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b'Opening song downloaded in 2006 as podsafe music: DISCLAIMER This bonus episode of CraftLit likely belongs at the end of , but since the inciting incidents didn\\u2019t occur for several years, I\\u2019m putting it here, but with a warning - language and subject matter are NOT what you will find in the other 475\\xb1 episodes of CraftLit. This is NOT an episode to have a first-listen with your kids in the car. To that end, I am well aware that there will be parts of this episode that will anger you. If you\\u2019ve listened to CraftLit for awhile you\\u2019ll know that I often hold information or comments for the end\\u2014it\\u2019s the theater side of me, wanting to book-end these essays so that they are dramatically and structurally consistent. But I\\u2019d be an idiot if I didn\\u2019t know you would have responses while you listen. I encourage you to use the recording app on your phone and switch back and forth between listening and responding so you have your thoughts in order. Then, when you\\u2019re done, you have the choice to send me the complete file at Heather@CraftLit.com OR you can call our listener line at 1-206-350-1642 and speak your mind. And, finally, You might be expecting me to deal with this topic through the lens of classic literature. With one exception, that will not happen in this episode. This is personal. This is nothing more than my thoughts\\u2014a culmination of 31 years of my experiences and thoughts\\u2014on this topic. We have faced many characters in complicated relationships where we in the modern world have very different responses regarding issues of consent. are not unknown to us. However, you may wish to hunt down the post by David Wong at (of all places) Cracked.com called . It\\u2019s both funny and upset-stomach-inducing\\u2014and written by a guy for whom I\\u2019d like to buy a drink if he\\u2019s ever in Eastern PA. 3:10 Before I begin, there is a transcription of this over at CraftLit.com/476. Included there are links out to everything I mention that is link-to-able. 3:51 Hello, The number of times I\\u2019ve been compelled to do something like this could be counted on a hand inside a very nicely knitted mitten, but , and comment threads I\\u2019ve been reading have pushed me to try\\u2014at least for we sane people\\u2014to end it. To begin at the beginning, my husband pointed out a month-or-so ago that every woman he knew had put a #MeToo hashtag on their feed. Sadly, none surprised him. However, he asked why I hadn\\u2019t. I was the only one he knew of who could have but didn\\u2019t. And I didn\\u2019t. 4:30 I mentioned\\u2013very briefly\\u2013my past a few years back on CraftLit and I left it there. For a long time it had defined part of me, but then I got married, then I had a son, then I was teaching HS the day we were evacuated from the tip of an island off the coast of North America when a plane tried to drop a building on us, then I had another son, then I became a podcaster, an author, a speaker\\u2014I outgrew simple definitions. There is nothing simple about the conversation that is swirling around us right now\\u2014and I say that as both a #MeToo and as a mother of young men. The mother of some rather justifiably nervous young men. 5:15 When I was teaching HS in NYC I learned something very important that I need to share with you: I knew nothing about being white. I mean, yes, if you\\u2019ve heard \\u201cStupid Shit White People Say\\u201d you\\u2019ve probably laughed\\u2013just like me. Ha Ha. I get it. What I mean is I knew nothing about what being white looks like to anyone who isn\\u2019t. You might remember the spectacularly biting SNL clip of complete with what happens in the white world when anyone of color leaves the room. It\\u2019s hilarious. And it\\u2019s not. One of the most revealing conversations I ever had was with a class of recidivist freshmen. These 20 kids were massively in the minority at our very-college-focused NYC Public School. This was not their first time in Freshman English. It might have been their third or fourth, to be honest. Trying to figure out how to get them to want to strengthen their skills was more difficult than any teaching job I\\u2019ve had before or since and I probably failed to help at least half of them. But they sure taught me. I was particularly lucky because my students had learned that they could trust me\\u2014at least it seemed to believe they could. I sure hoped they could. This was well into my time in NYC and it was also at the height of the people-getting-jumped-for-their-Air-Jordan\\u2019s scare and we\\u2019d been working our way through annotating a NYTimes article on the topic in preparation for them to practice writing formal letters, like they might have to write to a landlord someday, only we were using a letter to the editor of the paper as a practice run. As we annotated copies and separated fact from opinion (and noted where we\\u2019d need more facts to support our claims) one boy made a comment about how there was nothing wrong with jumping someone for their shoes\\u2014as long as that someone was white. As the only white person in the room at the time, I asked for clarification. Near as I can recall the conversation went something like this: Me: Wait, what? Student: Well, you know, Miss. I mean, it\\u2019s mad wrong for me to jump someone like\\u2026 Tyrik here (laughter) because I know it\\u2019s not like he can just, you know, go out and buy new Jordans. (\\u201cawwwwww\\u201ds) Me: Okaaaayyy\\u2026 Student: But\\u2026you know, Miss. If you need a new pair, you\\u2019ll get a new pair. Me: Wait. Are you telling me that I should be able to buy a new pair of Jordan\\u2019s because I\\u2019m white? (Laughter) Student: (clearly baffled by my response and the laughter) Um\\u2026yeah\\u2026 Me: George, how much money do you think I make??? Student: (still baffled) I don\\u2019t know\\u2026like\\u2026white people money? Me: (laughing) That\\u2019s an income classification? Student: (backpedaling) You know, Miss? Right? Like, you make enough. You can, you know, buy\\u2026stuff you want. Me: George, I\\u2019m a teacher. We don\\u2019t get rich being teachers. We get promised decent health care, and retirement, in exchange for not getting rich\\u2014almost enough to pay rent and eat. I\\u2019m not rich. Seriously. These shoes I got at Payless. I went on to break down how much I brought home every two weeks and what my monthly expenses were. My disposable money at the end of the month was about $30. The rustling in the room got louder as we worked our way towards that fact\\u2014a fact that the students brought up again and again in class when people made assumptions or worked off of stereotypes. 9:20 As different as my life was from George\\u2019s view of All White Folks\\u2014his understanding of the differences of how white folks live from the people he grew up with in his neighborhood wasn\\u2019t that far off. Things I saw our students do that I\\u2014at first\\u2014thought were SO self-defeating, so working against their best interests \\u2014 were, often as not, learned survival skills. We had a whole cross section of girls who got to school late every day. Same amount of late Every Day. Why? Their moms and dads both worked, often more than one job and frequently in overlapping shifts which meant one adult was still on the way home from a late shift on public transit early in the morning when the other was leaving for an early shift. But there\\u2019s a baby. Baby has to go to daycare. Affordable daycare starts at the same time as school. Solution? The oldest daughter is responsible and she\\u2019ll be able to make up the work she misses at her school. Have her take the baby to daycare then go to school. Someone else will pick the baby up so the oldest daughter can stay late and get help, library access, or just a quiet place to study. Win-win. But it took several years for me to learn that. All the kids knew how it worked. One girl was shocked I\\u2019d needed to ask her, because duh, of course that\\u2019s what was going on. Opening the door and coming into class late wasn\\u2019t anything she needed to apologize or make excuses for, because it was just so obvious. Except it wasn\\u2019t. To me. Just like I thought wasn\\u2019t obvious. 11:18 Just like what published in the NYT about the charges of sexual misconduct about him. H is thoughts weren\\u2019t obvious either. It\\u2019s not about race. It\\u2019s not about beauty. It\\u2019s not about sex. It\\u2019s not necessarily about gender. It is all about power. 11:49 And even people with power never feel like they are the one in power. There\\u2019s always someone richer, better, stronger, meaner, more ruthless, more threatening, better looking than they are. So if you try to have the conversation with them as though they\\u2019ve got more power than you they\\u2019ll just \\u201cwhat about THAT person\\u201d and blow off everything you say. John Oliver did a lovely piece on - which is also known as the . Back to Louis CK. 12:40 I don\\u2019t know if, in the maelstrom of sexual predator reveals you read or heard his whole statement, but you should know what he said. All of it. Because I think it should be the gold standard by which we judge responses to this issue. Allow me to give you a smidgen of context for why I believe that. 13:00 In a nutshell, Louis CK struggled on his way up as a standup comedian. A lot. He and Mark Maron have spoken about their enemyship and their friendship and how the difficulties they encountered paralleled each other but how they ultimately found success\\u2014albeit in relatively different areas. I guarantee you, if a female comedian heard me say that she would have snorted. Quadruple that snort if she\\u2019s a female comedian of color. Because\\u2026seriously. It\\u2019s just so obvious. Sidestepping that rabbit hole for a moment and going back to Louis CK\\u2014it\\u2019s important to know that Louis CK - like George Clooney and Samuel L Jackson have famously said \\u2013 Louis CK didn\\u2019t have success handed to him on a silver platter when they were young. He ate his share of cup-o-noodles and did a fair bit of couch surfing is what I\\u2019m saying. So If an up-and-coming female comedian had said to him, \\u201cGeez, it\\u2019s been rough going\\u2026\\u201d he\\u2019d be likely to say\\u2014justifiably\\u2014\\u201cOh My God, I KNOW. There was this one time when I\\u2026\\u201d not necessarily as a way of him purposefully dismiss her struggles, but very likely thinking that he\\u2019s speaking to an equal or\\u2014at least\\u2014to someone on her way to being a professional equal. How that convo might have been perceived by the woman he was speaking to would very likely have sounded very different. He learned\\u2014the hard way\\u2014about power disparities. 15:05 We can learn from him that power disparities are invisible to those in power UNLESS they are given a reason to stop, back up, think, ask questions, sit with it awhile, and then find the cojones to say \\u201cmea culpa\\u201d and own their error. And we\\u2014the rest of the public, the couch-sitting judge and jury to these people\\u2019s social falls\\u2014we have to learn to allow them to do that. We say that we want people to own it. We say we want people to say they\\u2019re sorry, but when they do we\\u2019re as likely to attack them for that as we are for them denying everything. And that\\u2019s too bad because we know everyone makes mistakes. But it\\u2019s very rare that we see people who are actually evil\\u2014Goebbels and Himmler and Pol Pot and King Leopold evil\\u2014stalk other people to try to ruin their lives. Even the guy who assaulted me wasn\\u2019t evil like that. He was a privileged jerk who thought he deserved everything\\u2014and that included females\\u2014because, my God woman, why WOULDN\\u2019T you want him, Right? He had money, he was smart (smart enough to get away with it more than once\\u2026until he broke his girlfriend\\u2019s collarbone) he (thought he was) good looking\\u2026I mean, duh. Anyone who accused him of something that unsavory must just be bitter\\u2026or a bitch\\u2026or frigid\\u2026or a feminist. Because, I mean, who are they going to believe? Right? 16:40 At this point, you need to go listen to Ehren Zigler\\u2019s ShakespeareSunday.libsyn.com episode from Nov 12, 2017 entitled: Who Will Believe You? When you\\u2019re done, come back and pick up here. 17:10 Welcome back! So what have we learned? Sadly, that not much has changed since 1604, or, more accurately, nothing much has changed since\\u2026 forever. But that isn\\u2019t helpful. Because I\\u2019ve raised two wonderful boys, one of whom isn\\u2019t unnerved about going to college on his own or of a possible terrorist attack nearly as much as he is of putting a girl in a position where he thinks she wants him to kiss her only to find that he\\u2019d misread the situation and is now labeled a predator. And the way things are flying around now, I don\\u2019t know that he\\u2019s wrong to feel this way. 18:02 If we can\\u2019t tell the difference between and adult predator of girls and young women\\u2014a predator so well-known that a mall barred his entrance\\u2014and a man finally \\u201cgetting it\\u201d and owning what he did wrong, if we can\\u2019t respect a man taking ownership of what he did wrong and vowing to try to do better (knowing full well that history has it\\u2019s eyes on him) then my son is right. He should be scared\\u2014or at least very very nervous. But that\\u2019s the wrong lesson we\\u2019re supposed to be learning. If theater, TV, and film have taught us anything, it\\u2019s that bad things happen when people don\\u2019t say what they should say. If real life has taught us anything, it\\u2019s that people can get punished for saying the right thing to the wrong person and vice versa. If literature has taught us anything, it\\u2019s that we can\\u2019t learn, grow, and become better happier people if we don\\u2019t listen to Atticus Finch: we need to walk a mile in the other person\\u2019s shoes. 16:48 I\\u2019ve been talking a lot about Louis CK\\u2019s statement, and before I read it to you, I do want to make it clear: I know that for years Louis CK denied all of these allegations. I\\u2019m also aware that in Hollywood he has a manager and an agent and it wouldn\\u2019t surprise me one bit if, (a) they were male, and (b), if they advised all of their clients who found themselves in situations like this to deny everything. Why? Because it\\u2019s been a very, very, effective tactic. Let me read it to you now because you have to hear it\\u2014all of it\\u2014for this last bit to make sense. I want to address the stories told to The New York Times by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves and one who did not. These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was O.K. because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn\\u2019t a question. It\\u2019s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly. I have been remorseful of my actions. And I\\u2019ve tried to learn from them. And run from them. Now I\\u2019m aware of the extent of the impact of my actions. I learned yesterday the extent to which I left these women who admired me feeling badly about themselves and cautious around other men who would never have put them in that position. I also took advantage of the fact that I was widely admired in my and their community, which disabled them from sharing their story and brought hardship to them when they tried because people who look up to me didn\\u2019t want to hear it. I didn\\u2019t think that I was doing any of that because my position allowed me not to think about it. There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for. And I have to reconcile it with who I am. Which is nothing compared to the task I left them with. I wish I had reacted to their admiration of me by being a good example to them as a man and given them some guidance as a comedian, including because I admired their work. The hardest regret to live with is what you\\u2019ve done to hurt someone else. And I can hardly wrap my head around the scope of hurt I brought on them\\u2026 I\\u2019ve brought pain to my family, my friends, my children and their mother. I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want. I will now step back and take a long time to listen. Thank you for reading. 19:25 When I was a kid, Atticus\\u2019 lessons seemed simple: I could usually figure out what I needed to, I could find the empathy in me that I needed to, just by imagining myself in someone elses\\u2019 position. That still works. Sometimes. But teaching in NYC taught me that imagination wasn\\u2019t enough. I had to actually get to know people who at a first\\u2014very superficial\\u2014glance were so different from me, only to find that our middle class upbringings, our relationships with our loving and supportive parents, our thoughts about love and life and career were all so similar as to be indistinguishable from one another. Until you factored in chances for success. One of my bosses in Hollywood told me a story once. He had an African American best friend in college, he\\u2019s Jewish. He laughingly told me how they used to have \\u201cwoe is me\\u201d competitions, racking up all the ways people\\u2019s prejudices and unfair treatment had frustrated them. I was young and na\\xefve and I asked who won. He stopped laughing and said, \\u201cwe ended the competition when my friend pointed out that if the two of us were walking down the street, people might guess I was Jewish\\u2026but they knew he was Black.\\u201d In competitions like that, no one wins. Not even the people in power. 21:00 One more illustration In 2016 there was an article I read that profiled various voters. One was a tentative Trump supporter in the upper midwest. I\\u2019ll call him Frank, for lack of a better memory. He wasn\\u2019t comfortable with much about Trump personally, but it was better than what he\\u2019d personally experienced from the left. He\\u2019d served in a war, he\\u2019d come back, he\\u2019d gotten a job, he\\u2019d raised a family, he paid his taxes, he started his own business. It wasn\\u2019t easy, but he worked his tuchus off and got his kids into college\\u2014like you do\\u2014and then one of his daughters came home from college with a boyfriend. At his own Thanksgiving table, this embodiment of the American dream, Frank, was served a plateful of stereotypes from a 20 year old kid\\u2014you must be a bigot, classist, uneducated, small-minded, evangelical, gay-bashing, woman-hating, immigrant-fearing, gun-loving, war-mongering idiot. Frank was, as would many of us be, speechless. And enraged. Here he\\u2019d done what he was supposed to do. He started a business. He supported his family. He paid his taxes. He loved his daughters and wanted them to be happy, with bright futures\\u2014that\\u2019s why did did all the things he did. Not because it was fun. Not because he was following his bliss. Because It Is What You Do when you love your family. JUST like my student\\u2019s parents worked many jobs and paid plenty in taxes to provide a home and futures for their families. But Frank didn\\u2019t have anyone to yell at\\u2014he couldn\\u2019t yell at his daughter\\u2019s boyfriend\\u2014no matter how much the twerp deserved it. because a gentleman doesn\\u2019t do something like that. He didn\\u2019t have a place to go where he could protest this unfair treatment. He didn\\u2019t have anyone to protest against. And yes, there\\u2019s no question, Frank didn\\u2019t see all of the benefits that being white and male afforded him. Again, to those with less power, his power is very obvious. To him, all he saw was how much work he put into making a good life for his family and his kids. So Frank was unhappy. But he didn\\u2019t much like colleges. And he really didn\\u2019t much like the Left. And it\\u2019s kind of hard to blame him. 26:45 But I can\\u2019t help but wish that in moments like that, the Franks of the world could find a way to step back and calmly ask, \\u201cWait, but why? Why do you assume that about me?\\u201d And then listen. Because if Frank listened to the Why, there\\u2019s a good chance that the more he heard and the more specific his questions got, the more he would expose the flaws in the stereotypes\\u2014and the more likely the Twerp would learn something he hasn\\u2019t learned at home\\u2014respecting your elders has nothing to do with deferring to them. It\\u2019s all about listening to them. Everyone does the best they can do with what they\\u2019ve got. No one sets out to be a failure or hateful\\u2014. And we are\\u2014as Madeline L\\u2019Engle and and a zillion other authors have noted\\u2014are always afraid of the unknown. And that\\u2019s where our current situation gets dangerous. Because if we can\\u2019t hear the difference between Louis CK\\u2019s \\u2014excuse the term\\u2014manning up to explain his actions and own his mistakes \\u2014NOT Yeah, I\\u2019m remorseful BECAUSE I GOT CAUGHT - \\u2014 But if we can\\u2019t hear a cogent and serious reflection on how these things can happen and why men simply don\\u2019t see it, then we also won\\u2019t see the danger inherent in someone who blames the victim (or shockingly blames religious bias) and denies any responsibility for their actions. And that\\u2019s the way we perpetuate all of this. 28:35 To be crystal clear: I am not talking about the more clear-cut violent crimes. I am however, pointing out that as long as we talk about sexual harassment and rape and serial pedophilia as though they\\u2019re all sex crimes, the longer we\\u2019ll be missing the point and not solving the problem - and we\\u2019ll have perpetuated a false equivalency. The assault I suffered was a very different kind of crime from the assault survived by one of the young women in a support group I eventually attended. She was attacked getting out of her car, with her laundry basket, in sweats, no makeup, hair piled on her head. She was threatened at knife-point. She was terrorized. Her case seems like a simple and clear-cut criminal assault. She still had people\\u2014often official-type people and not just men\\u2014ask her if she actually saw the knife. Or imply that she was asking for it\\u2014because she was blonde, tan, and pretty. I, of course, have never found sweats and no makeup that appealing, but hey, what do I know? I\\u2019m not a rapist. 29:52 The betrayal that she and I felt, at being assaulted, at having our body touched by someone to whom we did not give permission, was the same. The betrayal we experienced at having people who should have believed us who should have been on our side, who should have helped, or should have at the very least, have tried to help us make sure that the perpetrator never hurt anyone like that again\\u2014the betrayal we experienced at having people who should have believed us walk away or turn their backs\\u2014was the same. The crime itself was different. Which is kind of the point. The chances of the guy who assaulted her being surprised by being accused of rape is pretty slim. You go out of your way to stalk someone, beat them, hold a knife to their throat, tear their clothes, and force them to have sex with you\\u2014I think you probably know that\\u2019s called rape. I\\u2019m talking about the squishier territory. The \\u201cI didn\\u2019t know\\u201d vs the \\u201cyeah, well you should\\u2019ve known\\u201d moments. The places I\\u2019ve been talking about where purpose and perception are blurred and power, career, livelihood, and reputation are the elephants in the corners of the room, standing there all but invisible to the person with the power. We have to learn to hear the choked and sometimes heartbroken \\u201cI didn\\u2019t know\\u201d for what it is: the sudden exposure of a power disparity that was always there but largely invisible and a cultural disparity that I\\u2019ve never seen explained as well as was done this last week by . 31:48 There is an important lesson, I believe, in watching someone accused of something like this, especially a public figure\\u2014with or without proof provided\\u2014say, \\u201cOh my God, I don\\u2019t remember this, but for God\\u2019s sake, begin an ethics investigation, because we can\\u2019t just sweep these things under the rug.\\u201d There have to be standards. There are norms of behavior we need to respect. Because that kind of behavior\\u2014owning your mistake, allowing justice to run its course (with the belief that justice will, in fact, be just)\\u2014that is what we teach our children. That is what we tell them the world is like. So we have to act like it, too. Because the kids are watching us. There\\u2019s also an important warning in watching someone accused of something like this deny it ever happened, deny video footage, deny responsibility, or, most heinously, blame the victim\\u2014because as Louis CK and James Comey both demonstrated this year\\u2014the person in power does not think they have an unfair advantage. The person with less power, however, knows it. 33:10 It\\u2019s true in economics, it\\u2019s true in geopolitical conflict, it\\u2019s true throughout history, and it\\u2019s true when it comes to interpersonal relationships\\u2014those on the lower side of the power scale know a lot more about the higher end than the higher end knows about them. That\\u2019s why America strides around the planet like a big teenage bully, not caring\\u2014not needing to care\\u2014about how it\\u2019s perceived. Since WWII America\\u2019s had the power. I hope, that when the world shifts away from that, we can lose that bravado and learn how to deal with not being on top gracefully. I might be delusional. But I have to be hopeful because of my sons. 33:54 I don\\u2019t know that I can see a way through to a happy ending to the current spate of accusations. I\\u2019m not an apologist for the men being accused. I do think there\\u2019s a scale of egregiousness, and legality. However. I had a boss who once joked about me wearing a French Maid\\u2019s uniform at work. I laughed. I thought it was the stupidest thing I\\u2019d ever heard. He laughed too, and we had a really spectacular working relationship for nearly three years. Did he ever touch me? Not once. Would he be in serious trouble nowadays for making the French Maid joke. I\\u2019m afraid he would be. Even in 1989 he might have been if I\\u2019d taken him seriously. But I listened. And I watched him. And I heard that it wasn\\u2019t a threat. Or a requirement. It wasn\\u2019t even a legitimate or realistic request. It was a joke. No bathrobes were involved. No hotel room meetings\\u2014not that there couldn\\u2019t have been. This was Hollywood. But I\\u2019ve been lucky to work for and with honorable men my whole life. Karmic payback for having crossed paths with a sociopath in college, perhaps. I like to think that I took what happened to me and learned some valuable lessons from it. Like trusting myself to know when it\\u2019s time to go without worrying about being told I was spoiling everyone\\u2019s fun, trusting my gut to know that what I was walking into was not a safe situation\\u2014without worrying that I\\u2019d be told I was being hysterical, and by not worrying about being called a bitch if I weeded out backstabbers and betrayers from my life. 35:35 One of the saddest things I\\u2019ve heard this year was James Comey\\u2019s testimony when he talked about begging the Attorney General to stay in the room\\u2014to not leave him alone with the president\\u2014because he knew power disparity there was real and he didn\\u2019t want to be alone without witnesses in case the President said something that would be either Illegal or putting pressure on him in a way that could lead to things that were illegal. The kind of betrayal James Comey experienced\\u2014watching the Attorney General walk out of that room\\u2014is exactly the kind of betrayal women have felt when left alone with someone they know is unsafe. It is the closing of the door that is the most terrifying. At that point there is almost nothing you can do to win. Society will label you with one negative no matter which way you come out of that room. You can either be a frigid bitch or you can be a whore. What you can\\u2019t be is deaf. 36:45 You can\\u2019t be deaf to the same kinds of stories coming from other people in similar situations\\u2014both women and men. Atticus would be disappointed. And slut shaming is done by women at least as often as men. Ask my dorm roommates. They got to watch it up close. But we\\u2014especially we\\u2014women have to be the first one on the scene pointing out that nothing we\\u2019ve heard yet\\u2014Not One Incident\\u2014has been about one person being attracted to someone who Just Wasn\\u2019t That Into Him. None of this has been about sexual attraction or chemistry or a date gone bad. It\\u2019s been about powerful people knowingly or unknowingly using sex as a threat. The threat is \\u201cI get to do what I want to do because I\\u2019m the one who controls\\u2014or at the very least, can affect\\u2014your future.\\u201d Some threats like that are completely unknowingly wielded. Because those in power know less about how that power is perceived than the people without the power. There are the unknowing wielders, and then there are the others. But how would a guy know which camp he\\u2019s in\\u2014really? He\\u2019s not a rapist in an alley with a knife. We know those guys are predators. We know they\\u2019re the bad guys. These guys are wearing suits! When in a position of power there are few people brave enough to be . Instead, powerful people tend to gravitate to those who agree\\u2014or seem to agree\\u2014with them until the world they live in shows them in no uncertain terms every hour of every day that everyone wants to do what they want them to do. So if everyone wants what you want them to do, how could kissing or touching this woman who knows you\\u2014how could that be any sort of violation? Because obviously, she wanted it. How could she not? 30:31 CraftLit listeners are some of the most amazing people I\\u2019ve met in my entire life\\u2026. People who care about words meaning what they mean. When we look at the language and rhetoric being used in all of these arguments, debates, and statements, help the people around you to take a step back and look at the language being used. We can tell so much\\u2014and in situations like this, that language is the only in-road we have to following Atticus\\u2019 advice. Because we probably can\\u2019t imagine what it\\u2019s like to be Harvey Weinstein. We might not want to even if we could. But is it easy to understand how an overweight, schlubby guy who grew up overweight and schlubby, might see getting anything he wants is payback for years of humiliation and being ignored by women? Looking at the way he defends himself, yeah. I can imagine that that is exactly what\\u2019s going through his head. Does it make what he did any less reprehensible? Heck no. The crime is the crime is the crime. A rose by any other name\\u2026 It just means that solving the problem\\u2014helping him come to terms with what the problem is in the first place, is a different conversation. Violence, whether psychological or physical, that involves sex or sexuality, is never about sex or sexuality. It\\u2019s about power. And the sooner we can be honest with each other about these kinds of crimes and how we react to them\\u2014because our reactions are just as complicated, I would wager, as the reactions of the guys who\\u2019ve been outed\\u2014the sooner we can heal and move forward. And maybe\\u2014if we\\u2019re lucky\\u2014not see this happen any more. A girl can dream. But mostly, I hope that my friends and colleagues who are raising daughters are raising girls to be able to tell the difference between an honorable young man who does not have their best interests at heart. For the sake of my wonderful, beautiful sons, I hope that, as much as we\\u2019ve worked to make them kind, honorable, happy, good people, the same is being done by the fathers and mothers who are raising their daughters. 41:48 Because honorable people, embodied for my entire conscious life by my mother, my father, and Atticus Finch, are people who may be unaware that they\\u2019ve done something wrong, but when it\\u2019s brought to their attention respond by working to understand what went wrong and correct that wrong in whatever way they can. Dishonorable people are ones who may be unaware they\\u2019ve done something wrong, and when it\\u2019s brought to their attention\\u2014simply don\\u2019t care. I think we\\u2019ve seen several examples of both types of responses in the past year. And just like me with my students in New York, I didn\\u2019t know what I didn\\u2019t know about being white\\u2014until I had a chance to listen. Until I had someone brave enough to talk to me, honestly, and without anger. I got to be Frank, in a safe place where I was able to ask questions and\\u2014because I was safe, and not being attacked\\u2014able to hear the answers I was able to hear and understand the \\u201cwhat I should have knowns\\u2026because it\\u2019s just so obvious.\\u201d When it still wasn\\u2019t obvious. To me. Back then. Things I couldn\\u2019t have seen without help because you just don\\u2019t see the same view as everyone else when you\\u2019re the one on top. Literature is there to show us how to grow, how to act, and often as not how NOT to act and grow. That is one of the reasons why education, specifically in the humanities, is so vital. These are the reasons I\\u2019ve been hosting CraftLit for coming up on 12 years. I promise, on Thursday, December 14th, I\\u2019ll be back to sharing inside jokes with you and Dickens and the holiday spirit. But today I thank you for listening. And I hope you know that I\\u2019ve given you our call-in number for a reason. I\\u2019ve never shied away from reading emails or playing audio from you when you\\u2019ve disagreed with me and I won\\u2019t do it now. I also know from our long sojourn together that unlike the rest of the internet, CraftLit listeners respond to each other with kindness and compassion\\u2014you are my Finch-Family Community. You are the ones who prove to me, over and over again, that the world can be a good and safe and happy place. I know that once again, I\\u2019ll point to our online forums as The Only Place on the Internet Where People Still Have Manners When Discussing Difficult Things. Because you always listen. And think. And research. And share. And speak\\u2014always with compassion and thought and care. I\\u2019ve tried to do the same for you today. I hope I have. I like to believe that classic fiction and the people who love it can help us avoid a world run by or The Commanders in or the assassins in the fourth part of *. I believe\\u2014and I will continue to believe\\u2014that Humanity can do better than that. I have to believe that. Because like you, I love my children. And I want them, and yours, to have safe and happy lives. (This is the printing I read in school. No idea if it\\u2019s better or worse than others. It\\u2019s just the one I know) The FUN side of CraftLit returns on December 14, 2017 with the First Day of CraftLit?stories to light the holidays.'