| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
|---|
Britt |
|
<
< | -- By TashaStatzGeary - 11 Mar 2022 |
>
> | -- By TashaStatzGeary - 26 May 2022 |
| |
Cut Short |
|
<
< | In August of 2018, I was preparing to move back to Massachusetts for my last year of college. I had spent the summer interning in New York. It was a profoundly lonely summer, the kind of loneliness that a 21-year-old woman can both romanticize and languish in. I somehow had the awareness that I was growing precisely because I was making mistakes, that I was lucky to be robbed in Bushwick and to learn from it. The hardships of my days were the building blocks of the stronger, future me. |
>
> | In 2018, I interned in New York before my final year of college. It was a profoundly lonely summer, the kind that a 21-year-old woman can both romanticize and languish in. I had the awareness that I was growing precisely because I was making mistakes, that I was lucky to be robbed in Bushwick and to learn from it. The present hardships were the building blocks of a wiser future. |
| | |
|
<
< | On a painfully hot and humid day, I was wandering around Greenwich Village, trying to pass time and get out of my cramped apartment. Extremely hot and bright days in the city always make me anxious: everything seems louder and smellier. The skyscrapers feel extra claustrophobic. I was feeling homesick, aimless and sweaty. I sat to scroll on Facebook when I saw the post. A childhood friend had been murdered by her boyfriend. She had been robbed of the chance to grow from the difficulties of her youth. |
>
> | On a brutally hot day, I wandered around Greenwich Village to pass time. Hot and bright days in the city always made me anxious: everything seemed louder and smellier. The skyscrapers felt extra claustrophobic. I was homesick and aimless. Craving a reminder of home, I opened Facebook, where I saw tributes to a childhood friend. She had been murdered by her boyfriend. My wistful depression suddenly felt laughable– while I sulked about the growing pains of adolescence, she was robbed of that privilege. She could never look back on this time. She was gone. |
| | |
|
<
< | Brittany was a few years older than me. Her parents were both addicted to drugs when she was born, so her grandmother stepped in to raise her. To escape the excruciating heat of Orlando in the summer, her grandmother would always send her to Brittany’s older cousin in Massachusetts for the summer. This cousin, Tricia, was my nanny, since both my parents worked full-time. Britt and I thus ended up as playmates every summer. She would tell me about Florida and her grandmother, and I, being two years younger, would mostly just listen. As we got older, she would tell me about training bras and boys. I had three older brothers, so Britt was a much needed comrade. I still have disposable pictures of us in Tricia’s backyard, posing with peace signs. |
>
> | Brittany was a few years older than me. Both her parents were addicted to drugs when she was born, so her grandmother raised her. To escape the heat of Orlando, her grandmother would send her to Brittany’s older cousin in Massachusetts for the summer. This cousin, Tricia, was my nanny. Britt and I thus ended up as playmates every year. |
| | |
|
<
< | Once I was old enough to no longer need a babysitter, I stopped seeing Britt. By this age we had Facebook, so I would find out that she had her son at age 19. I would also see on Facebook, around the beginning of 2018, that she had a new boyfriend. And this boyfriend, in August of that same year, would brutally beat Britt to death while they visited his family in Detroit. |
>
> | Britt was warm and blunt, wise beyond her years but quick to smile. She was mischievous, convincing me to hide from Tricia so we could play longer. Britt would poke fun at me, as all big sisters do, but I saw my love for her reflected back to me in every eye-roll. She teased me because I loved her and because she loved me too– she just couldn’t verbalize it, a predictable result from her traumatic childhood. |
| | |
|
<
< | On the Amtrak train home, I made plans to get dinner with Tricia. She had acted as a second mother to me growing up, so we have stayed close. Our dinner was, of course, solemn. Tricia kept saying this happened because Britt was so desperate to feel loved and had such a scant idea of what that looked like. While this is undoubtedly true, I did not believe Britt’s upbringing caused her death. She was murdered because her boyfriend was raised to undervalue female life. He caused her death, not her. |
>
> | Shyer and younger, I was content being Britt's shadow and listening to her stories for hours. As we got older, she taught me about training bras and boys. I have three older brothers, so Britt was a much needed ally. August was always clouded with the sad realization that she would leave soon, taking the sunshine and warmth and freedom with her. We took pictures to remember each other during the year. I still have disposable pictures of us in Tricia’s backyard, posing with peace signs and popped hips. |
| | |
|
>
> | Once I outgrew needing a babysitter, I stopped seeing Britt. By then we had Facebook, which is where I learned she became a mother at age 19 and where I first saw her new boyfriend in early 2018. This boyfriend, in August of that same year, would brutally beat Britt to death while they visited his family in Detroit. August took Britt from me one last time. |
| | |
|
<
< | No One Would Tell
I, admittedly, was uninformed about domestic violence before Britt’s murder. In health class in high school, our teacher played us a cheesy movie called No One Would Tell. Candace Cameron and Fred Savage star as the lead couple. The synopsis reads: “A teenager thinks all her dreams have come true when the school hunk begins dating her, but it's not long before the darker side of his personality rears its ugly head.” Justified or not, absolutely no one took this movie seriously. To be fair, it is objectively terrible, full of extremely cringe worthy dialogue from 1996 that is completely unrelatable for teenagers in 2014. I will admit that I partook in all the jokes about this movie. If anything, our health teacher trivialized intimate partner abuse by having this movie be his sole lesson plan. |
>
> | On the Amtrak home, I arranged to see Tricia. She was like a mother to me, so we stayed close. We met for a solemn dinner. All evening she repeated, “This happened because Britt was desperate to feel loved and didn’t know what that looks like.” I swallowed back tears, wishing my childhood adoration could’ve sustained Britt until someone else earned her loving taunts. |
| | |
|
<
< | The giggles from hormonal high schoolers are more forgivable than what happened in a Columbia Law School torts class a few weeks ago. When discussing a case involving an abusive ex-boyfriend who stalked his ex-girlfriend incessantly and ultimately hired someone to throw acid on her face, our professor went out of his way to include additional facts not in the casebook and to present them as if they were part of a sitcom. Each sentence was given its own slide for dramatic effect. “After being released from the hospital, Riss goes on a double date with Burton Pugach.” The room giggles. After a few more insulting slides, the professor reaches the punchline: “Riss and Pugach get married.” The room exploded into laughter. Once the crowd dies down, the professor notes a movie was made about this exact case and recommends watching it. A male student offers his review: “One of the most entertaining movies I’ve watched.” |
| | |
|
>
> | No One Would Tell |
| | |
|
<
< | Cultural Competency
After this class, I thought of Britt. I thought of people laughing at her for staying with her abuser, bemused that her abuser had psychologically manipulated her into believing he was her only option, the only person who could ever love her. I thought of Linda Riss, long deceased, being laughed at by a professor and classroom of people who could never understand what she experienced and why she may have married Pugach. I thought of how the most traumatic event of her life was distilled into a court opinion and used as a vehicle for us to learn common law. We used her pain to learn and then discarded her humanity with our laughter.
I googled Britt’s name. The first result is the appeals court’s decision in the case against her abuser. I read the opinion, recognizing the classically cited criminal law cases, tracking the logic of why the appeals court reversed and remanded, finding sufficient evidence of proximate cause to establish a second-degree murder conviction. It’s not hard to imagine a law school class using this case to learn about second-degree murder.
It goes without saying that every victim is more than what a court’s opinion and a casebook author gives them. I wish law school would teach all of its students this truth before releasing them into the world with a license to represent the Britts of the world. |
>
> | Admittedly, I was uninformed about domestic violence before Britt’s murder. In high school health class, our teacher played a made-for-TV-movie called No One Would Tell, starring Candace Cameron and Fred Savage. The synopsis reads: “A teenager thinks all her dreams have come true when the school hunk begins dating her, but it's not long before the darker side of his personality rears its ugly head.” No one took this movie seriously. In fairness, it is objectively terrible, full of 1990s cliches ripe for ridicule by teenagers in 2014. I participated in the mockery, leaving class with my ignorance unchanged. If anything, our teacher trivialized intimate partner abuse by using a kitschy film as his sole lesson plan. |
| | |
|
<
< |
A terrific start. This is what it means to have created a gemstone that needs to be cut and polished. Let's see how: |
>
> | I remembered these teenage sneers during a torts lecture this semester. While discussing a case in which an abusive ex-boyfriend (Pugach) stalked his ex-girlfriend (Riss) and hired someone to throw acid on her face, our professor included additional facts not in the casebook. Each sentence was given its own slide for dramatic effect. “After being released from the hospital, Riss goes on a double date with Pugach.” The room giggled. After a few more slides, our professor reached the punchline: “Riss and Pugach get married.” The room exploded into laughter. Once the crowd died down, the professor recommended a movie made about the case. A male student offered his review: “One of the most entertaining movies I’ve watched.” |
| | |
|
<
< | First the cutting. Go through the draft and remove every word that isn't pulling any weight. "In August of 2018," to begin with, is four words doing at best the work of two. After all the slack words are gone, rephrase each sentence so that each clause is pulling weight. Shorter sentences with simpler music will make the writing more compelling. |
>
> | Cultural Competency |
| | |
|
<
< | Now the polishing. The more transparent sentences you have, and the room you made by tightening, allow you now to use words to add color and resonance to the writing. Put the adjectives where the color is needed. You now use them to describe Orlando, but not Britt herself. You give Tricia the job of explaining how badly Britt needed to be loved, and how little she knew what that looked like. But you were one of the only exceptions: your love for her was one of the few she really did know. You should make that love more apparent: she glows in your presence because you are the little sister who loves her. The reader has to feel that. The law teacher, on the other hand, is so superbly self-satirizing that there is no benefit to adding any color of your own: flat lighting will do perfectly. That means you also don't need to add outrage; the reader won't need to be told what to feel. Reduced to its essence, this is law school's folly in one perfect vignette. Draw it with the same dissociative detachment in which it sees the world, and leave it there to rot. |
>
> | After this class, I thought of Britt. I thought of people laughing at her for staying with her abuser, amused that he psychologically manipulated her into believing he was her only option, the only person who could ever love her. I thought of Linda Riss, long deceased, being laughed at by a professor and classroom who could never understand what she experienced and why she married Pugach. I thought of how the most traumatic event of her life was distilled into a court opinion and used as an entertaining introduction to governmental immunity. We used her pain to learn and then discarded her humanity with our laughter. |
| | |
|
<
< | What brought you to this point was learned hard, in grief. Now take satisfaction in turning that grief into art. |
>
> | I googled Britt’s name. The first result is the court’s decision in the case against her abuser. I read the opinion, recognizing the canonical cases, tracking how the court found sufficient proximate cause for second-degree murder. It is easy to imagine a law school class using this case to learn causation. |
| | |
|
<
< | |
>
> | It goes without saying that every victim is more than what a court or casebook author writes. They are worth more than the educational or entertainment value of their deaths– they had lives and dreams and little sisters who thought they hung the moon and stars. The nuances folded into their humanity cannot be captured in a courtroom. Law school should teach its students this before licensing them to represent the Britts of the world. |
| |
\ No newline at end of file |