Know My Name
By Chanel Miller
Publication Year: 2019
Type: Non-fiction
Genre: memoir
Read on 2020-08-15
View additional specs on this book in Muhan’s 2020 Reading Survey ➞
★★★★★
TLDR: this is the best memoir I have ever read and you must read it, I cried in anger, in joy, in catharsis, I learned, I was moved, shocked, proud - Chanel Miller is a phenomenal writer and immensely talented, smart, sharp, emotionally mature person whose writings and experience on trauma and rape culture and justice you absolutely need to read.
So I’ve been recommending this book to every person and acquaintance I talk to since I read it. I read this as an audiobook (narrated by Chanel Miller herself) in week 1 of self-quarantine after moving cross-continent and while I had no wifi and only 12gb of data to last me 14 days. I was literally alone with my thoughts and in a super transitional sensitive place. Sooo I broke down crying on my kitchen floor while making chili listening to this audiobook, and cried a whole bunch of other times, mostly out of sheer catharsis and joy and pride in Chanel’s power and writing and the voice she gave to all survivors of sexual assault and all women who KNOW down to their marrow how we have to act and censor and silence ourselves in the rape culture we live in.
Chanel was the anonymous Emily Doe in the infamous Brock Turner/Stanford sexual assault case from a few years ago. Her victim impact statement went viral when it was published by Buzzfeed News, and while I don’t remember reading it, I remember the case. And while I remember the case, I had forgotten just how influential and culture shifting this case and piece of writing was - it predated the #MeToo movement, and the vocabulary of the statement - CHANEL’s vocabulary - was absorbed by millions and internalized by so many, such that, as someone reading about this case and her story in 2020, I was shocked to recognize just how influential and wide-reaching her anonymous statement has been.
Chanel writes about how in the aftermath of the assault and the grueling trial afterward she cleaved her self in two - Chanel Miller, the half-Chinese college grad who had a job and a boyfriend and was passionate about writing, versus Emily Doe, the anonymous victim who was repeatedly re-victimized by the justice system, had her humanity and character questioned and attacked while her rapist’s character witnesses talked up how he was always a good student and future Olympian swimmer. I found it incredible that she had the strength to write about and parse through these events and emotions at all - let alone recount them so vividly, unyielding in her vulnerability, so that you as a reader are truly with her and deeply in her perspective through it all. It is a testament not just to Chanel’s resilience, but also to her talent as a writer and profound sensitivity and self-reflexivity as a person. I am so immensely grateful that she had the courage and the fire to use all of her strength and ability to describe and digest such a traumatic experience, to speak to other women, other survivors, and to those who might not otherwise realize the flawed justice system and culture that perpetuates harm.
As much as she had despised the Emily Doe part of her life which became all-consuming, Chanel was able to empower Emily Doe and herself through her writing. Her victims impact statement was read aloud in court before the judge, Turner, his family and lawyers and later broadcast and amplified to the entire world, giving Chanel a final note of agency and closure to respond to all of the character assassination and gaslighting and re-victimizations of the trial. And I think in empowering Emily Doe, Chanel empowered all Emily Does, bring into the light and expressing so clearly the frustrations and traumas of so many. I also think this was possible precisely because Chanel was anonymous - rather than a specific person who could be picked apart by the press and who had specific characteristics, Emily Doe could be every survivor and every woman. In this book, Chanel re-injects her story with her racial identity and experiences as an Asian American woman with a Chinese immigrant mom - but I’m glad that this and other personal characteristics were not publicized alongside her statement, both to protect Chanel as well as to make Emily Doe more widely representative of experiences of assault.
But as she recounts the aftermath of the trial and viral reach of her impact statement, you also see how profound pain and trauma can still coexist with words of empowerment and clarity. Chanel’s story and trial doesn’t end in a Hollywood fashion with a totally healed person and a unanimous legal victory. You can Google for yourself the results of her trial (related in detail in the book), but I realized reading this book just how far reaching the effects of sexual assault and a trial can have - not just on the victim, but on their entire support system. Seeing how this trial impacted Chanel’s family, her parents, her boyfriend, and above all her younger sister - who’d brought her to the frat party where the assault happened - was devastating. I’m an older sister, it is a huge part of my identity, I am so protective of my firecracker baby sister, and I relate so much to Chanel’s instinct and impulse to be her sister’s protector but then have to see her life also get torn apart by the trial and her guilt in what happened. It’s such a mindfuck and it shows just how fucked up this was - not just “20 minutes” or a stupid mistake from drinking too much, sexual assault ruins lives and those who seek justice only expose themselves to even more harm. The ripple effect of harm is so heartbreaking.
On a final note, I found Chanel’s ultimate conclusions and advocacy as informed by her personal experiences to be immediately applicable to the calls for racial justice, abolition, and transformative justice right now. How she describes the need for accountability rather than excuses, from Brock Turner the individual as well as his parents, teachers, etc. feeding into his lack of true contrition as well as the entire culture and institutions upholding his personhood over that of the victims’ echos a lot of the recent BLM movement. I have so so so much more to say and will happily talk your ear off about this book in person but I’m going to end it here because I’ve gone on far too long. Just know that this is book was life changing for me, and I will continue to process it and definitely re-read it.
