Anticipating Chanel Miller’s new book

In 2015, a case came before the Santa Clara County Superior Court in which the defendant in the matter was eventually found guilty for “three felonies: assault with intent to rape an intoxicated woman, sexually penetrating an intoxicated person with a foreign object, and sexually penetrating an unconscious person with a foreign object.”

One who is found guilty on three counts of sexual assault typically sees a maximum sentence of 14 years, but this defendant was ordered to six months in county jail. He was then let out three months early by judgement of Aaron Persky, former judge of the Santa Clara County Superior Court.

Unfortunately, the fact that this defendant was let off the hook after committing a heinous crime of sexual assault is not an isolated incident. But what’s worse is I’m sure most of us have already heard this story.

We’ve all seen and heard about the Stanford swimmer who lost his career after one night’s “mistake.” We’ve heard his narrative over and over again to the point where if you say his name, the infamous case will resonate with anyone.

People hear his name and feel sympathy for the poor student who made one mistake. He lost everything from one silly night of drinking. And that’s how the story goes.

All we had from the survivor, Chanel Miller, was her powerful statement to the court that she primarily directed right to the defendant himself.

Miller stated to the defendant: “Your life is not over, you have decades of years to rewrite your story” and highlighted that her “statements have been slimmed down to distortion and taken out of context.”

She even recalls that during the incredibly skewed and violating questioning regarding the evening in question, the officers would say, “Do you remember any more from that night? No? Okay, we’ll let [him] fill it in,” thus giving the defendant the power to write the story.

Survivors of sexual assault are not believed. We know this. Survivors of sexual assault are unfairly scrutinized by the courts and the public. This is not new. And in Miller’s case, nothing is different.

The perpetrator was given the final voice on the matter, even though he was the attacker. He even had the judge fooled just enough to shorten his already menial sentence.

But now, on Sept. 24, 2019, Miller is releasing her new memoir, “Know My Name.” The book summary reads that “her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral — viewed by eleven million people within four days…it inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Thousands wrote to say that she had given them the courage to share their own experiences of assault for the first time.”

And now with this book “she reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words.”

I have not said the perpetrator’s name once in this piece, because it is not his narrative to define anymore. It never should have been his narrative to write in the first place. He is a vile human being, and I feel no sympathy for him, what he has done, or how this case impacted his life.

He got enough sympathy from the public and from the courts. He doesn’t deserve any more recognition and any attention he receives should be scathing.

But Chanel Miller, on the other hand, wields immense power with her writing and her courage to speak out against what she has endured. She is continuing the conversation of sexual assault four years after her incident, and I am beyond excited to read her new book.

As if her court statement wasn’t powerful enough, we now get to see her reclaim her name and her identity and fully share her perspective.

We need a continued conversation in order to encourage justice for those who have survived trauma perpetrated by their assailants and within the courts which back those assailants. We need to hear the narrative from the party that matters most: the survivor.

So on Sept. 24, I encourage you to go to your nearest bookstore and pick up a copy of Miller’s memoir. Because it’s no longer the assailant’s story to write, it’s Chanel’s.