Kylie Klein-Nixon
Don’t forget survivors in light of Jacko documentary
Why is our first impulse always to grill survivors like they’re the monsters? There were two kinds of Kiwis in New Zealand this week: those who watched Leaving Neverland, the American documentary about two men who claim singer Michael Jackson abused them as children, and those who didn’t.
You’ve had some time to process your own position on the topic. You might even have had a few debates about it – I know I have, and you’ve been questioning where you stand on the ‘‘should I listen to him or not?’’, ‘‘was he guilty or not?’’, ‘‘should we care or not?’’ divides.
Because, of course, with any incredibly complex and delicate subject, there are just two sides: if you’re a politically-correct wowser, you believe the men in the documentary and you’ll be wanting our rock ’n’ roll albums next.
If you’re not a PC wowser, then you’re a selfish troll/wind-up merchant who’s been loudly playing Thriller and Beat It on endless repeat for the past week, and daring anyone to ask you why.
One thing I didn’t see throughout this, is anyone checking in with other survivors.
My own feelings have been complex, but I think I’ve figured out this much: it’s not whether wowsers are ruining things for us, or forcing us to believe things that might not be true, or wrecking the memory of a genius.
What worries me is what we’re saying to the survivors around us when we choose to defend Jackson no matter what, to play his music loudly in public, to demand his genius is more important than any other ‘‘facts’’ about him.
Because it feels like we’re saying to other survivors – maybe even people we know – ‘‘we don’t give a s...’’.
There’s no comparison to the horrific abuse described in Leaving Neverland, or that we know others have suffered, but I’ve experienced how quick folks are to minimise adults doing weird sex stuff with children.
When I was very little, I was flashed by an adult family acquaintance. He walked into a room where I was watching cartoons alone with his penis out like it was no big thing.
I couldn’t have been more than 3 or 4, but I can still picture this man’s genitals hanging there. He needed to let them dry, he said.
I remember feeling confused and freaked out, and not knowing what to do – feelings I’d now call ‘‘creeped out’’ but, at the time, were so new I didn’t have words to describe them.
I don’t really remember how it all ended, but I’m pretty sure I told the relative who was looking after me. I would have wanted to clarify the whole unlikely penis drying situation.
Since then I have been told by friends and family that I imagined it, that it wasn’t as bad as all that because he didn’t touch me, that it probably wasn’t a penis (that was my favourite response. I mean, I know I don’t have much to do with them on a day-to-day basis, but I know what one looks like at least), and that it was just a joke.
For a long time, even I didn’t think of it as abusive. It was just a ‘‘weird thing that happened to me when I was a kid’’. Except, as a young teen I didn’t like being left alone with adults because I would get anxious about what they ‘‘might do’’. I had terrible anxiety about being alone with any adults even, occasionally, my parents.
Into my 30s I was unconformable when strangers were friendly or interested in me. I was always waiting for the other, much creepier, shoe to drop.
In the end, I literally had to pay someone to listen to me talk about it, not out of it.
This seemingly minor incident had years of repercussions. Imagine how much worse it is for the survivors of much more horrific and sustained abuse, who nevertheless face the same, often worse, disbelief, derision and minimising when they try to speak out?
How must that feel to watch that playing out on a global scale, even for someone else, as it is over the Jackson allegations right now?
I understand that people desperately want two things when they’re confronted by stories of abuse: to make the teller feel better – mostly so they’ll stop talking about it – and to make the abuse seem less commonplace and mundane and more rare, unlikely, distant or unreal.
It’s not because they don’t care, but because it’s terrifying and heartbreaking, and it leaves people scared. We don’t all have the emotional tools to deal with it.
It’s also hard not to feel defensive when something you love, like Jackson’s musical legacy, is under attack.
No one wants to believe abuse happens – abusers don’t want people believing it because it makes it easier for them to do their filthy business, and non-abusers don’t want to believe because it’s incomprehensible that something so evil can go on behind their backs. It’s easier to say that it can’t happen than do the hard, necessary, work of accepting difficult stories and believing victims when they speak out.
The truth is that the horror stories are rare, but people who take advantage of their power and position are not. Time’s Up and #MeToo have taught us that much. How we react to stories of abuse now is crucial to the empowerment and wellbeing of survivors yet to come forward.
Whatever you think about Jackson, it’s well beyond time we started facing up to that.