Title & author
Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford
Synopsis
Detailing the story of her sexual assault and the institution that silenced her for decades after, Crawford dissects this oppression, particularly as her friends, her family, and others chose to turn away out of fear. An urgent exposé on rape in America, Notes on a Silencing tears back the curtain on institutional privilege, urging readers and society to dismantle the structures that motivate, enable, and protect such violence.
Who should read this book
Fans of Know My Name
What we’re thinking about
Institutional silencing as a form of violence
Trigger warning(s)
Physical and sexual violence, eating disorders, self-harm, sexism, mental health
“All over the world, victims were being encouraged to share their stories in an effort to embolden other victims. I was being asked to keep quiet about mine so as not to discourage them” (Crawford, 365). Amidst the start of the 2017 #MeToo coverage, as victims of sexual assault publicly voiced their stories, Lacy Crawford was told to not, just as she had been told for the past 30+ years. But in Notes on a Silencing (Little Brown, 2020), she demands otherwise. Detailing the story of her sexual assault and the institution that silenced her for decades after, Crawford dissects this oppression, particularly as her friends, her family, and others chose to turn away out of fear. An urgent exposé on rape in America, Crawford’s memoir tears back the curtain on institutional privilege, urging readers and society to dismantle the structures that motivate, enable, and protect such violence.
As a student at St. Paul’s, an elite boarding school in rural New Hampshire, Crawford feels “the commanding divine mission” of the school, one “backed by an assurance of superior knowledge” (25). The atmosphere at St. Paul’s School (SPS) is one of privilege, students there feel they were chosen to succeed and that they deserve nothing less. But despite believing this of her classmates and teachers, Crawford herself feels as if she “could not thrive” (49). From the start, she carries an extra weight, wondering how she fits in amongst her extraordinarily wealthy or gifted peers. She battles with this lack of confidence, consistently attempting to prove herself to her family, her peers, and herself. So when two boys force themselves on her, her first concern is “Suspension. Shame. Her parents’ shame. (College!)” (4). Concerned with what others will think of her and her worth, she automatically places the blame on herself and not on the boys that took advantage of their underage peer. She does not cry out then, nor for a long time after.
But while Crawford’s memoir is vulnerable, laced with the innermost thoughts of first an adolescent navigating the aftermath of assault completely alone, and later as she begins to tell others and confront the shame and memories she has buried deep within, it is SPS and its assumed power that stays at the core of her story. “When we send a child into someone else’s care, we take pains to detail everything that our child might possibly need, every possible reaction or concern, as a defense against the unknown” (53). As a boarding school, SPS holds enormous care over the students that attend. But responsibility often leads to power, which SPS is quick to abuse.
And so the school perpetuates and enables an extremely harmful environment, one in which anyone who is not a straight, white man is mistreated. After one student confides in a trusted advisor that her teacher made sexually inappropriate advances, the advisor asks her “what she had done to cause [him] to behave in this way” (146). This complete and utter dismissal is just one way the school silences victims of sexual assault, which in turn leads to a culture that excuses such violence and blames the victim and not the perpetrator. In fact, it isn’t until Crawford becomes the “fallen woman” that she learns of other girls at the school who’d been assaulted (324). The culture of protecting the accused leads to one of silence, where women and girls cannot speak out, the same reason why Crawford stays silent for so long. And it isn’t until years later, only a few before she writes her memoir, that she learns of the horrific history of sexual assault at the school. The lengths that SPS goes to blame the victims, to remove themselves of all responsibility and instead uphold their status as an upper-echelon school (which in turn gains them the respect—and funding—of powerful people to further protect that status) are, for lack of a better term, terrifying. And yet so many institutions, as Crawford details, have been doing the same thing for years and years and years, and have yet to change a thing.
To briefly touch on privilege in the novel, Crawford weaves in acknowledgments of the racist, derogatory culture not just at SPS, but in the space she occupies as a victim. “I was assaulted in privilege; I have survived in privilege” she states in the opening pages (5). One day during hockey practice, she calls out the flaws in a sprint game, for which the coach would call out hair styles and the girls would have to skate across the ice. “If you’re wondering if she ever called out locs or dreads or braids, the answer is of course no” (205). Her writing demonstrates how stories about white women can recognize privilege, and the critical importance of doing so, no matter the story’s focus. The maltreatment of students of color further demonstrates the violence reinforced by SPS.
While reading Notes on a Silencing, it is hard to imagine how an institution such as St. Paul’s could ever improve, could ever truly acknowledge its faults and transform into a space of safety. In Hood Feminism, author Mikki Kendall dives into how not just white feminism, but America as a whole, is rooted in white supremacy. How by upholding the white patriarchy, a space where only white men are in power, there can never be equality or progress. Kendall’s words ring true with regards to Crawford’s story as well: they demonstrate the importance of an educational institution being rooted in intersectional feminism (and not whiteness, not masculinity, not white supremacy) to be able to protect the students it serves. Within every page of Notes on a Silencing is a call for SPS to be held accountable for the harmful environment it cultivates, for the harmful environment it protects. So if SPS and other similar institutions have not been rooted in intersectionalism from the start, might it not be best to tear them all down? To begin all over?
“I say it is better to be a slut than to be silent. I believe, in fact, that the slur slut carries within it, Trojan-horse style, silence as its true intent. That the opposite of slut is not virtue but voice.”
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