In 1991 my wife and I were living in a townhome type place at 19th and Denny in Seattle across from a house we called the “Rathouse”. The Rathouse was home base for our Ohio expatriate gang. The Gits, 7 Year Bitch, Alcohol Funnycar and DC Beggars all rehearsed in the basement there. This was also the time of the Clarence Thomas supreme court confirmation. The news was churning 24/7 trying to discount Anita Hill’s sexual harassment allegations against Thomas. I was sitting home one afternoon during the hearings when I heard a loud crash hit the side of my building. I immediately went out on our patio and saw a woman hanging from a noose that was wrapped around the center beam between two windows the floor above me. I immediately lost my shit and started screaming and ran outside. Shortly thereafter the police arrived and together we held her up while they cut her down. Amazingly, she lived. I remember talking to her partner a week or so later and he told me the following story… she had been sexually assaulted by a co-worker. When she reported it her boss he said the solution was to put her and her assailant into a conference room together and they should “work it out”. This experience mixed with seeing how Anita Hill was being treated pushed her to try and commit suicide. She thought it was all hopeless. As a bystander I was completely traumatized, I didn’t want to live there anymore. We moved a few weeks later and I tried to block it out of my mind. In hindsight, I’ve felt such compassion for that woman and the memories have been stirring again as another woman goes under the spotlight tied to a Supreme Court nomination . Why would anyone go through this if they weren’t telling the truth? No one gets a root canal for the fun of it. Men have told war stories as long as civilization has existed. Stories about jumping on a grenade to save their fellow compatriots. Well, I believe Christine Blasey Ford is a war hero. She’s willing to inflict damage on herself to save her compatriots. Bless her and her sacrifice. I believe her and hope that the battle she’s fighting resonates for years to come.
– Ben London
