Brock Turner will no longer have control of her life. She will no longer be just a tragic story, Chanel Miller has finally decided to come forward with the night that changed her life. After years of being “Emily Doe,” Miller has decided to take back her name, her body and her life by repossessing her side of the Stanford rape case in her upcoming memoir, “Know My Name.”
“I was intrigued to be honest when I heard about her releasing her memoir,” Tommie Wilkins, former violence against women on-campus grant coordinator at Cabrini University, said. “It was a good idea, helpful to others and herself. It’s healthy for her.”
“CBS” released a “6oMinutes” video, finally introducing the world to Miller.
“In newspapers, my name was ‘unconscious intoxicated woman,’ 10 syllables, and nothing more than that,” Miller said in the excerpt she read in the “CBS” video. “For a while, I believed that that was all I was. I had to force myself to relearn my real name, my identity. To relearn that this is not all that I am.”
“After seeing that Chanel Miller release her story I feel extremely empowered. As a woman, we are constantly being told to keep quiet and sit down, especially when the topic surrounds a man’s status,” Julia Turner said. Turner is a junior criminology and sociology major with a gender and body studies minor.
“When I saw the book coming out, I thought: ‘Is she ready?’ Because she would face scrutiny… For the longest time, she was not considered a human, she is a victim. ‘Unconscious’: you become less, you’re not a full person that really exists. There is always gonna be people that do not believe and be negative; that is what they do. You don’t even know her and these will be people saying vile things,” Wilkins said.
By now, everyone has heard her story: she was unconscious and intoxicated when she was found by two bystanders being sexually assaulted by Brock Turner, behind a dumpster.
Turner was found guilty on three counts of felony sexual assault for the 2015 attack outside of a fraternity party in January.
The world was in disgust when they learned that Turner would only spend six months in jail (instead of the 14 years maximum) for his attack that would completely transform the woman that she was to who she has to be now. Turner’s “good behavior” would get him released in three months. Judge Aaron Persky thought that prison would have “a severe impact on him” and he is considered to be “a danger to others,” completely disregarding his victim.
“I would hope as a society we would treat sexual assault as important as any other crime or more so. If there is a sentence and if they have been convicted, then they have to be criminalized. It’s a heinous crime… some countries have the death penalty for rape, I wouldn’t say to go that far but sexual assault needs to be taken more seriously. It is an invasion of a person’s body; the most heinous thing someone could do to a person,” Wilkins said.
Chanel Miller’s memoir “Know My Name” is scheduled to be released on Sept. 24.
