All the Silent Spaces

by Christine Ristaino

  “Stop pairing us up with other short people,” we wrote.

  “Don’t assume we aren’t intelligent or experienced just because we look young.”

  “Don’t talk down to us.”

  “Don’t assume we can’t lift or do things.”

  “Don’t ignore us in line or call on tall people first.”

  Our list went on and on and it was the longest list at the workshop. It had been the first time anybody had ever asked us this question.

  I thought back to the workshop, to the high I had felt afterward, and I wondered if this tiptoeing, this tiresome dance, our refusal to lay these topics out there all thorny . . . I wondered if all this were faulty.

  Retrogression 10:

  September 15, 2007, 10:25 p.m.

  We drive home in my husband’s car, windows open. I can see the top of shop signs disappearing from the side view mirror then bright lights interspersed with the darkness of trees.

  Chapter 10:

  Search Terms

  “Attack” and “Support Group” and “Atlanta.” “Attacked” and “Support Group” and “Atlanta.” “Attack” and “Support Group.” “Mugged” and “Support Group” and “Atlanta.” “Assault” and “Resources” and “Atlanta.” “Assault” and “Resources.” “Assaulted” and “Resources.” “Assaulted” and “Support Group.” “Hit by a stranger” and “Support Group” and “Atlanta.” “Hit and beaten in front of children by a stranger who had been sitting on a bench in a parking lot” and “Support Group” and “Atlanta.”

  After we were attacked, I plugged in search terms online, looking for help. The overwhelming number of resources were for victims of rape, domestic violence, and sexual abuse. I googled for hours but couldn’t find anything for plain old violent assaults. So I toyed with the idea of attending a rape survivors’ meeting. I would go and tell my story.

  “Well, a man hit me a number of times in the face, messed up my nose, stole my purse, left me on the ground bleeding. Oh, and he scared my children.”

  Perhaps there would be silence.

  “And then what happened?” somebody would say.

  “Nothing.”

  For a while I thought a domestic abuse group might have the resources we needed.

  “So how many nights in a row did this happen?”

  “Once.”

  “Are you afraid he’ll do it again?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Are you and your children in danger?”

  “Um, no.”

  “Do you need the name of a shelter?”

  I gave up. The terms available in our culture just didn’t exist for my search. There was nothing for us—no group where I could go and talk; no place where I could hear the stories of others. I did, however, find an article in an online newspaper by an elderly woman who had been mugged years before. She told how in her community she had worn the label of “the woman who had been mugged” for forty years, and how after her experience she had never been the same.

  In the absence of a group, I joined a social justice class on diversity. Since the main goal of the class was to explore race and ethnicity, and my attack had created so much confusion in me about this topic, I decided to sign up.

  Often we were assigned group work during class and the groups we formed were always multicultural. However, two months into the curriculum we were asked to separate along racial lines in the hope we would communicate in a more personal way with people who had experienced race in a similar manner. White people were to meet with other white people. African Americans would meet with African Americans. The one twist involved a statement after the instructions saying we really should put ourselves into the group we identified with the most. It didn’t have to be the one in which society would place us, and we could create our own group if necessary.

  The two African Americans, a graying man in his sixties and a tall woman in her forties, moved to a corner of the room. They sat facing each other in two soft chairs and I immediately wanted to join them in this intimate setting. Sixteen white people moved to the center of the room. They spanned from their early twenties to mid-sixties; had red, white, gray, brown, and blond hair and sets of blue, brown, or green eyes; and were a variety of heights, ranging from just a bit taller than me to up to six foot four or five inches. They moved around noisily and comfortably, laughing and conversing as they picked up their papers, pens, notebooks, cups, and paper plates, bustling toward the center of the room. I was about to join them when Eloise, one of the class leaders, decided she was going to form her own group based on ethnic rather than racial identity. I knew I would feel comfortable in this group.

  The ethnic group was composed of four women. One, a woman in her early fifties, had a strong Jewish upbringing and identified herself more on ethnic than racial lines. Another, Eloise, had been raised by Jewish parents who, while trying to become part of white, northern culture, had decided to downplay their ethnicity. Although her parents rejected their identity, her classmates provided daily, painful reminders of her differences. As an adult, Eloise clung to her Judaism in reaction to her parents’ rejection of it. The third woman had studied Judaism in college and identified more with the women in the stories she had read than with her own white Protestant family. I was the only Italian American in the group, but when the people in my group spoke of being an outsider and not quite understanding why, I felt as though they were talking about me. For lack of anything else, we called ourselves the “not quite fitting into the dominant white culture” group. When the class reconvened, one representative from each section was charged with reading the group notes out loud. I volunteered and began reporting our findings.

  As I read, the room became silent. Many of the people listening stared with arms folded in front of them. I spoke about the term we had come up with to define ourselves, and one or two people chuckled. When I relayed details about the group feeling slightly outside the margins as a result of our ethnicity, economic situation, or looks, only one person nodded. As we were leaving, I walked to the other coleader of the program, Renee, to give her what had become our traditional end-ofthe-evening hug. Renee, a New Yorker in her early sixties, had spent the majority of her adult life in the South in the lesbian minority. Renee saw me and backed away.

  “I am just so angry,” she said. “What’s wrong with being white? What, you are better than us? You want to disclaim the white privilege you grew up with? And what is it with this name you have given yourselves, ‘don’t associate with white privilege’ or something like that? Is that a get-out-of-jail-free card—if you decide you’re not part of the white group, then suddenly you don’t have to take responsibility for white privilege?”

  I’ll admit, I had struggled with the idea of white privilege. I had grown up with four siblings living on a teacher’s salary and none of us had felt monetarily privileged. However, through this course I realized I indeed benefited from white privilege on a daily basis. And lately I felt respected, at home and in my career. Renee’s comments were jarring and unsettling.

  That evening the class received an email from a different member of the white group, a woman who had lived in the South her entire life and was in her mid-sixties. She remembered our title as “those who didn’t identify with the privilege of the dominant group” and wrote that white people can be critical of white privilege and not want to be identified with it, but have to admit they have it. She ended with the following statement: “So it just didn’t seem fair. It felt as though the people in the ‘other’ group had found a way to be not quite as ‘white’ as the ‘white’ group. A way to ‘trump’ us.”

  I responded, writing that our title didn’t have the word privilege in it. It was not that we didn’t feel we had privilege, but during our childhoods, we all in some way had felt a bit marginalized by white culture even though, ironically, we are all white.

  Emails flew. Some supported my position and some didn’t.

  The final message, written by a woman who
was in her sixties as well, said, “I felt similarly to some of you, in that I thought ‘How convenient to not have to feel responsible for all evils done by the white race.’ I would very much like to be able to step out of the ‘WHITE’ race and I as well feel discriminated against by the larger society because of my sexual preference and gender. I have been disappointed at times that these minorities have not been recognized in this curriculum.”

  On the surface, it seemed as though I hadn’t been heard at all, but a line in the last message changed how I viewed the conflict, for it touched on something I hadn’t considered. I thought back to the instructions for this activity. We were asked to separate into groups based on race. Creating an ethnic group was somewhat beyond the search terms. Sexual preference would have been an even greater leap. My group had found a loophole, but it was not large enough to house all the people who had been marginalized by white culture. Members of the ethnic group had done what the lesbian members of our class had only wished they could do.

  At our next meeting a few weeks later, I walked into the building and sat on one of the congregation’s foldout metal chairs. I remembered this feeling from long-over childhood days and tried to maneuver my new role in the group—suddenly a bit on the periphery, a location where I had this time willingly put myself. It occurred to me I felt more at home here in the margins, so I sat up straight and waited for more conversations to experience what the search would reveal.

  Retrogression 11:

  September 15, 2007, 10:18 p.m. and 2 seconds.

  Once seat-belted in, I put my hands over my cheeks, feel my wrists touch and support each other. I cradle the bottom of my face with my hands and draw strength from them.

  Chapter 11:

  Messiah Complex

  She has taken it upon herself to be the “messiah” of figuring out these racial differences and barriers. . . .

  —A high school student’s comments after reading sections of All the Silent Spaces

  As my book develops, I begin to wonder if my stories can help high school students cope with and talk about difficult subjects, especially their struggles with race and violence. As a teenager, I never had the tools to do this. I email the Freedom Writers Association, a nonprofit group dedicated to empowering students of all identities and economic situations in the classroom, and ask if teachers would include some of my stories in their curriculum. I’m hoping to gain knowledge from students of a variety of backgrounds, especially those who have experienced race differently than I have. The Freedom Writers Association is a good place to help me connect with these students, since it works with urban schools from all over the country.

  I send my first and last chapters, which are letters written to my attacker, as well as a few accounts of the discussions I have had on race, to Maria, a Freedom Writers teacher who works in a large urban school district in Chicago. A month later Maria sends me an envelope filled with her high school student responses. I pore over them. Student reactions to my writings are mixed, some very upbeat, others quite unenthusiastic. I cover my floor with essays, choose quotes from the pages that affect me most, and pin them onto the bulletin board in my office. Each day I read a different quote out loud and try to glean something from it.

  On Monday I read the first student’s words: “If I was a child and my mom was attacked, I would have nightmares at night just like the kids.”

  Tuesday’s quote comforts me by saying, “This is no one’s fault. Do not feel sad, or regret anything, let your daughter know why you didn’t hug her . . . I am proud that you are trying to help people.”

  On Wednesday, a student says although she doesn’t understand the purpose of my book, she enjoyed reading my work just the same. She follows this statement with, “I think.”

  Thursday’s student gives me insight into my son: “Her son seems to have been greatly affected by this. He has turned to violence himself to be able to protect himself and his mom when he grows up.”

  On Friday, a student tells me that writing these pages and focusing so much on the attack is unhealthy. She says I need to move on. I wonder if she’s right.

  The following week I pick up where I left off. Monday’s student stands up for me and reading her words reassures me: “She said people were talking about what they would do. People shouldn’t speak like that, most people freeze up in panic, they don’t know what they would have done.”

  Another student’s words, “She is brave,” bring a warmth to my chest and keep me going on Tuesday.

  Wednesday, a girl who has spent a lot of time on the streets describes people she knows who commit petty and violent crimes. She doubts they feel any remorse.

  On Thursday, a boy talks about his family’s experience with violence. “My own mother was even mugged by a black man, and although this didn’t have a lasting impact on me—it very well may have left one on my mom.”

  A male student’s comments on Friday are sobering: “Race matters in this world. . . . It took a brutal beat-down from a black man to realize what she truly needed to do. . . . She realized that racism runs deep. I should know this, too, for I have been looked upon by people; people who fear ‘my kind.’”

  I save the comments that challenge me the most for the third week. The four quotes I read from Monday to Thursday ultimately change my book.

  On Monday, a student says I am making too big a deal of this. She admits everyone needs a healing period but says, “I don’t think it is necessary to try to make the world believe you are out to change the world!”

  When I read Tuesday’s quote, I laugh, but the writer makes an impression on me. “Chapter one to the Letter to the man we met on September 15, 2007 is very pointless! There was no reason for her to even write it! . . . And I want to stop reading when she wrote ‘Perhaps I understand now why the abused wife returns to her husband!’ Come on, the lady got jumped! Nowhere near getting abused by your husband everyone!” I love her spirit but a nauseous feeling in my stomach reminds me that she doesn’t know everything. It hits me that even close friends and family don’t know about my history with violence.

  A student’s comments on Wednesday make me realize for sure I have to change the beginning and ending to my book. She doesn’t like the letter format I use and challenges me to rewrite these pieces because, in her opinion, they read like a sentimental novel with the perfect happy ending. She gives me advice about the prologue: “At the very least, she could have started off the chapter with a brief overview of what happened to her and how the public and media reacted to it.” I know she’s right, but I want the happy ending so much. I need it! Because of this student’s advice, I take the two letters out of my book altogether.

  The insights I read on Thursday hit me hard. I take it as a sign there’s some truth to them: “The woman who writes about her encounter with a criminal talks as though people don’t get mugged every day. I feel like she thinks she is alone in the situation, and the only person who has been affected by robbery. She has taken it upon herself to be the ‘messiah’ of figuring out these racial differences and barriers. . . . The reality is that in the city, people get mugged and worse—killed, regardless of their race. . . . I am sure this woman’s attacker is not looking for forgiveness, I’m sure the incident does not faze him. Those who steal only think about themselves. They are not eager to sit down and have a nice long chat.”

  I stay with these four quotes, read them over and over again. Then I see my first and last chapters for what they really are—a way to process what happened, a way to tell off my attacker, and a way to begin.

  I decide, if I am really going to do this, I have to be more honest with myself about what’s driving me. The man who molested me and my rapist—I find their faces in my memory, look at them, really look, and begin to uncover my story with them. I go back into my writings, into all the silent spaces, and add them into my story.

  That night I ask my husband to read the latest version of my memoir. “You’re still doing exactly what this studen
t says you’re doing—you’re trying to find meaning here. Do you always have to find meaning? Can’t you have experiences that mean nothing?” I relay this conversation to my friend, Felix, over coffee. I play with my spoon, laughing and looking down after one of Felix’s bad jokes. “Jesus as a stand-up comic,” he says. “Take my life, please . . .”

  Retrogression 12:

  September 15, 2007, 10:17 p.m.

  I open the door to my husband’s car on the passenger side and slide onto the warm seat. I pull the seat belt down and snap it into place.

  Chapter 12:

  Wolves

  I’ve told my children to eat, brush their teeth, comb their hair, and put on their shoes at least ten times. Finally, I carry them out and place them into their car seats, shoeless—each holding a piece of toast. “Neither of you is listening to a word I say,” I tell them. When I drop my children off at school, they both smile at me and wave, and my anger dissolves.

  In the afternoon, I pick them up and we drive home. We have half an hour to get Ada ready for her aikido lesson, a class on self-defense I insisted she take after the attack. I pull out her gi and place it on the chair next to her, nodding for her to put it on. After twenty minutes, Ada is still sitting on the floor in her underwear, staring at the white uniform.

  “Ada,” I say, “please put on your gi. We’re going to be late.”

  “I am,” she tells me, but when I look at her three minutes later, Ada hasn’t moved.

  I grab the pants and put them on her. I place the aikido top over each shoulder. When the top is on, I tie the two ties, grab Ada’s shoes in one hand and my daughter in the other, carry her to the car, open the door, plop her in her seat, and return to pick up Samuel.