Image: Facebook
I've waited a couple of days to let the news about César Chavez sink in. I hoped giving myself that time would allow me to come up with an incisive comment.
It hasn't.
Apparently I'm on the emotional slow train, only just moving from shock to deep disappointment. With stops at anger along the way.
It's one thing when a social-justice hero is revealed to have had feet of clay. Think MLK's many infidelities. It's another thing when the icon is revealed to have been a serial rapist.
What do we progressive types do with this news? Wallow in sadness? Work to separate the man from his accomplishments? Become even more cynical?
I admit I've had overwrought thoughts like, "Men just can't be trusted, and for the sake of girls, women, and the planet, should all be confined to Oklahoma."
But even this lesbian needs men, as friends and relatives and to balance my existence. Besides, my straight women friends couldn't live without men—although more and more sound willing to try.
So far what I've taken from the revelations about Chavez is an abiding respect for his accusers. That the two women he groomed as girls have come forward despite enormous cultural pressure is beyond brave.
And Dolores Huerta, telling her ghastly truth at the age of 95, keeping the secrets all these years so the farmworker movement wouldn't be wounded. That's heroic, tragic, and so female.
If it should turn out that Huerta likes to strangle kittens in her free time, don't tell me. I can't take it.
