagine the author has.
How many people who read this article would really dig deep enough into themselves to see whats’ really there? Of course they would make it about Haiti.
I’ve thought about her article, too, and I appreciate the discussion here. I came away with two thoughts.
First, it has become clear, thanks to Dandicat’s Essence piece and the comments it generated, that McClelland wrote about a rape victim in Haiti without her permission. First, she wrote about her in a Mother Jones feature, which McClelland and her editors significantly revised on the eve of publication when the woman in question clarified in writing that McClelland did not have permission to tell her story. Then, months later, when it should have been clear to McClelland that she did not have the woman’s permission to write her story, McClelland wrote it again, this time as background for a personal essay on her own recovery from PTSD. McClelland and MJ have since apologized (in the Essence comments section) for McClelland’s second unauthorized use of the woman’s story. MJ’s editors said, twice in the comments to Dandicat’s Essence piece, that it was a serious lapse of judgment on McClelland’s part that they knew nothing about in advance.
McClelland’s violation of the woman’s written request to not write about her, and McClelland’s and MJ’s apologies, drive home the moral issue at the heart of this discussion: Writers have responsibilities to people other than themselves. Those responsibilities include being honest about and respectful of the dignity of others, even when those other people are presented as background subjects in a personal story.
The same point extends to the other source of criticism about the article: That it inaccurately described life in Haiti’s camps and in the country itself. The criticism here is that McClelland painted an innacurate portrait of Haiti to dramatize her own story. She could have written, accurately, that her experience of Haiti was a nightmatre woven from her battered psyche, and not reflective of actual conditions in the camps or the country. But then her story would have been less melodramatic (although, I would argue, more truthful and therefore even more powerful.)
But this was the choice McClelland made: Show Haiti as a land of monsters wreaking havoc in flimsy tent camps to amp up the melodrama, rather than accurately portray Haiti to tell a more nuanced and realistic story.
This is why it’s no answer to McClelland’s critics to say the article wasn’t about Haiti, it was about her personal experience. The fact that she made her principal subject her own experience does not excuse her obligation to respect the dignity of others and write honestly about the setting of her tale. The bottom line is that a writer has a responsibility to honor the wishes of rape victims who want to retain control over when and how they tell their stories, and to honsetly portray the culture and condition of a country and its people, and that those responsibilities do not disappear merely because the writer has chosen to make them background subjects in a personal narrative.
Finally, I would like to add my voice to the small chorus who were dismayed by Roxanne’s strident rhetoric and polemical style. Even if you disagree with what I’ve said here, it’s just going too far, does little to advance the discussion, and is an insult to the honored signatories of the Jezebel letter, to write, for example, that “Those who object to McClelland’s essay are, in many ways, the ones who are showing their racism and narrow understanding of Haiti.”
At the risk of babbling on, one follow-up thought occured to me. One could argue that McClelland has the artistic license in a personal essay to portray Haiti as she saw it through her eyes at the time. Meaning she doesn’t have to issue a disclaimer about the real Haiti she couldn’t see because of her condition. I think Damien Cave was getting at this point in his Twitter feed when he asked, “how do we get personal trauma journalism right?” or words to that effect.
But then the question I might ask, and that I imagine the signatories to the Jezebel letter would also ask, is whether McClelland’s portrayal of Haiti best serves her artistic purpose. Which would make for the better work of art: an exaggerated portrayal of a country in crisis to wring the most drama out of her personal narrative, or a more accurate portrayal of Haiti’s richness and complexity that might give her personal story less melodrama but more realism and resonance in the real world?
Anyway, thanks to the Rumpus and this message board for letting me share my thoughts.
Sean, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I will note that in her essay McClelland was writing about HER experiences. The matters of consent are complex and were involving her journalistic work which was not the purview of this essay. As I noted above, it is not my place to serve as judge and jury on that matter. She apologized and anything further that happens should take place between the writer and K*. I disagree that she portrayed Haiti as a land of monsters or that she exaggerated conditions in Haiti. And again, her essay was not about Haiti so the expectation that she portray Haiti’s “richness and complexity,” is entirely unreasonable. She wrote an essay about PTSD, not an essay about Haiti. The tent cities are very rough. That is not the sole characteristic of the camps, by any means, but there is no getting around the many challenges people living in those tent cities are facing. As for my tone, what makes the signatories honored? What makes them beyond reproach? They are all accomplished and I respect their work but I am as entitled to my opinion as they are to theirs and to see demons lurking in McClelland’s essay, to my mind, is indicative of what those readers choose to see instead of what is actually there. My “strident” tone conveys the intensity of my opinion, nothing more, nothing less.
As the point of K*’s missing consent was raised rather late in this debate and as Danticat, who finally raised it only after having signed the Jezebel-letter on a completely different argument, I take this as another clue that the real issue taken with MacClelland’s piece revolves around the legimacy of “speaking about Haiti”, i.e. who gets to tell the story and thus define what the topic of the discourse may be.
I found Jina Moore’s piece on the matter of “meaningful consent” quite helpful in this matter (http://www.jinamoore.com/2011/07/14/haiti-rape-stories/), as I agree with her point that any professional has a special responsibility when dealing with non-professionals in a traumatic situation.
Of course, this applies not only to journalists, but to lawyers and novelists, too. So, I became rather curious about the extent and purpose of the K*’s consent given to Danticat’s usage of her story – which Danticat failed to disclose in her essay. So: Did K* give meaningful consent to her story being used as a means to obtain discursive power? Mind you, not for herself, but for others claiming to speak (again) on her behalf?
Maybe K gave her permission to Dandicat because she was afraid Mac would expose her again. Maybe she wanted herself extracted from the story. The Dandicat piece clearly says that she was ANGRY at what was done to her before by Mac and Mother Jones when they did not listen to her note asking to leave her out of their stories. Maybe she was afraid of it happening in different ways again. Yes, K has advocates and others who can help get her version out, so does Mac, especially at this site. Are we not underestimating K’s ability to discern situations when she can give consent and when she can not. I am Haitian and I have worked with rape victims there. After you have ever met women like K in Haiti, you realize that after their suffering many become activists that help others. The argument that some people don’t want others to write about Haiti is rather easy. Foreigners and others have been writing about Haiti since its genesis. Dandicat herself gets criticized by many, including myself, for her portrayal of Haiti. But putting someone’s life in danger, for which Mac has rightly apologized, is more than about discourse. Doesn’t the person who was in that situation have a right to add her voice, by any means, to that conversation. Even late in the game as I am doing now. Frankly I am glad this thing is dying down so everyone else can go back to what they are doing, writing their novels and blogs and articles and, in the case of women like K, carrying on with their lives, which is in K’s case, is harder than others.
One addendum to my note. When I weighed in before–even before touching on issues– I was confused by the motivation of Ms. Gay’s piece given all the entanglements of personal relationships. I was answered accurately–I am trying to prevent getting the same response this time too. (Perhaps Dandicat has a similar personal relationship with K that made her rise to her defense. She has been involved with the issue for some time in Haiti.) I had not heard of Ms. Gay before so I looked online and see that Ms. Gay has a Haiti book coming out later this year. I am looking forward to it and I am looking forward to adding it on my shelf with my Alexis and Laferriere and Chauvet and Lahens and Dandicat books. I don’t have to agree with someone to like their literature, if it is good. I can fight with them but appreciate their work and their worth. Maybe that’s one good thing about coming from a Miami-based Haitian family of all hues and political views. It’s worth saying on the question of who gets to write about Haiti-in addition to what I have said above– that Haiti has a wealth of homegrown literature that is powerful enough to combat stereotypes of all kinds so pity is not needed for us “poor Haitians”, just nuance, which the best of writing does and which a lot of this debate, and Mac’s Haiti reporting and essay, has lacked. Haiti’s literature has a range of styles and political views and is written in four languages–Creole, French, English, Spanish. You might find Haitian writers having among themselves the same kind of debates we are having here. So as a very proud Haitian woman, I look forward to reading Ms. Gay’s book and look forward to reading it with my book Haitian-American women’s book club along with all the other writers (Haitian and non-Haitian) that we read.
That essay was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever read. In 2009 I went to Tanzania as an HIV prevention specialist and AIDS caregiver and in 2010 I headed off to Haiti to volunteer with rubble crews tearing down the debris with sledge hammers, pick axes, and shovels. It was the closest I could come to trying to tear down the hierarchies that impose poverty and pain where I live and around the globe.
The open letter to the author made me feel sick to my stomach with its implications. If the 36 female journalists were pissed off about a negative portrayal of Haiti, why did they decide to collectively pile onto a rape victim and PTSD sufferer rather than, literally, any other media outlet you could possible name? I’m disheartened when women are the first people to tell other women that their stories of rape, abuse, and assault are going to bother other people and that they should just shut up.
When I was in Haiti I was still resolving what happened to me in Tanzania. I have still yet to figure out just what to do with those experiences. Whenever I try to write about what happened to me in my time there, I freeze. My brain will start to project memories in vivid detail but when I try to articulate them I find that I cannot speak or write.
I read everything I can get my hands on and “You’re Going To Have To Fight Me On This,” was hands down the most intimate experience I’ve ever had as a reader. It made me want to keep pushing myself and my skills as a writer with hopes that I can someday excise something I don’t even have the competency to name. Maybe it’s a good thing that I haven’t been able to do so yet. If someone as talented with words as McClelland cannot speak about that kind of pain and resurrection without being eviscerated by her peers then it’s pretty clear to me that any attempt I make to just put it all down in print is completely futile at this time.
That’s not to say that I will not return to keep up the fight both here inb the Bay Area and abroad. I’m not worried about that part. The fight for social justice is more than just that, though. It’s also about letting people know the truth. When it comes to that part I’m still struggling. Oddly enough, it is that struggle that compels me to keep being active even if no one wants to hear about it.
I think I’m going to read her essay. God! It’s amazing sometimes how disorders and traumas can lead to weird complications. I can’t imagine to like violent sex after seeing rapes or hearing hundred of stories about rapes!
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