“I’m not a victim!”

You hear it all the time.  It’s supposed to be a rallying cry, an anthem of empowerment.  It boldly declares, “I am not weak, I’m not subject to anyone else’s behavior that makes me feel bad about myself, I’m going to rise up like a phoenix from the ashes to survive!”  Yeah! 

But let’s think about that for a minute.  Who really benefits from this, “I’m not a victim,” narrative?  Being a victim means someone has committed a crime against you.  Someone has stolen something from you, someone has hurt you, someone has behaved in a way that hurtful, criminal, evil, and reprehensible and you were the object of their deleterious and nefarious behavior.  Wait . . . what?  I’m confused.  How on earth did the definition of someone who is a victim become that of someone who is weak, who invites mistreatment, someone who is responsible for their abuse inflicted upon them?  A victim is innocent.  Those perpetrators are the evils ones, they are the ones that should have the onus of becoming a better person on their shoulders. 

So, who benefits from this “I’m not a victim,” narrative?  I’ll tell you who!   Slave traders, slave masters, slave profiteers benefit greatly because the focus is not on them and their heinous crimes, it’s on the victims of their crimes.  The INNOCENT victims of their crimes now have the responsibility for pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, it’s now their job to overcome, to rebound, to heal and make something of themselves.  The evil criminals get off scot-free.  They don’t have to pay reparations, they don’t have to address the legacy of their collective criminal behaviors.  There is no focus on them to . . . NOT COMMIT CRIMES, it’s now the victim’s responsibility to somehow be stronger so that no one else evil can come along and commit another crime against them?  Uhmmm, how does that make sense? 

You want to know who else benefits from this “I’m not a victim,” narrative?  Domestic abusers, rapists, pedophiles, and Wall Street criminals.  No one accuses someone who has had their car stolen of being weak, no one asserts that a victim of a home invasion is responsible for someone targeting them and stealing from them.  But if a person is violated, if they are molested, raped, kidnapped, tortured, drugged, deceived, or repeatedly emotionally, mentally, and physically beaten all of a sudden, it’s the victim’s fault, there is supposedly something inherent in them, in their identity that invites people to take advantage of them.  Fuck that bullshit. 

There is nothing wrong with being a victim.  There is nothing wrong with being in a relationship where you are trying your best to make it work and your partner is beating you and trying to make you dependent upon them.  There is nothing wrong with you being deceived by someone who sets out to steal your life savings.  Slaves were innocent.  It’s their evil captors who were the criminals.  Victims of domestic abuse are not responsible for their abuse, it’s it the insecure, immature partners who make the conscious decision to beat, to ridicule another human being, they are the mother fuckers who need to be hanging their heads in shame, they are the ones that need to make their anthem, “I violated an innocent person.” 

I am a victim!  I’m a victim of oppression.  I’m a daily victim of racism.  I was a victim of childhood mental, emotional, psychological, and physical abuse from my mother.   I’m a victim of manipulative, lying, cheating ex’s who took advantage of me.  I’m not ashamed of saying I’m a victim because I didn’t do a damn thing wrong.  They were the ones with malicious motives.  There is nothing inherently wrong with me.  There is nothing in me that invites others to take advantage of me.  I will not give my abusers, both personally and systemically, the benefit of taking the responsibility from them.  They are the ones who are flawed, they are the ones who are sick. 

I’m the descendent of slaves who did absolutely nothing wrong.  The descendants of slave owners are the ones who should feel pangs of guilty, humility, and remorse for benefitting from a system where their forefathers OWNED, tortured, bought, sold, traded, and profited from the lives of other human beings.  I was born with a vagina.  That doesn’t mean I invited men to violate me.   The men who raped me are the bastards who should feel ashamed for taking what was not theirs, I sure as hell didn’t do anything wrong.  My mother should be haunted by her actions, abusing a small, helpless, defenseless, innocent child repeatedly.  I’m a victim of their evil heinous behaviors but I’ll be damned if I’m going to take responsibility for their actions, I’ll be Black and damned if I’m going to be shamed into denying their crimes by claiming some weak, inferior status to soothe their egos.  If criminals, molesters, rapists, embezzlers, genociders (I know that’s not a word but it should be.  There needs to be a word that shames and places responsibility on the backs of people responsible for murdering millions of people.  Think about why there isn’t.  Who benefits from that?)  hadn’t decided to act to further their own twisted, selfish agendas, there would be no victims.   

I’m not ashamed of being a victim.  In fact, I’ll wear the t-shirt proudly.  “I AM a victim!” 

Copyright 2015 Scottie Lowe