4. The Anatomy of An Apology

Intersectionality Matters!

Intersectionality Matters with Kimberlé Crenshaw

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4.7 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2019

⏱️ 48 minutes

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Summary

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”--the misguided notion that love eliminates the need for apology. In politics, the love that mutes apologies is often same-party affinity--as in, “we know we’re on the same side” so accountability is unnecessary. Yet it’s more likely that the contrary is true: love as well as coalition demand an openness to saying “I’m sorry,” for without it, justice is impotent. But what are the consequences when apologies don’t materialize? Is letting it go really the only way to think about healing, both emotionally and politically? In this episode of Intersectionality Matters, host Kimberlé Crenshaw talks to Tony award-winning playwright and activist Eve Ensler about her groundbreaking new book The Apology and how the withholding that is the touchstone of the inviolable code of silence among men can be broken. Ensler discusses the journey she traveled to conjure the apology she needed from her late father for sexual and physical abuse. We also hear from philosopher Kate Manne on himpathy, the term she coined to describe the disproportionate and inappropriate sympathy powerful men often receive in cases of sexual assault and other forms of gendered violence. Himpathy, she explains, may help us understand how some women who stood by Anita Hill are now embracing Joe Biden’s candidacy despite his failure to fully come to terms with his role in in her heinous treatment during Clarence Thomas’s senate confirmation hearings in 1991. Both Manne’s and Ensler’s interviews illustrate the grim reality that men are often socialized to deny their commission of gender-based harm, and that many of us are socialized to condone that very inability to accept blame— sometimes to the degree that we position men who have victimized others as victims themselves. Tune in for a thought-provoking exploration of what it could mean for perpetrators and bystanders to genuinely confront and atone for violence they’ve either committed or enabled. Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks) Produced and Edited by Julia Sharpe Levine Recorded by UCLA and Cornell University Music by Blue Dot Sessions With: Eve Ensler, (@vday, @eveensler) Kate Manne (@kate_manne) Intersectionality Matters: ig: @intersectionalitymatters, twitter: @IMKC_podcast Additional support from G'Ra Asim, Michael Kramer, Kevin Minofu, Naimah Hakim, Madeline Cameron Wardleworth

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Kimberly Crenshaw, and this is intersectionality matters. The podcast that brings intersectionality to life
0:09.0	by exploring the hidden dimensions of today's most pressing issues, from say her name and Me Too,
0:16.1	to the war on civil rights and the global rise of fascism. This is an idea travelogue. It lifts up the
0:23.8	work of leading activists, artists, and scholars and helps listeners understand politics, the law,
0:30.9	social movements, and even their own lives in deeper, more nuanced ways.
0:39.3	A few weeks ago, presidential candidate Joe Biden expressed regret over Anita Hill's
0:45.8	treatment during the 1991 confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas.
0:50.0	As the committee chairman, I take responsibility that she did not get treated well.
0:55.6	Now, a few days later, his wife, Jill, said in an interview with NPR that it's time to move on.
1:02.6	I mean, he's called Anita Hill. They've spoken. He apologized for the way the hearings were run.
1:10.2	And so now it's kind of, it's time to move on.
1:13.3	So I'll admit this question is personal to me. It's personal because I sat in the hearing room.
1:22.5	I watched the Senate Judiciary Committee take Anita Hill apart. One of the consequences of Joe Biden's
1:31.2	mismanagement of the hearing was that he was responsible for deciding that other witnesses
1:37.5	who were prepared to talk about Clarence Thomas's behavior was never heard. It was never heard because Joe Biden decided
1:45.5	not to call these witnesses. To this day, many people don't know that there were other women
1:51.9	who were willing to testify. So when I look at the presidential field and I see Joe Biden as one of the frontrunners for the Democratic
2:05.1	nomination, I keep going back to that moment. And I'm still waiting for some indication that the
2:13.0	same person that presided over that horrendous hearing is not the same person who is asking for our
2:21.7	vote. I want to hear him talk about how some of the questions that he asked Anita Hill
2:28.5	reflected the insensitivity to how a woman who's experienced sexual harassment is often made to testify
2:36.2	in a way that makes her even more stigmatized. I want to know that Joe Biden recognizes that
	...

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