Name: Chanel Miller on New Memoir 'Know My Name'
Uploaded: 2019-12-11
Duration: 23 min 11 s
Description: Chanel Miller discusses her new memoir 'Know My Name.'

[ BLANK_AUDIO ] It happened when I was 22 on the cusp of my adulthood. When you are assaulted an identity is given to you. To you. It threatens to swallow up everything you plan to do, [ SOUND ] And be. [ MUSIC ] I became Emily Doe. [ MUSIC ] Assault teaches you to shrink, makes you afraid to exist. Shame Really, can kill you. Unconscious, stupid, dumpster, swimmer, Stanford, half naked, nameless, nobody. Nobody wants to be defined And by the worst thing that's happened to them. [ SOUND ] Hi. [ LAUGH ] [ APPLAUSE ] [ APPLAUSE ] That's for you. So now, thank you so much for being here with us. It's a real honor to have you. So I just wanted to start by talking a little bit about that animation, which I should be clear, that's your work. In addition to being a writer, you're also an illustrator. In the club, you talk about becoming Emily Doe. Can you tell us who is Emily doe? That's a good question. I think Emily Doehas evolved for me over the years and the beginning. She was a separate identity, who I didn't want to affiliate myself with. I think after I wrote the statement, and I started receiving letters from the public, people kept saying she's so courageous and so eloquent and she's talented and I didn't those feelings about myself yet. I had just sort of been spit out of the system, I still felt really fragile. And, you know, everybody sort of gave me a framework to grow into and I, I believed everyone when they said it and so I said, okay, I have to start to learn how to Absorb these compliments, and become these things, and really believe it for myself. And that's who Emily Doe became. It seems like in your book which we're gonna really get into, but it almost seems like you embraced this identity as almost a defense mechanism. She's someone separate from who you are. How did you kind of take on that identity? Yeah, I think you want to keep your drama in a corner. You want to keep it separate from everything else and say, this is the life that I've built. This is how I know myself and I'm not going to let some external circumstance affect Who I am and what I'm doing and what I'm planning to do. And I think, over time, you know, the little trauma crept closer and closer, and eventually like consumed my personal life and I had to learn to say okay, now that you're Here I have to confront you and learn to integrate you and incorporate you into my identity in a way that I can be proud of and I've learned a lot from trauma. I've learned that I can be outspoken. I was very quiet before. I have learnt I can speak in public spaces And I'm not as afraid of cameras as they thought. [ LAUGH ] And these are all positives they've taken away and I just feel more confident than I thought I could be before so. So for those of you who have not read the book and you should all read the book, I'm just going to give sort of a very high level, just what happened. So in January 2015, Chanel was sexually assaulted, found unconscious and half naked behind the dumpsters at Stanford University. And so in your book, most of us knew the story, who had been following in the press and your your victim statement that went viral. But we knew it is Emily Joe and in your book, Know My Name, you reveal yourself as Chanel Miller. Tell us about that process. What made you decide that you wanted to go public with your identity? I think keeping a secret can be really isolating, especially when 18 million people can discuss your secret but you can't. [ LAUGH ] So you would actually have friends who would talk about the [ UNKNOWN ] with you. Yeah, and I just be in the room nodding or and I could never even contribute my opinion It was cool. I felt like I had the power of invisibility. I got to be there when people were openly discussing the case. But it's isolating not to be able to engage. And it's also strange because I felt like I was changing. I was on this whole transformative narrative arc and then The way people perceived me felt outdated, like they were identifying with my past self. And I was like I'm secretly growing a lot. And I want you to catch up to me and to be able to have these like difficult discussions. And I also think like I did want to be able to speak openly. I think all of us want to be able to speak about what has happened, but we don't know how. And I feel like I had to spend the last almost five years figuring out how to come forward in a way that I would be Okay with in a way where I could still I feel like I would be myself, that it wouldn't just blow up everything I had done in my life. And I learned over time to take care of myself. I spent the past three years just figuring, bring out what happened, bending the trial. Reading transcripts, I continue to go to therapy. I started exercising more and doing clinks and. [ LAUGH ] I have like better upper body strength. And I basically got to a point where I was like I've done everything I could do to make myself feel better. I have you know, nourished things that were neglected like relationships during the court proceedings, so I feel ready. And then the one thing that kept me back was being scared for my safety and my privacy and I think a lot of family members and people who love me were like, why would you You know you're okay now, why would you now reveal yourself and sort of risk everything again and be exposed to attack again. And I thought because I shouldn't have to be confined to a life of hiding. I shouldn't have to feel suffocated because I'm scared someone will hurt me. That's not Away anybody should have to live. I want us to be able to like, be present and speak and like sit together face to face. I thought I deserved that after being isolated for so long and so [ APPLAUSE ] [ APPLAUSE ] Yeah. [ APPLAUSE ] So yeah, I think a lot of us wish to come forward and be open. And we just are trying to figure out how and we need to create spaces, where we do feel safe. And That our privacy can be protected and that we feel comfortable talking about these things. That's what we need to focus on. And just so everyone knows this is actually Chanel's first time speaking at a conference and she's not doing a- [ APPLAUSE ] She's not doing [ APPLAUSE ] Yeah, she's not. She's not doing a typical book tour, because she is concerned about her safety. So I think that that's really speaks to how this has impact impacted your life in some ways. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even I just focused on writing, I focused on putting one word in front of the other that I can handle for three years in my room. When it came time to discuss, like who's gonna do first interview are comfortable with TV, I withdrew, I felt angry when people talk to me about doing interviews. I thought They're going to come at me with an angle, it's gonna be a gotcha piece. You know, in trial during cross examination, the only reason questions are asked is in order to manipulate you and to make you appear stupid, and to expose some other side of you and so I didn't trust Questions. I didn't want to be asked anything. And it took a lot of time to even be able to trust reporters, you know, and to even be willing to open myself to questions and then I thought, okay, I'll do interviews, but I won't do public events because there are many threats to my safety over the years and I'm scared to be in a room. Full of strangers, I still can't do that. And Beth was like, we'll they're really nice women. [ LAUGH ] I was like, okay. So this is my toe in the water type of thing. That's what my media team told me too. [ UNKNOWN ] try it out. [ LAUGH ] But I think it's important to also recognize like you can, you should only go as fast as you feel. You can go There's no timeline for how fast you should be doing things like I have a book out, and I'm not currently doing a book tour, and that's not conventional. But you can still do it if that's what's right for you. And so, I'm learning how to do these things step by step. I'm not pushing myself to go any faster. I think even when the statement came out, a lot of reporters were like, come do an interview will blur your face and work your voice and no one will ever know who you are. And I was like, Well, I'm not ready to do that. And they're like, Well, let me explain how news cycle works like you'd be in here in the next week. And I was like, No, I don't Ray because we're not ready and so It was really incredible to take as much time as I needed, which is three years. It's been three years since the statement came out. And to come out and be like hey look, people still care. And that urgency was made up, it was Yeah, so just go at your own pace cuz healing is really slow and it demands a lot of you. And that's cool that this is my segue until next year. Well, we were thrilled to have you here with us. And one of the things that I was really struck by in the book during the trial You are sort of a very one dimensional. We don't know who you are, right. You are described as a victim. It's very one dimensional. And therefore Brock Turner gets to kind of write the story. How important was it for you to come out with this book and reclaim who you are? I mean, you come off as a very. Multi- layered multi- dimensional person and we haven't seen that before. How did that drive your writing? Yeah, I think it was so frustrating because this all happened right after graduation and you're sort of beginning to form an identity and exploring different things and You know, build your resume. And I felt at the beginning that I did have a lot to offer that there are many things I was interested in. In overtime so much of that creativity got muted and it was really hard to counter his accolades and accomplishments. I couldn't say like, hey, I really like drawing. And I promise you that one day I'm going to make comics and draw things, I will make people happy. Because it was so, I just hadn't had time to do it yet. And I had to like keep the faith that one day I will get to a place where I can actually do the things That I love, but it was really difficult at that time to feel like I didn't know how to prove with my worth. And in the book I talk about how in court they had this big white piece of paper and there's a timeline on it, and they, I had to like write down the times when I called. Who and blah, blah, blah, and jury sitting over there and I was like, I wish the jury could just yell out animals and objects and then I would draw them and be like, look, I can do this live. I can make all these things and all that was being suppressed and it really killed me for a long time. But I think what helped coming out is is the book. You know, I felt confident that I would have something that would anchor me and you didn't decide this Until? Until I was done. You feel like you're done? I feel like earlier this year. So you wrote the book and then you decided you were gonna go public thereafter? Yeah, but I had to write it. If I knew I would have to emerge at the end, I wouldn't have written it. Because I was too scared. I signed the contract saying, I do not promise anything. I promise to you Over 90, 000 words but doesn't mean I'll show up doesn't mean I'll give you my name. So I, they let me come to it on my own, which is really, really, really important to have that sense of agency and no sense of obligation and eventually, I did So I'm going to have any questions in just a second but first, you know, the book is, is really painful to read. I'm not gonna lie for those of you haven't read it yet. But there's also a lot of joy and humor in the book and I know we've talked about how it was kind of hard for you to show that side of yourself because you also wanted There's a theme of being the perfect victim, which runs throughout the book. Tell us a little bit about that. What did that mean? how did how did that sort of keep you caged in? Yeah, I think the myth of the perfect victim is really dangerous because the perfect victim does not Exist, we all have flaws, we all have done things we may not be very proud of, or at least, I have. And you are taught in these instances to fixate on your flaws, and assign them blame for what happened to you. And in the beginning, I was so on my own I would sort of just list out all the things that I had done. At times I've had too much to drink and be like, This is why this happened to me or this is why I deserved it. You turn inward and that's really dangerous. You think if I was only more, Pure or if I was smarter or if I was less reckless then this wouldn't have happened. That's not true. It can happen to anyone at any time. And that's the reality and it's not because you're uniquely flawed that so many of us are getting assaulted or harassed is because there's greater Patterns at play of male entitlement, male sexual entitlement, like how do we not see, the root of these issues instead blame it on like, my skirt was here instead of here. How the hell did that be? The reason all of this is happening, but it took a long time to realize that. So, before we go to questions, I gotta ask you a follow up on that because you talked about male entitlement and, the night you were assaulted. You talk about how it was also the night you were saved, right who saved you? The three who I always call the sweet but they have names Carl and Peter. [ LAUGH ] Yeah, tell us about that. They're so incredible. I had never met them because we never, I couldn't be in the room when they testified and vice versa. So this summer we met for dinner in New York, and it was so wonderful and what struck me was just how Natural it was for them, to have done what they did, And can you explain what they, what they did for people who don't know. Yeah, they saw that my assailant was humping my unconscious body, that my eyes were closed that I was not moving. And so they confronted him. My [ UNKNOWN ] did up. And took off sprinting. They kneel down check that I was breathing. Made sure I was okay. Then Peter took off running after him. I asked him I was like, how did you catch up? He's like I had so much adrenaline, just so amazing and he did a leg sweep which I don't even know what that is. And tackled him and then was sitting on him and he's like, apologize to her. Do you think this is okay? And then Karl came over at once he knew is was okay, well, I wasn't but. And then they both sat on my sealant and pinned all of his limbs to the ground Until the like amulets could come, and I could be taken care of but their clarity, you know, not only like we talked about masculine and the like, and they had that but they also had such tenderness like the center was me it wasn't A violent act it was acting to help me and it came with dialogue, you know, forcing him like, do you think this is okay? Like challenging them on the spot and, you know throughout the whole case that always gave me hope. Like if I know there are people in the world like that The world can't be that bad, right? And they showed up multiple times to testify while they were in school. So I just owe them, I owe them so much. And when I said, I don't even know how to thank you, they were like, well, you're thanking us by helping Other people, that's thanks enough. So I was like, [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] They're so, so sweet. But it's pretty incredible that we have models of model citizens, wonderful people. Do we have any questions for Chanel from the audience? [ BLANK_AUDIO ] So riveted, I was like I don't like questions. [ LAUGH ] And now nevermind then. Okay, all right. Wait, we have one over here. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] I just want to say thank you. I've been crying over. It's just so incredible what you're willing to share with us and share your story. And not only with us, but everyone who's going to read your book. They say that up to 27 % of college women are sexually assaulted. So the fact that you are willing to share your name, like all of those women don't feel as alone, so thank you. [ APPLAUSE ] [ APPLAUSE ] You have another one in there. Thank you very much. Also, I just wanna say you are now in the public crying club with me. [ LAUGH ] I cried so much in public and I was like, God, can someone else? So that's good. I like to see that, thank you. [ LAUGH ] Way back there. Yes. Hi, my name is Kenna and I wanted to also make a comment not ask a question. I spend my I'm a professional interviewer. I am an executive search and talent advisory and listening to you talk everyone I think was riveted because you are so profound. You can see you thinking as you're talking and it's so genuine, and it's so real and it's so refreshing despite the content, right? It's heavy, it's heavy content, but I want to tell you, you're going to be great at this and go out there. [ APPLAUSE ] [ APPLAUSE ] Do it on your terms, as you said, on your timeline, and recognize that you're impacting the world by what you're doing. Thank you Annah. [ APPLAUSE ] Let me ask you. What was the hardest thing to include in the book? In the book. Yeah. Honestly, anything personal in the beginning. [ LAUGH ] I couldn't write a sentence without hearing what the defence attorney would say, or how it could be twisted. It took a really long time to get past that. And then I thought I don't want to write a book that's very bound up. I also had to teach myself over time that I didn't have to be ashamed of my past. Life experiences. I owed it to other survivors to include everything and say look, my life is messy, I drank a few times in college, and it shouldn't have happened. I'm Not afraid to be open about all of this because you can't choose one of these past experiences and say, this is why you deserve to be hurt. So it took a long time to include any personal details. Yeah, but I do it for the people reading I also realized I'm not talking to the defense attorney, and this is not for him. Yeah. Chanel, thank you so much for being with us for letting us know your name and your story. Yeah. Thank you. [ APPLAUSE ] [ APPLAUSE ] [ SOUND ] [ LAUGH ] You can jump off the stage here. Thank you. [ APPLAUSE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Chanel Miller on New Memoir "Know My Name"

Leadership

Chanel Miller discusses her new memoir "Know My Name."