Re-memory

"Cyberstalking doers not start on a screen: it is a product of the colonial, patriarchal, and racialized history that transforms the Latin American woman into a disposable body, as if she were a sheet of wallpaper that can be controlled and torn down at will.” 

In this poetic essay, I explore how the cyberstalking I experienced —through surveillance, installation of apps, and censoring my publications— is a continuation of the violence many of us have faced since childhood. I also reflect on how digital platforms, laws, and algorithms are extensions of the same power that tries to silence us, and how we resist notwithstanding: writing, disobeying, and forming communities. This text is a personal and collective narrative about stalking, control, but also about survival and persistence."

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

In my mid-twenties, I did not think it could happen to me again. So many times had I screamed in silence that never again would someone assault my body, muddle my mind, or force me to think that my freedom and my voice should not be expressed. So many times had I screamed and in my mind rejected the rapist of my childhood, he who forced me to sit in his man’s lap… that when I confronted him again (with another face, with another name, and years later) I was startled by my failure to recognise him (with another face, with another name, and years later). The shadow was there, but hidden behind the veil of a good man, an ally, a revolutionary. 

I thought that the evil that haunted my childhood (at six, seven, and eight years of age) lacked the power to grow and return. That violating my body and convincing me with a word that it had been my fault were the limits of its wickedness (if it really has any limits). I thought that when I came back and faced it again, I would recognise the evil, see it as it is, remember it… 

But normalised violence, that which teaches us that the fault is ours (of the woman, of the victim, of the strip of paper torn from the wall), also teaches us that the second (or third, fourth, and fifth) time something like that happens to us, we are unable to recognise it because we were taught in the past that the violence was not perpetrated by the rapist, but by ourselves. That the evil lies within us, like a brand stamped on Cain for all eternity. That the bearer of the brand is oneself, that the wound never healed.

In my twenties, it happened again. More violent, more odious, and more institutionalised. The evil donned another mask, stronger, more powerful, and crueler. The mask of the ally, the revolutionary man, the white male savior who rescues Latin American countries, because what matters most is to save the country of (for) men and demolish any wall or any land that stands in the way. 

The mask invaded not only my body and my mind; it also used the space of my personal and digital privacy. Installing apps on my cell phones, throwing tantrums about certain posts on social media, trying to censor my woman’s voice. It filled me with paranoia and distrust; it extended its claws and seized control of everything. Not satisfied with invading my physical body, it also felt the need to censure my voice, annul my posts, invade my devices, and appropriate my entire digital space. 

Whom could I ask to do something? With whom could I lodge a complaint? If people didn’t believe me when I was raped as a child, why would they believe me now (now that I am a woman and, in their view, the guilty party)? If my body can be violated, killed, and shredded like wallpaper, why should it matter that I’m also censored on social media, that someone appropriates my name, speaks for me, takes my photographs posted to my social media accounts and alters them? Under what law am I to seek redress? We are all equal under the law, but who will believe me when the law is all men in one.

But normalised violence, that which teaches us that the fault is ours (of the woman, of the victim, of the strip of paper torn from the wall), also teaches us that the second (or third, fourth, and fifth) time something like that happens to us, we are unable to recognise it because we were taught in the past that the violence was not perpetrated by the rapist, but by ourselves.

*** 

Latin American women come to the gateway of the law thinking we can pass through unimpeded, but we find our way blocked, are called crazy and hysterical, and accused of complaining about trivialities. The law is the writing of men, the rules of social media (written by men) are silent in the face of any complaint or report. 

Because for them, the Latin American woman should behave like wallpaper. She should not raise her voice, express herself on social media, or use her electronic devices to ask for help. She is expected to be like wallpaper, and blend into her surroundings, neither speaking our nor shouting. She should understand her role and know she will not be welcome before the law. If she is Latin American, if she is African, if she is Asian, the man, the white man, is there to enter her home at will and see the wallpaper as part of the décor as he colonises it, and even tearing it down if he chooses.

***

The marks on my body and in my mind persist. The fear of posting anything about them, asking for help, sending a text, making a call, using the internet […]. Because the law and the rules of the internet are made by men, and before them we are not welcome. The oppressor will always be there watching, searching, spreading like a liquid that invades and floods everything, that appropriates marginalised voices, that censors all hope for aid. It is in the text, in the margins, in the terms of service, in the rules, in channels for contact, in processes of moderation. It’s there in the refusal to believe us, to read our complaints, to reply over the very help channels they themselves have created. It’s in the inhumane and unappealable terms of moderation. It’s not just a woman’s body that’s violated; it’s also her mind, her space, and her speech. 

Nevertheless, I persist. We all persist. 

You use my name as if I were a source of shame, you take my posts as if it were I who should be censored, you violate my body as if I were inert, you complain to the guardians of the law as if it were I who had committed a crime, you infantilise yourself as if you were the one in need of care. And nevertheless, I’m still here. We are all still here. Your tantrums failed to kill me. You complaints failed to censor me. Does it upset you that I achieved more than you did? That I resisted, that I founded […], that I found my community? Did you think you could delete all my social media posts and continue installing malware on my devices? And nevertheless, here I am writing and making you remember.

The law and the internet were not created to include us. We are not wallpaper or decoration for you. We are active voices, strong legs that run, hearts that beat, hands that help. And we resist when we publish our stories, when we send messages of help, when we are unafraid to raise our voices.

The law and the internet were not created to include us. We are not wallpaper or decoration for you. We are active voices, strong legs that run, hearts that beat, hands that help.

The Latin American woman is besieged and harassed for the simple reason that, in the eyes of the power wielded by masculinity, she does not exist as anything more than wallpaper, blended into the background, stripped from her walls, from her home, from her land, and cast aside or burned like common paper. She is torn violently from the walls, mostly in pieces, as they invade and destroy every space that was hers. She is not seen, not watched, not heard; she exists in the silent limbo of disappearance, where her name is a poster, a sheet of paper, a footnote written without her consent. 

For the tears that fell softly on our cheeks. For the times we have forgotten all we have lived. For the times we wanted to speak out but held our tongues. For the times society forced us to remain silent: because it is inappropriate, because it is unimportant, because it is not useful. For the times our names were torn down and violated. For the times our thighs ached. For the nights we lost, the salt we spilled, the soil from which we were torn, the wages that were stolen from us, the privacy that was invaded. For the scars from blows that still sting, for memories that refuse to disappear. 

Because memory prevents us from losing. And in its own right memory is also an action. Because from pain we create something better: our spaces, our voices, our rules. The wallpaper they tried to tear off the walls rises anew: twists and rides the wind. It spreads its wings alongside other pieces of paper in the air and together they continue spreading our voice. They cross borders and found new places where fear is no longer present, because they have built them. Over time, others who come will look at us and know that now the space is safe. That we can take back control of the narrative and the digital space to dismantle it all.