美国国家公共电台 NPR He Witnessed A Rape In 1969. He's Finally Ready To Talk About It

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He Witnessed A Rape¹ In 1969. He's Finally Ready To Talk About It

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We're going to return to a difficult and - for some people - a traumatic subject that's been much in the news. We're talking, here, about sexual² abuse. We're finally starting to hear from women and some men who've experienced this. Far more rare, though, are stories from people who have witnessed sexual abuse and stayed silent about it. Don Palmerine was in high school when he attended a party, and he says he saw a young woman being raped³ through a window. That was in 1969. And, over the next 50 years, Palmerine says he didn't do anything about it. But the guilt⁴ stayed with him. And, after talking to his wife and sons about it, he decided⁵ to write about it for The Washington Post. And Don Palmerine is with us now from his home in the Pittsburgh area. Mr. Palmerine, thanks so much for talking with us.

DON PALMERINE: Thank you.

MARTIN: You wrote this piece after Christine Blasey Ford⁶ testified⁷ about what she says that now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh did to her when they were both in high school. Is that what made you want to write this piece after all these years?

PALMERINE: Yes, that's what motivated me. I watched her testimony⁸, and I felt it was genuine, you know? I felt she was really telling the truth. Plus, the things that she forgot were the same things I forgot, you know? So I said, well, I'm going to just write something that - about my experience, which was very similar. I did something bad. I said in the article I committed a crime, and I did.

MARTIN: You know, what you wrote is hard to read. And, you know, for some people, it's going to be hard to hear about this. So this is where, again, I'm going to say that, for some people, if this is too much to listen to, then, you know, take a minute and...

PALMERINE: Yeah.

MARTIN: ...Step away for a minute. But I'm going to ask you to recount for me what it is that you said that you saw. And you were at a party, right?

PALMERINE: Yeah. Let me start by saying this was an unusual event for me because I never went to parties, never. And so I don't even know why I went. I didn't know anybody. And, all of a sudden, a kid came upstairs and said, hey, go outside and look through the basement window. So about 10 of us went out there, and I happened to be right in front of the window. And I'm watching. And as soon as I looked through the window, I see a girl just lying on a sofa. She looked like she was passed out. And so the kid went down. And he looks up to us, and he waves to us. And he starts smiling. And then, he starts to take her jeans off. Then, he took her panties off. Then, he pulled down his pants, and he went on top of her. And, as soon as he did that, he was starting to have sex with her, she kind of came to and started hitting him on the shoulders. He jumped up right away, and all of us at that window - it was outside. We all just started to run.

MARTIN: You also write that you and other boys at the party started touching⁹ another young woman who was also passed out on the - on a bed. But then, you left.

PALMERINE: Yeah. This was later, maybe 20 minutes to 30 minutes later. She was laying on the bed. And what one kid was doing was - when the lights were out, everybody was touching her. He would turn the lights on, and everybody would pretend like they weren't touching her. And they probably did this four or five times. I touched her leg at one point. And that was all I did, but it was enough.

MARTIN: You - you know, you wrote about why you think the girls would never have said anything about this. They would have been blamed and shamed. They would've been told, it's your fault. But you never said anything either. Why do you think that is?

PALMERINE: You know, I think I wanted to forget about it. And, plus, later on, it was just plain guilt. When you're guilty about something - and I was guilty, and I admit it in the article - you don't want to tell anyone.

MARTIN: One of the things about your piece that I think struck a lot of us is that you said, I wanted to tell this story because I believe it's time for men to tell the truth about the ways they've abused women and what our role has been in creating a culture that tolerates this. We've all seen things. We've all heard other men talk. And you wrote about a couple of examples, where you just heard people say these crazy things, and, you know, nobody did anything. And do you have a sense - like, why do you think that is? That - why do you think this has been tolerated so long?

PALMERINE: I don't know. I don't know why we've kept quiet. I had a quote from somebody, some man who said that it would be easier to admit that you committed a murder instead of admitting you committed a sexual assault¹⁰. And I can't answer that. I don't know. I really don't know why men have been silent on this issue. But I think men should be part of the #MeToo movement. I think we should come forward and talk about what we've seen, what we've done. I think that should be part of it.

MARTIN: How did your family take it when you told them?

PALMERINE: Well, let me tell you. When I originally told my wife, I told her just the rape part that I witnessed. I did not tell her my participation¹¹. She didn't know that till this article came out. Let me just say it's - it was tough for her to take, let me tell you. But everything's OK now. Everything's good.

MARTIN: And how did you explain it to your boys?

PALMERINE: Well, just - I was truthful¹² with them, and they were very receptive, you know? I'm their dad, you know? Dads can - you know, we kind of can't do too much wrong in the eyes of our kids. They both told me, though, my two older boys - they don't think it would happen now. They said everybody at that window would've had their phones out videotaping it. That's what they told me.

MARTIN: But that doesn't mean it wouldn't have - what are they saying? They - yeah...

PALMERINE: I mean, but in that sense, that kid wouldn't have done it because he wouldn't have wanted it to be on film, you see?

MARTIN: Yeah.

PALMERINE: We film everything - you know? - is what they were kind of alluding¹³ to.

MARTIN: Well, how do you feel now that you got it off your chest?

PALMERINE: You know, I kind of have mixed feelings. I'll be honest. There are days when I regret it. And then, there are days that I'm glad I did, you know? My kids showed me some comments on Twitter from people. Some women have said it's about time someone - it's almost as if I was the first guy to admit this. A lot of women said they were glad I did it. They felt better about themselves. A few women who have been actually assaulted¹⁴ who wrote notes to me said that they - it made them feel better. And so that made me feel kind of good, you know?

MARTIN: Your piece was very moving. And I - one of the things I think there's - like, every paragraph of it, I could quote. But the fact that you think about these women, I mean, now and you wonder what happened to them, like, how this affected¹⁵ their lives - I mean, if you could say anything to them, if, by some miracle, they were listening, what would you say?

PALMERINE: The only thing I could say is I'm sorry I didn't help, you know? A few women had called me a hero, but, no, I wasn't. I would've been a hero if I had helped these women then, but I didn't do it.

MARTIN: Don Palmerine, thank you so much for talking with us.

PALMERINE: Thank you.