Kevin [Content Note: This post contains mention of consent violators, abuse, human trafficking, and the system built to enable it. If neither of these things are something you’re in the headspace to hear about, I encourage you to give today’s post a miss, and go check out some of my other stuff instead. No hard feelings at all, and we’ll kick it together some other time. Deal? However, if you decide to move forward w/ this post, and it brings up some difficult feelings for you, I encourage you to reach out to the peeps at the Crisis Text Line. If this is something that hits close to home for you, I want y’all to know that I see you, and I’m sorry this happened to you. I see you, survivor!]
Even though this blog has been on pause lately due to my two jobs, and my plan to do more offline things like we did back in the 90s, what’s been going on in the news hasn’t been lost on me. Before I go any further, I’ve decided I’m using the title “E-word,” since I don’t care to sully this blog w/ any further mention of this nasty perv’s government name beyond SEO purposes.
I would call him Wankstain or Cockroach, but all that’s too kind for the likes of him, even in death.
We’ve all heard about the E-word files release from the Department of Justice, and what a clusterfuck it’s been w/ survivors and victims’ names released, and those in power who benefitted from E-word’s activities redacted.
This is the antithesis of what it means to center survivors and their stories, not to mention taking away any agency they had to be able to share their stories on their own terms.
The survivors and the victims of E-word have suffered enough as it is w/o the help, imo.
I believe that survivors are the ones who oughta be the ones to speak to what happened to them, and to whoever they decide is a safe one to tell. Survivors of abuse like what E-word and his group of clout-chasers and evildoers dished out for years deserve as much agency as they can get, since they had so much taken away from them.
I admit, I searched the E-word files to see what was there. Just for some context, I came across youtube videos of Court TV’s 1995 special on the Nuremberg Trials a few years back, and for some reason, I felt drawn to Hartley Shawcross. I’ve been thinking a lot about him lately, so just to see, I keyed in his last name, and there were results.
I was shocked, and upset at first. Until I took a closer look, and saw that someone who emailed E-word had the guts enough to invoke his quote from the trials about how a man should refuse to answer to a leader if he’s to answer to his own conscience.
There are no words to describe how shameful this is, since I didn’t see a whole lot of refusing to answer to leader E-word if they’re to answer to their own conscience.
I should also mention that this doesn’t count the ones who saw the man behind the curtain, and told E-word to kick rocks. Those are the ones who truly lived up to this quote, imo.
There was also a picture of E-word’s stupid bookshelf, and there was a book about Rupert Murdoch by one of Hartley’s sons. Since I managed to get my hands on a copy of Hartley’s book, which is apparently a a rare find, I figured it would be a good idea for me to read the book about Rupert Murdoch as well.
It wasn’t something I normally go for, but what it told me is that Hartley’s family valued knowledge, intellectual growth, and creativity, based off their writings. I read that Hartley had originally considered medical school, but ended up going in another direction. Instead, he went to law school and became a barrister.
These are things that E-word hung onto, and actively sought out in a co-conspirator. It started back when he dropped out of college for whatever reason.
No shade to anyone who dropped out of high school or college. It happens, and we all have our own paths to take anyways.
After he dropped out of college, he managed to weasel his way into a teaching role by surrounding himself w/ credentialed ppl willing to enable him and allow him to mooch off of them.
This is why it’s no coincidence that a lot of ppl in E-word’s circle had all kinds of credentials, titles, and statuses. However, I should also mention that it’s one thing to have all the credentials, titles, and statuses in the world. It’s a whole other thing to use said credentials, titles, and statuses as weapons against others.
It’s why I’ll never use whatever I know, or whatever status I have to harm others, and why I’ll never condone anyone who does.
It’s despicable when someone uses whatever they know as a weapon to harm others. To me, real intellectuals have no need to showboat about what they know, or use it against others. They’re too busy walking their talk and being about it instead of talking about it.
On the flip side, this is what E-word and the jackassholes closest to him considered their favorite pastime. I’ve seen several youtube videos where survivors talked about how E-word was super intelligent, how he was this scientist and super-heady academic, and how he went out of his way to make them feel less than.
In reality, he was none of these things, and I wish there was someone in these survivors’ lives who told them this. Those who like to be the smartest person in a room generally aren’t, and they’re too arrogant to admit it. Whatever he did actually know, it was enough for him to be dangerous, and it was enough for him to act the part to someone who didn’t know any better. This was why he was able to have that teaching position that he was neither qualified for, nor deserved in the first place.
In fact, this post from the Times Higher Education talks about how he surrounded himself w/ academics, including the ones who’ve built names for themselves in their disciplines of study. This post goes on to talk about how E-word’s dirty money was a means to an end for their research endeavors and their contributions to academia. At the same time, they were a means to an end for E-word, since he liked to be the smartest person in the room, and therefore sought out academics he viewed as equals.
They were all so far out of his league, it wasn’t even in the same area code. But, they wanted that funding, and the career status, so they considered this the price of admission.
Too bad nobody told them that E-word wasn’t the only way to get whatever funding they needed for their studies, and that they didn’t need it bad enough to where he was their only hope. They didn’t. They had options.
I wonder how many otherwise wholly qualified and deserving candidates lost out in favor of him. I hope they’re living it up somewhere, and I hope they’ve found companies they’re proud to work at.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre writes in her posthumously published memoir about how E-word bragged about how he lived in what used to be an old school building across the street from the Frick Collection, which she had never heard of. E-word then bragged about all the trappings of success that this mansion had. This all meant intelligence and smarts, since he name-dropped the Frick Collection.
This was after he bragged about his property in New Mexico, which authorities are now investigating years after the fact. To Virginia, it all “sounded like Disneyland,” as she wrote in her memoir.
I’d have thought the same thing as well. Until I read her memoir, I’d only ever heard of the Frick Collection in passing, and didn’t think anything else of it. The message was clear to both Virginia and us readers in her memoir: E-word was someone smart that everyone adored, and how could they not, w/ all the signifiers of “Made It” around him?
E-word also conveniently failed to mention that while he decided it was more fun to be a braggadocio to a child about his New York and New Mexico properties, these were all nothing more than the spoils from a lifetime of ill-gotten gains.
But why would he mention that to anyone, including his underage survivors? He’d leave that part out, since this is what abusive, dishonest, shady ppl do.
I feel like anyone who thinks they need to brag about how they have this, that, and the next is probably hiding something. Owning a mansion and whatever other stuff isn’t a personality.
We now know what E-word was hiding, and actively sought to keep that way. He lied, paid, and cheated his way into that status, and he preyed on those who were in vulnerable places at the time along w/ his co-conspirator.
Vulnerability is a common thread among those who got caught up in abusive dynamics like E-word’s circle, as well as those who got caught up in cults or otherwise toxic communities. I’ve seen the youtube videos where other victims talked about wanting to get into modeling and other career paths, and E-word took advantage of that.
What could it have taken to make sure this didn’t happen in the first place? More importantly, what can we do as a society to make sure this never happens again?
After reading Virginia’s memoir, it’s clear that society failed her. Society failed everyone else E-word and his equally rotten crowd of punks and thugs victimized as well. Every single one of y’all deserved so much better than this. Society failed by allowing E-word to carry on in his evil doings while they were at it.
I saw another youtube video that talked about how E-word wasn’t (and isn’t) the only one engaging in criminal activity and harming vulnerable ppl in these ways. This is true. E-word was a symptom of a much bigger problem: a society that condones harming vulnerable ppl, and has built an infrastructure dedicated to keeping that circle going.
So, going off of this, what can we do to take down this system that’s been keeping this going for so long? Maybe one thing we can do is unlearn the idea that academics and intelligence automatically make someone a good person, b/c this isn’t true. I feel like it’s the halo effect that academics and intelligence can have on someone, and that’s a bias we need to set aside. Instead, we as a society need to start focusing on someone’s actions and behavioral patterns, since actions speak louder than words.
Just as importantly, what kinds of resources can we provide for those at a crossroads w/ their lives at any age, especially for kids like Virginia and countless other survivors, so they don’t fall into the traps of E-word and traffickers like him? I feel like career and educational resources and programs don’t carry as much of the stigma as they used to, so normalizing these resources is one step.
Maybe another step could be to make it clear that these resources are for everyone, and to take away any barriers there may be to accessing these resources.
Over to you, readers. Have you read through the E-word files? What did you find? Anything you want me to talk about here? Have no plans to read the files? I get it. I wouldn’t have, either. But, this was something I couldn’t not talk about. Either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts and takeaways, so drop it like it’s hot, and let’s talk.
