Interview with Sarah Marloff
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Created: Friday, February 4, 2022 - 14:15 |
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Description:
This interview contains descriptions of sexual assault.
Transcription:
[Interview Begins]
AMY KAMP: So the date is June, 4th 2021. My name is Amy Kamp and I am with Texas After Violence.
MURPHY CARTER: My name is Murphy Carter, and I'm also with the Texas After Violence Project.
SARAH MARLOFF: My name is Sarah Marloff, I am currently a freelance reporter. I spent about seven years working at the Austin Chronicle, the city's alt-weekly, where I covered basically everything, but my main beat was sexual assault and how [00:01:05] the criminal justice system in Austin and Travis County did or did not treat survivors and the handling of sexual assault cases. In the last year and a half, I've been freelancing and continuing that coverage as [00:01:20] I moved across the country to Washington DC.
KAMP: And you’ve still been writing for The Chronicle.
MARLOFF: Yes, yes, still to this day. Got a couple of pieces coming up for them in the next, like month and a half.
KAMP: Okay, great. So I guess the first thing I wanted to ask you was, if you could tell us a little bit about how you got started writing about sexual assault in Austin and Travis County and what [00:01:50] made you passionate about that topic?
MARLOFF: Yeah, of course. So I had this editor at The Chronicle, who might possibly be interviewing me right now. [laughs] I sometimes joke that I feel like you knew without me––like I didn't know. And you assigned me a story on the NFL donating a large sum of cash to the National Hotline for Domestic Violence after the Ray Rice incident in 2014, when Ray Rice, one of the Ravens football [players] beat his girlfriend and it was recorded. And that story, it was, like, 800 words max, and I never looked back. All I wanted to do was talk about sexual assault and talk about domestic violence––if you cover one you eventually end up, [00:02:50] I think, talking about both, because they're so intricately connected.
And I think that a lot of times the people who work in those fields––it's so, it's so under-talked about, it's so under-written about, it’s so under-reported, that when there is a writer, there is a journalist who is looking to learn more, there's people who are pretty excited to talk to you, and especially if you can show that you actually care, and you're not just looking to like, glorify the crappy stories. So I don't even––I think the second piece was about like, there being a high demand for rape kits. And in learning about that, I learned about rape culture for the first time and my mind kind of exploded and I just was like, Why don't we talk about this stuff? And, you know, I've known a lot of survivors. I've had my own bad experiences, and I just think that it's one of those things that, it's uncomfortable and it's painful to talk about. But like, I want to talk about it. If we don't ever talk about it, we're never going to get anywhere. And I just never got off that soapbox, and I don't plan to.
KAMP: So when I was in The Chronicle, when you were there, it was such a different time. Like it's amazing how much has changed since 2014, 2015. And, you know, looking back at some of your early stories, it's just, it's interesting to see, I think we had to be––it was almost like we had to also ask permission to say that these stories were important. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your memory of that time and trying to talk to people, and especially with one of your earliest stories, talking about the issue of sexual assault as it relates to Austin's entertainment industry––Sixth Street, music festivals, and things like that.
MARLOFF: Yeah, it’s––rape is a dirty word. And I think that pre the Me Too Movement, which was 2018, 2017?––more recent, we didn't talk about it. And still, we don't talk about it enough. I feel like it was just––I remember having an interview one day with a source of mine, and we were talking about, specifically colleges and how sexual assault [00:05:38] on college campuses is predominant, but colleges don't talk about it. They don't put it out there, they don't report about it. UT Austin offers rape kits on their campus so that their students don't have to travel to get them, [00:05:53] but they don't advertise that or promote that, so how would the students ever know? They don't promote that because, do you want to be the first university to go out there and say, People get raped on our campus. Because then [00:06:08] parents say, I'm not sending my kid to that campus, my baby girl can't go there. And so I think the way everyone has––at least previously and to some extent today––handled sexual assault has been to be like, Well, if we just don't talk about [00:06:23] it, no one will be scared [Material Removed] If we just say, it was that girl's fault because she did xyz or, it was that person's fault because they did xyz. Then it's not [00:06:38] that we've created some dangerous place or that boys, more often than not, are doing something wrong. It's because she did something wrong.
I feel like, reading that old piece today, I remember when I first wrote this piece about rape culture in Austin's entertainment district. I just remember how much backlash that piece got, like
the outside of a bar that was photographed freaked [00:07:09] out that they were photographed on the cover. The festival wouldn't even talk to me because I was a lowly freelancer. Literally, my editor had to call them and be like, No, really, like give us a statement. And it's [00:07:24] just, even their statement is like, No way, that would never happen at this music festival. We have a lot of cops here, so therefore, it's safe. And that's a different topic in general, but that doesn't really [00:07:39] help anyone. And I'm not, like, I don't think any bar or any festival, mostly blanket statement, is intending to be like, This is a spot where we'd like to see women get raped, but by not talking about it, it doesn't help anything. [00:07:54] It's not acknowledging––it's not helping protect women who go to your space for the fun time you're offering who are going to be victimized by people who are predators. I think that has changed a little bit now with [00:08:09] Me Too. I'm not sure if it's changed enough, in my opinion, but people are more open to being like, Yeah, well, it does kind of happen sometimes.
KAMP: I think people feel more pressure to acknowledge [00:08:24] it. I think that they fear the consequences of not acknowledging it in a way that they didn't when you first started writing about this. I think at the time they did think that they could kind of just, like, intimidate us into not [00:08:39] covering it anymore. But I mean, it never seemed like anything that deterred you.
How did you, personally, as a freelancer, which is not something with [00:08:54] a ton of job security, persevere in the face of all that push back? And how do you, as there still is pushback?
MARLOFF: Some days I just wake up and I'm like, Still not an alcoholic, doing great. [laughs] It's hard, it's really hard. I also frequently think, I wonder what it's like to write about movies or book reviews, [00:09:24] or do something that isn't always upsetting and depressing and so delicate, like you’re constantly––even just to get people to talk to you like, you can't tell the story, whatever the story is, you can't tell [00:09:39] it without the police or the DA's office or the other, you know, services that are being scrutinized, talking to you. And so, you have to always walk this line of being like, You can talk to me, too, and it's just, it's hard. [00:09:54] It involves a lot of email, it involves a lot of uncomfortable phone calls. [Material removed]
It’s hard, it's just constantly hard, but I also think that, I guess for me, the payoff is more worth it. [00:10:24] I’m sure it feels really cool to email or interview, like, Angelina Jolie and do some beautiful write-up for Vogue, but I'd like to think that maybe the stories I'm helping put out there could [00:10:39] maybe make even just the smallest of difference. And even if it just makes a difference in the people, in the survivors’ life, then it feels better and like it's actually doing something that matters. So that usually keeps me going. I've gotten really good at figuring out how to tell a story without certain people talking to me. [Material Removed] And so sometimes, it's just remembering that if you think there's a story there, you just gotta keep going until you have enough to prove that you're right.
KAMP: I think one of the things that you brought up is a good transition to my next question. I think a lot of people here in the area, the Austin and Travis County area, would say that you have made a huge difference with your [00:11:39] writing. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what you uncovered in Austin and Travis County. Looking at your old piece it was like, Oh, Austin is not unique, sexual assault is a problem [00:11:54] everywhere. For sure, Austin is not unique, but you certainly uncovered some specific issues with Austin and Travis County.
MARLOFF: Yeah, absolutely. I think that even broader, what's more [00:12:09] upsetting, even like––I'm starting to look into sexual assault in DC now, as well, and the issues are not, are still not necessarily unique to Austin. Like, in a way, that is almost more [00:12:24] insidiously uncomfortable. But I think, like, in 2015, I wrote this piece that––and I remember feeling this from talking to a whole bunch of players, and it was that Austin had this [00:12:39] kind of beautiful setup. Everyone was sitting at the same table, having these really important discussions, probably fighting a lot, but they were having those important fights. And then, in 2016 [00:12:55] end of 20––no, mid-2016, the DNA lab shut down. And I feel like that just leaked bad stuff all over Austin. I don't know if it leaked it, if it uncovered it, if it just broke [00:13:10] apart, like, tentative balances. But it was a really insightful thing to be like, Wow, this is a lot, there's a lot of stuff here.
With the lab shutting down because of like, [00:13:25] inaccurate DNA testing methods, quality insurance, poorly trained technicians. There's a sexual assault survivors class action lawsuit, against [00:13:41] APD and the district attorney's office––Austin Police and District Attorney's office. And one of the cases in there is literally one of the contamination cases that got the lab shut down. It was just the [00:13:56] system, all of these survivors were basically not––we were not hearing from these people, but they were being like, We're being re-traumatized by a system that isn't really set up to protect survivors in the first place anywhere, [00:14:11] in at least the U.S., and that was also horribly dysfunctioning, on top of a system that isn't working to help survivors.
I think it just kind of snowballed [00:14:26] from that. A year after the lab closed, they found a mold-type substance on over 800 rape kits, waiting to be tested in the [00:14:41] massive backlog that hit, like, 4000, somewhere around that, after the lab shut down. The mold became a problem because no one wanted to talk about the mold. There was defending of like, Well, some of [00:14:56] these rape kits are really old and we were never going to use them to prosecute a case anyways, because xyz. That led to advocates being like, Wait a second, what are you talking––like this is someone's––a rape kit is someone's life. [00:15:11] It is someone's traumatic, traumatic incident, and to say, like––the way that it was discarded in that comment makes it really, I think really took a lot of people by surprise and shocked [00:15:26] a lot of people and angered a lot of people. And so more snowballing happened and a larger divide in the city between, I'd say, the powers that be, and advocates and survivors who were [00:15:41] just not seeing eye-to-eye anymore. Did that answer any of that?
KAMP: Yes, definitely. So, to touch on the rape kits a little bit. I think that you do a really good job of this in your writing, but can you tell us a little bit [00:15:56] about what the procedure is for getting a rape kit and why it might be something, like you said, it’s somebody's life?
MARLOFF: Yeah. So I think in Austin, you have five days to collect evidence [00:16:11] after being sexually assaulted. And a rape exam, also known as a medical forensic exam, it's done by a certified nurse practitioner. It can take about four hours, [00:16:26] it's pretty invasive. And in my experience, from what I have heard, believed in Texas, only about 10% of survivors report to law enforcement. [00:16:41] Of those people who report, a lot of advocates say that you really only report when it was so bad that you don't want it to happen to someone else. and I have heard it from advocates, I've heard it from survivors. That is a common [00:16:56] theme you will hear over and over again. It was so terrible I didn't want someone else to go through this.
So you're already in this, like, I don't even want people to touch me. I don't want people to know what happened, because there's a lot of shame and stigma around that. [00:17:11] You're getting touched and photographed in weird places. If you've done it the way that nurses would prefer you do it, you go right after it happens. You haven't showered. You're not supposed to eat, you're not supposed to drink, you're not supposed to go to the bathroom. [00:17:26] I think even in the best of cases, getting a rape kit is very hard, and so, I think they deserve to be treated with the respect that that would entail, [00:17:41] or that would imply. Like you're going there to basically help someone else not end up in the same situation. You have felt like your body has been taken advantage of––think about how vulnerable people feel about the idea of having their car or [00:17:56] their house vandalized. And then imagine that being done to your body. I think that's the best way that people can describe rape.
So to not test those kits, to let them sit on a shelf, [00:18:11] collecting mold––a survivor once said to me, like, It's clear you don't see that as me up there, you just see it as a box of evidence, but it's me. This is my life and my story. And I think for some, whatever justice [00:18:26] and closure looks like, sitting on a shelf being untested and possibly growing mold is not either one of those things. I think that just the handling of it is––not every [00:18:41] case is going to end in prosecution. Not every case is going to end with someone in jail for a hundred years. And that's not even everyone's goal, but it's, like, a respect of being like, You went through something really [00:18:56] traumatic. You sat through something really invasive. And we are going to treat you like a human with dignity and respect, what you did to help us catch a criminal, if you want to, again, go into the criminal justice system.
KAMP: [00:19:11] Can you talk a little bit about the lawsuit, and about the issues that were uncovered, with the culture at APD towards, you know, rape, sexual assault, and people who are victims of those crimes?
MARLOFF: [00:19:27] Yeah. So there have now been, there are now two lawsuits, but the first lawsuit––I refer to it as the Survivor Suit in short––but the sexual assault [00:19:42] survivor’s class action was first filed in June of 2018, and then amended in August of 2018. The first time it had three survivors, and then five more joined on in August. So bringing the total to eight women [00:19:57] who are from Austin, all with very, very, very different––their rape stories are wildly different. One was raped by her live-in boyfriend while her kid was in a different [00:20:12] room. One girl was kidnapped and raped and escaped and had a major contamination in her DNA kit. One girl was kidnapped and held in a hotel for various hours––whatever. Not whatever. The thing that all of them come to have in common is that they went towards the criminal justice system looking for support, looking to say, like, This [00:20:42] was terrible. I can't let this happen to someone else. Or even like, I've watched enough TV shows, I've seen enough SVU to know that Olivia and what's his name, are gonna come in and punch the bad guy and [00:20:57] I'm going to be okay, right? And that’s never the case. Or that was never the case for these women in the lawsuit.
I think the lawsuit documents that––the lawsuit also goes back, like, [00:21:12] it's named the DA's office, the previous DA, her predecessor, the previous police chief, his predecessor––so it's not like they're saying it was just one group, [00:21:27] it’s saying that this is systemic, right? So, things were in there of being like, treating survivors like they were the criminal. Sometimes cases were closed without ever even trying [00:21:42] to interview the people who allegedly did it sometimes. If the perpetrator said, Yeah, we had sex, it was consensual, the case was closed. I think the suit makes a claim [00:21:57] that APD at one point had a board in their office, in the sex crimes unit, that listed all of the debunked rape cases, false reports that were made. It [00:22:12] quotes the DA at one point saying, like, Rape by an acquaintance when people are drunk isn't really rape, it's like an unfortunate experience. I'm paraphrasing. But [00:22:27] it just has a lot of things that make even people who are not involved in this conversation, be like, Oh! The lawsuit was probably the most––damning is [00:22:42] the word that comes to mind. I think just something that was, as a reporter, hard evidence to say, There's a hundred pages here documenting multiple failures at multiple levels by multiple players, for [00:22:57] multiple people. And I think that that really shook the grounds around Austin. I think it's still shaking it.
[Material Removed] So it’s made some big waves. And a lot of these cases––again, this isn't the first lawsuit that was filed like this––lawsuits in San Francisco, I think Detroit has had them, but none of them have ever––the plaintiffs in these suits have never won before, at least not on the grounds of what they were claiming. They're usually dismissed on grounds of like, [00:23:42] legal jargon that I'm not good enough at remembering to explain. But it's never like, Well, nothing wrong was done here, but about like, Oh, you did something incorrectly legally, so legality-wise, it's tossed out. So this one's making it pretty far.
KAMP: [00:23:58] You mentioned people watching SVU and having a certain idea of a legal system. To my knowledge, you don't have a legal background, but now, you're pretty much an expert in it. What has been the most surprising [00:24:13] to you, as you've learned about the legal system? Or some of the most surprising things?
MARLOFF: Totally. I have been accused of [00:24:28] my reporting as discouraging people from wanting to report, and I don't believe that that's necessarily true. But also, when I go to think about these things, I'm like, Well, if I heard this and I was raped, I would never want to go to report. That's not my problem. That's the system’s problem.
I think it's just how much of a disappointment it is. I at least grew up thinking––I mean, I can't ever say that I grew up really trusting police, but there was a belief system that like, if I was raped and something happened to me, they're the good guys, right? They're the people you go to and they're the ones who protect you. And these prosecutors are the ones [00:25:13] who protect you. But like, they're not protecting you, they're protecting the state, that's their job, and it's––I don't know if I have any one thing that's really shocking, but the way that the case got dismissed [00:25:28] in the district court that it was filed in, was basically like a legal jargon, obstination of, like, basically the judge saying, I don't, I don't want to deal with this and this shouldn't be in my court. It [00:25:43] should go somewhere else.
And I'm like, how is that justice, right? Like how––we have this legal system built up with so many loopholes that it seems like it's really hard to hold powerful people accountable. Shocking? Probably not. Disheartening when you see it at, like, every turn or so frequently? [Material removed]
KAMP: So you definitely are, I think, one of the reporters, [00:26:29] at least in the area, who has really made it––there's nobody who is more centered at your work than survivors of sexual assault. I was wondering [00:26:44] if you could talk a little bit about your process in doing that, how you work with survivors to make sure that their story’s told in a way that's respectful of them?
MARLOFF: Yeah. It's really hard. [00:26:59] It's slow. I guess, my goal of telling a rape story or a story about it, I'm not telling you the rape story. The [00:27:14] rape is not the story. People get raped every day, multiple times a day. It's not news, it's not new, which is maybe really depressing. What is the story is what's happening afterwards. So, I think that’s my focus, is being like, I am not going to ask you, What were you wearing? I'm not going to ask you for a play-by-play, I'm not interviewing you for your case, I'm not interviewing you to judge what you did right or wrong. I want to know what happened, where you are today. Talking to a lot of survivors, who talked to me, after the lawsuit, I could even be like, We don't even really have to talk about the actual incident itself [00:28:00] because I have it written here anyways. I can pull from that, whatever.
I acknowledge that there is some level of––I feel like there is an expectation that if you are writing about a rape survivor [00:28:15] who is fighting for justice, you have to give in some piece of their story. My goal is to do that in whatever way feels the most respectful, sometimes that's asking the rape survivor, [00:28:30] Are you okay with me saying these two sentences? Are you okay with me just saying two sentences? Trying to sum up, like, you know, I'm gonna note what happened. There's one person I've interviewed who, her case haunts [00:28:45] me sometimes. People would challenge, like, actually, her case and the suit was challenged, Was it really rape or was she consenting? And so, and because that [00:29:00] was challenged by the power, the systems, I felt like it was important to be like, Well, these were the documents, this is where she says in the case, she tried to escape and got hurt for that and decided like, Oh that might [00:29:15] kill me, so I don't escape. So I think it's important to try to put all those things into perspective, but I also think that it's really important to not make trauma porn. [00:29:31]
Sometimes with a lot of survivors, it's a slow––like, we can have a phone call, we can have a Zoom call, in pre-Covid times, we can get coffee. [00:29:46] It wouldn't be shocking if I met with the survivor five times and the last time is when I record and be like, This is on the record. And even then, I'm pretty open, I tell pretty much everyone I interview that, like, This is on the record and if you [00:30:01] tell me, Oh my God, don't put that on the record, or, Please don't say that. My goal wasn't, that's not––I'm not trying to do that. And that's usually really helpful for survivors, is taking it slow, listening to their story, [00:30:16] not pushing on the actual rape. Like that's not––no one's writing that story. This isn't Game of Thrones, we don't need to know what happened. And that's pretty much the way that I have seen [00:30:31] it the most, and it’s hard, it's hard to get people to trust you and it's understandable. Like, I don't want to tell a stranger my most intimate details, so why would they? [00:30:46] So it just takes a lot of communication and relationship building. So I feel like I end up close to these people.
KAMP: What are, maybe some criticisms, some advice, that you would have for other journalists? Some things you noticed in writing about the topic that you would ask people think more carefully about?
MARLOFF: [00:31:17] I think that it is really important to weigh the power structures when giving voice to people. You know, good reporting means everyone has a voice and every side is [00:31:32] included or mentioned. And I'm not saying that should not happen, that should absolutely happen. But remembering that, like, writing a story where you only interview people in power and not the people accusing the people in power [00:31:48] isn't really giving anyone a voice, right? People in power already have a platform and you're just amplifying their platform. So I think it's really important to hear from the underdogs, the survivors, you have to have those conversations. [00:32:03] If you can't talk to a survivor, talk to five advocates.
I think it's also really, really important to not glorify the rape, like, we're not writing trauma porn. [00:32:18] This is not Orange Is the New Black, this is not Game of Thrones. That doesn't need to be there, and anyone who's reading it for that like, again, go watch one of these horrible TV shows. It's there. And [00:32:33] I think that's really, really important. And I'd also extra add that, like, and it can be really hard, as I'm sure you know too, Amy. Sometimes in an interview you're having an on-the-record conversation and it goes off the record and then [00:32:48] it goes back on the record, but there are parts that might still be off the record. So it can get really confusing, but I know that like, I've had some people, some survivors, talk to me being like, We haven't talked to any media person in two years because the last time we talked to someone, they [00:33:03] said they'd let us see the quotes, or they wouldn't use this part of the story, and then they didn't let us see the quotes and they used this part of the story, and I've been––don't do that to either side, right? Like, I don't want to do that to the power systems and I don't want to do that to the survivors. I don't want to burn any of my sources’ bridges, but I think it's really, really important to treat the people who are sharing their personal trauma with you, with respect. And that means even if you’re like, Wow, [00:33:33] that is the juiciest detail, that is headline worthy, that's what I want. If they say No, that’s off the record, it's off the record.
KAMP: What are some changes that you've seen in the Austin, Travis County area [00:33:48] that you think are hardening since you first started reporting about this?
MARLOFF: Yeah, I kind of feel like Austin went in, like, maybe the reverse of a peak. I think it started out where I thought it was on a really good [00:34:03] note, and then we had a really steep crash and now we're moving out of that again. So, lots of things have happened kind of recently. The police chief retired and [00:34:18] at this point, they're doing a national search. Fingers are crossed, and I think that's a good sign. I just think that there were so many things [00:34:33] being said, I think the community lost faith that change could happen with, you know, the power systems that were in place before. And I think that this showed, I think that showed in the Travis County District Attorney [00:34:48] race in which Jose Garza won over the incumbent, and he won in what I think we could easily call a landslide. And I don't think that it's a weird coincidence that [00:35:03] Garza has promised to rejoin SARRT, which is the Sexual Assault Resource and Response Team. He's also promised [00:35:18] to listen to survivors again, he's promised––he’s, I think, really trying to make changes and I think that's huge. I think that it was pretty big that [00:35:33] the DNA lab has officially been ruled to not be under the police department's control anymore. I think that'll do some really good things. They just shouldn't be tied together, in my opinion. [00:35:48] [Material Removed]
I think the Reimagining Public Safety conversations happening in Austin right now are really heartening. I know there are some about sexual assault, and sexual violence in general, and trafficking [00:36:18] and sex workers, and how the overlap of all of these systems come into play. And I think that the conversations are being had more widely. I hope that the change keeps going. [00:36:33] I don't think we've reached like, This is great, this is where we need to be. But I think we're moving in a really awesome direction. I actually––my big fear is that momentum dies. You know, the fear of Biden getting elected as [00:36:48] like, well now that Biden's and office is everyone going to be like, Oh everything's, okay, so we can sit back again and like, No, no, we've got it moving, we've got to keep it moving. But no, I'm really optimistic for where we are right now.
KAMP: So you mentioned Reimagine Austin. [00:37:03] And I think it's interesting where, I think that you and I both agree that Jose Garza could not have gotten elected without the issue of sexual assault being such a huge concern in Travis County. [00:37:18] But at the same time, his platform was moving away––as much as one can when one is a law enforcement official––from the idea of mass incarceration as a solution [00:37:33] to everything. I don't know if it's a contradiction, but certainly that intersection is so interesting to me, when it comes to this desire to work [00:37:48] toward ending mass incarceration, to work toward alternatives to the police. But at the same time, you know, people have felt like they never got justice for their sexual assault. So, [00:38:03] in talking with survivors, what have been some alternative ideas of justice that people have mentioned to you? Or that you think have been particularly interesting.
MARLOFF: Yeah. I think that, if I'm being [00:38:18] super honest, the conversations I've always had have been a little abstract still, which kind of makes sense. It's hard to make a cemented plan when that's not what's being put in place. But I know that [00:38:36] already 90% of survivors in Texas aren't seeking help from law enforcement to do this, so they're getting support, we hope, from other services, maybe it’s a church, maybe it's their community center, maybe it's their friends, maybe it's their parents. So I think a lot of what some people talk about, is making sure that, you know, all of the community systems are also built to support [00:39:06] survivors and have, like, if it is the church in, if there's a church in Austin that five survivors are at, making sure that people there are trained to deal with it and have an appropriate response. Because that person's, a priest’s response–––I'm not very good with religion, so forgive me [laughs]. But, you know, anyone in power, anyone that you go to for help, it could be your parents who could say the absolutely wrong thing and make you feel like it's your fault too. It doesn't have to be a cop. [00:39:36]
So I think it's really about––part of it is about changing a dialogue. How we treat survivors, how we respond to sexual assault. Part of it is about how we prevent sexual assault in the first place, and then part of it is also, like, what does justice look like for people who have been assaulted? A lot of times, it's complicated, I don't ever want to say it's not about the criminal justice system, because I think that really needs to be reformed, but then it's not everyone wanting someone to go to jail. Sometimes it's wanting your perp, the perpetrator, your rapist, to hear you say, like, You did this to me. I think [00:40:21] about even [Larry] Nasser, with the U.S. Olympics team, how many people spoke against him at his sentencing. And that's, to some extent, that justice, that cathartic-ism, [sic] that needs to come out and be able to say that. [00:40:36] I know one of the people, one of my sources that I've talked to a couple of times, has kind of said, like, Maybe if there was a more open dialogue for me to say to my rapist, This is what you did to me. Maybe it changes, maybe [00:40:51] they have to face what they did and hold it accountable in a different way.
And I think there are probably like, I've heard some people say there are always probably some people that shouldn't be intermixed with society, [00:41:06] but that's not really, that's not everybody, right? So how are we, how are we fixing the problem? Which is not really an answer to your question other than like, I don't know if there is an answer, but it's certainly not happening [00:41:21] now or currently as the systems in place. I think it's about asking survivors what they need. I don't, I don't know, I think––there's a survivor advisory board that’s statewide right now, [00:41:36] that's made up of between 17 and 22 survivors, all with very different stories, some who reported, some who didn't. And I think they’ll all tell you, maybe something slightly different, of what justice would have looked like for them. [00:41:51] And I think the thing that they can tell you is what justice does not look like. So I think we take what is, what do they need? And how do we help with that? And then also, how do we have these conversations so that less [00:42:06] people are raped and consent is more clearly known. How do we stop men from being rapists? Which is what I'm more interested in. Not that that's a conversation we have that often.
KAMP: I mean, when you do have that conversation [00:42:21] though, I mean, what do you think are things that we’re missing? Especially as you've observed, like, the Austin/Travis County area, like what do you think, the government, communities could be doing to make sure that it doesn't happen as frequently?
MARLOFF: I think that it's probably far beyond, like, Austin or Travis County. I think it's a continuation of not talking about it, right? [00:42:51] So it's like another snowball effect. We don't talk about it. We don't talk about sex with kids. We don't talk about consent unless it's like, Oh, you don't hit Jennifer on the playground, but like, sometimes, boys are allowed to hit girls because it's cute and that's how they have a crush [00:43:06] on you. Like, No. We don't do that. Let's have some healthy boundaries of like, yes and no. We shouldn't force people to hug creepy men, that they are like, No, you're scary, I don't want to hug you as a child, or anyone. [00:43:21] I think that we need to understand that survivors don't always look like the three of us, maybe. Survivors look, can look like anybody because survivors are anybody. And I think the same thing kind of goes for perpetrators, [00:43:37] you know? I think it's really––men are more often than not the rapist, but they're not the only ones, and it happens in like, the queer community. It happens in lesbian relationships, it happens in queer relationships, it happens in nonbinary relationships.
I think, again, it's about having probably uncomfortable talks with kids and really drilling into what consent is. I also think [00:44:07] it's changing the conversation for adults too, like, one of the biggest arguments you'll hear across the board of like, why rape cases are infamously hard to prosecute, because he-said-she-said. And you know, there's never a he-said-she-said in a burglary, right? Like, he definitely broke into your house, here are the fingerprints. But, like, somehow, rape is he-said-she-said and you have a jury that's desperate to believe he-said-she-said because, from what I have heard, it's that if Amy was wearing the wrong outfit, I can't be raped. If Amy did the wrong thing, my daughter can't be raped. [00:44:52] If, you know, she's lying then my son, my brother, my father, anyone, my men aren’t rapists. And so, there's a lot of––we like to victim blame because it takes [00:45:07] the pressure off of us to have those conversations with our kids, to worry about our kids, to worry about us.
And again, I think all the conversations we have around rape to this day are like, Do you have your nail polish that [00:45:22] you can dip into your drink to test if you've been roofied and, like, Did you walk home alone? And did you have a whistle around your neck? Remember to yell fire because no one will come if you yell––wouldn’t every time I go for a run, my car key is pushed out between my fingers, just casually, in case I'm casually raped. And it's not funny, but like, I think it's all of those things combined. We just don't address it to anyone in the right way and we don't––prosecutors aren't challenging juries to think past that. And so how are we ever going to change if we're not pushing those conversations?
KAMP: Yeah absolutely. And I know, in my own life [00:46:07] I've been so struck by how many people who have been sexually assaulted, they really internalize that narrative. And they think or they say, like, I think, What could I have done differently? Could I have been dressed differently? You know, and they replay the incident in their head from a feeling of, you know, This was my fault. I had agency here, and I should have made a different choice.
MARLOFF: Yep.
KAMP: So I think, kind of what you're saying. It's also teaching people that, when these things happen to you, it's not, it's not about, like, the choices that you made, necessarily. There's nothing that, as you said, I think [00:46:52] you quoted someone, probably in more than one of your articles, one of your early articles, you know, I’ve passed out, that doesn't give you the right to rape me. Like there's nothing that I can do that gives you the right to sexually assault me.
MARLOFF: Right. I should be able to go to Sixth Street and [00:47:07] get drunk and not get raped because men can do that. I should be able to wear a skirt! If I want to walk naked
Down Sixth Street, I should be able to and not get raped, you know?
KAMP: Right. Yeah. Another thing that you said that struck me, and you’ve heard about this before, is that there's an idea of a rape victim, which is often a feminine white woman. And then there's reality of who's a rape victim. And I think that [00:47:37] certainly from my perspective, we haven't done a great idea as a society of making clear what the reality is, versus that idea. What do you think could be done to make that reality clearer? What do you think is something that all of us can be doing to make sure that we're not ignoring the reality of victims that are different than the idea in our hands?
MARLOFF: Is ending systemic racism and transphobia [laughs] too big of a statement to make? Because that would be the, that's the root, right? I think it's remembering that what can we do is being like, everyone got to where they are in a different path, right? Like, we all reach wherever we get to in life [00:48:39] on our own terms, on our own journeys, whatever disaster life throws at us, or trauma. So I think, sometimes it's learning to hold your judgment, like [00:48:54] sex workers can be raped. What? They work in sex work so how can they be raped? Well, because that's still not how it always works, right? And so being able to look past the things that again you hear [00:49:09] on TV, you've been taught, you see, and just listening to people's stories, listening to what they tell you. I don't know if it's SAFE or APD or who started it first. But there's a tag line somewhere in Austin of, like, start by believing, which is corny. But also true.
[Material Removed]
And I think like, it's just not always as cut and dry as media or TV or whatever makes it out to be. And then I think that if you're [00:51:09] going back to power systems, we have to see some of those cases move forward. One of my, an advocat [Material Removed] told me once that in her––this was last year, so February 2020. But [00:51:24] as of February 2020, in the ten years that she had been doing advocacy work around sexual assault in Austin, she never saw a single case with a Black survivor go to court. What does that tell Black survivors? There are already, if you're Black you're already fighting systemic racism, you're already fighting––If I call the cops and something happened to me, are they going to shoot me when they get here? So we already just have so many, there's so many [00:51:54] steps against certain people getting to report and getting to be believed. If we can't walk in and get believed, why would, you know, people who have even more oppression believe that they could? [00:52:09] So I think we just have to start trying to change who we believe gets raped, and understanding that it happens to everybody.
KAMP: So another thing that I wanted to discuss, and we had [00:52:24] talked about this a little before the interview, was the notion of vicarious trauma, and how, when you're writing about these topics, when you're interviewing about these topics, you know, you're obviously not the person who directly experienced the violence but sometimes taking on that role of listener, of somebody who's going to go tell that story, can feel and is genuinely traumatizing. I wanted to know how your experience of that has been, and if there have been ways in which you have been able to kind of mitigate those effects.
MARLOFF: Yeah. I think I actually just want to say thank you for saying that also, like [00:53:09] sometimes, you know, I think I try to play it off a lot but, like, it's real. It is really real. You do get affected. I'm not even sure if I would have called it trauma before you said it, but I do get a lot of vicariness, like I don't feel good. I've had a lot of, I've cut out a lot of, like, pop culture in my life because of it. I don't watch things like SVU anymore. It can't even be on in my house. [00:53:41] I think it was season two of The Handmaid's Tale, and I made it into the third episode and I was like, I can't, I just, I cannot do this. It took me two year––like, a year to watch that Netflix [00:53:56] show, Unbelievable, which is actually about a Propublica story that made me want to write about sexual assault and, like, emphasize how you write well about sexual assault. If you haven't read it, everyone should read it. But halfway through the first episode, I was like, Oh my god, I know this story but like––and I had like nine people who were like You cover this, you're gonna love this story, watch it. And I was like, I can't, I haven't watched, I May Destroy You because it's really real. I feel like I live these stories every day. I live them. I feel them. One of the girls in the sexual assault lawsuit was kidnapped and raped by a rideshare driver. And I remember even after reading that lawsuit that day, I had to take a Lyft to the office. Like, do you know how terrifying it is to get into a [rideshare] right after you meet about someone getting raped in a [rideshare].
It’s real and, you know, you have to do––my job, first and foremost, is to make the people talking to me and sharing this trauma with me feel safe and comfortable. And so I'm holding a lot of that for them and I happily do it, but there's a lot of things that means, like––I'm not a big comedy person and now I'm, like, maybe comedy is the way I need to go. Like, I can't watch heavy dramas anymore.[00:55:26] Love a Marvel movie. And sometimes I think I probably stress, like, my wife out but I just, I need to talk about it sometimes. I have a lot of anger in me about it. As I think I told [00:55:41] you on the phone earlier, like I talk about this stuff for hours. Sometimes to the point where I think like, I get so far in the weeds and my wife is like, What are you talking about? But it's just, there needs to be some kind of outlet for it. I also work out a lot, which is a good way for me to like––I do a lot of like kickboxing and stuff like that. It's a good way of being like, just punch something until you're not mad. And by punch something, I mean punch the air. But yeah, it's really, [00:56:12] it's a lot.
And I think sometimes just making space to be like, Today sucked. Because like, I think two Sundays ago, I talked to someone about her assault for a story and afterwards, someone asked me, like, You seemed, you were kind of down today. And I was like, Oh, no, I just had a rough day, a tough interview. Like it's just, it's hard. It sits with you.
KAMP: I think one of our colleagues refers to it as like an interview hangover, you know. Where it's like you kind of just need, kind of just need a while to decompress.
MARLOFF: Yep. Sit in a dark, dark room. Maybe a cup of tea, glass of wine, pick your poison [laughs] And breathe.
KAMP: Yeah. But you know, I know that there's so much more to, I mean, what you do at The Chronicle, what you do in your life. You know, you are a person who in my opinion, you know, does have a lot. You do find a lot of joy in things. You wrote, it’s Qmmunity now, but when we started, it was Gay Place. And so, like, I'm curious to know, what are the things that you really find joy in, and take you out of this?
MARLOFF: Oh, that's a great question. I find joy in a lot of things. Working out is a really great way for me to like––as I also just have a lot of anxiety in general; most writers do, I feel like. But, that usually helps me and it's a good place. I usually do it after I work, like after the work day too and I think it does help me like, transition and clear my head. I have a really awesome little Chiweenie [00:58:00] and she's my favorite thing in the world. But you know, I'm also hugely involved in the queer community. And I actually, I came into reporting and covering the queer community in a very different way. Like, when I first started as a blogger in DC, my friend who started the blog was like, We're never going to write about the bad stuff, like fuck that, [00:58:30] basically, you know? We're only going to write about the joys, the things to celebrate, the parties, the fun stuff. And we have a lot of fun. And sometimes I really enjoy that like, that has been mostly where I've gotten to continue my attention for reporting on the queer community. Like, there's so much awful stuff that happens every day in that community. But there's also so much good, and really getting to feel like that space is like, my little [00:59:00] spot where I get to be me and covered in glitter and ridiculous and home.
But yeah, there's a lot that's, you know, there are lots of different ways. I go outside and try to get lost as much as possible [00:59:15] to be like, I try to hide my phone under pillows after work days so that no one can talk to me. Trying to unplug, trying to just accept that some days, I'm not in a good headspace and accept that and you know, [00:59:30] find my people or read a book, whatever I need––giving myself that space to be like, You don't have to always be okay. So, yeah.
KAMP: And so, I guess like, one, final question that I have is, what would justice look like for you? I know that in your work you want to center survivors, but for you like, [01:00:00] would there be a point where you feel like Yeah, you know, we've moved toward a more just world for people who are victims of sexual assault?
MARLOFF: Yeah, I think that, I think it would be believing, right? I think that it would be, you know, taking someone's story at face value. And I understand our criminal just[ice system], like we have to prosecute cases and don't want to throw innocent people in jail [01:00:30] and I'm a hundred percent for that. But I think that, I wish––sexual assault is the only crime that I can think of where we don't believe the victim automatically. And I think that that's also convenient that it happens to be a thing that's placed on, more often than not, women's bodies. So I would like to see more of just a belief, more of a, you know, We understand that something really bad happened. And I think that a lot of survivors that I have talked to kind of agree that or have said, like, You know, it might not be about like, that my case gets prosecuted, but it's about feeling like I was listened to, feeling like I was treated humanely, having a detective call me back, having the DA's office call me back. Having someone sit down and explain to me and [01:01:30] like, talk me through, why it's not going to move forward. Things like that are really important.
I think, you know, I also––and I don't have an answer on this one, but I constantly think like, what do we want from rapists? Like, other than for them to not exist, but like, is there anything that, like Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein or, you know, Woody Allen, whatever, but like, all of them––is there anything that they could do or say even like, Louis CK? What does, like moving forward, what does reformative justice really [01:02:15] look like? What do, what do––and I think that it's because I've never actually really seen a rapist say, I did that. I acknowledge that I did that and I'm sorry. Or even like I did it you know, I think that like the first step––I have no idea what I want from them because I want ownership before everything else. And I think that like, so often I was just like, a couple months––last summer, the head, you know, Power Bottom? They were a big like, queer band. Heartbreaking when that came out. The singer, who was accused of sexual assault, released a solo album last year after, you know, hiding for two years or three years. And, you know, they came out and said like, I've done XYZ, but there was never ownership. There was never a, I did this. It was always a, She lied, she lied, I didn't do that. I would never do that. I would never do that.
And I'm just like, this many women aren't lying. That's, I feel, basically impossible. So someone else is lying and I just––how many [01:03:30] women have accused Harvey Weinstein, has he said one word about raping anyone, you know? So I think for me a lot of that is being like, I think the first step is I want to hear rapists hold themselves accountable. And then, I think they should get to hear how what they did made their survivors feel. If that is a thing that a survivor would want to do. And I think justice is also going to, again the route of being like, Let's figure [01:04:01] out how to eliminate rape as much as humanly possible. It needs to be a conversation that men and trans people and queer people and like, everyone needs to be having it, right? It can't just be [01:04:16] cis women in a room together talking about it. It has to be bigger than that.
KAMP: Yeah, you know, and I've thought about that a lot, about what you were saying, about wanting people to just acknowledge what they did. And I personally think, [01:04:31] you know, our criminal justice system makes that so hard. Like, no lawyer on Earth would say, Oh yeah, admit it, it'll be fine. There's a real cost to admitting it.
MARLOFF: Mm-Hmm. And what if that was like––what if you could go into, a mediation room and you couldn't––a person could admit it and the survivor could get to have that conversation and maybe that's all they need. Maybe they don't want to have a trial [01:05:02] where everyone's life is ripped apart in front of people. Like, maybe they just need to have some ownership of what happened to them. And I just think yeah, our criminal justice system, it's not set up for anyone to win that, right?
KAMP: Yeah. Absolutely. Well I think that that's all the questions that I have. So I just want to thank you for answering all my questions [inaudible] and thoughtfully. I really appreciate it. Murphy, were there any questions that you wanted to ask?
CARTER: Yeah, I have one or two things and I think––thank you so much, by the way, Amy. I feel like I was just falling into such a rhythm where you get so engrossed and I'm just listening so close. I get––my face gets closer and closer to the screen. But I am so grateful, Sarah, that you mentioned, you know, the word accountability, right? Or you said accountable. And so kind of coming up against these ideas of like, the idea of justice as being this thing that feels like we don't get to see what that can and could and should and would and all the subjunctive mood things, look like, and the idea of accountability as well. This thing that we're trying to figure out what that can look like.
And so something that I, just from listening to everything you've described, you know, you talked about how the stories in your reporting complicates ideas of what a survivor's [01:06:32] story is, you know. So some of this work that you're doing is about breaking down these ideas and making them real and showing people how they're real. You know, when you get into a Lyft and how you live with the reality behind all of that. And so [01:06:47] I was just curious, if you––to talk about like a story, and to talk about even a conversation of accountability as a story, what you feel in your experience, like you see survivors [01:07:02] after you’ve published their stories. And these survivor-centered stories, what the conversation with your sources has been like, and what the experience of having published or shared those, what that does to change them [01:07:17] or you know, or maybe not to change anything. But I'm kind of curious about that, after their shared piece. I don't know if you want to speak to that at all.
MARLOFF: Yeah. I want to do it in like, the [01:07:32] most––it's heavy afterwards. I used to get nauseous on print days, especially when a big piece came out. [Material Removed]
I don't know if there was ever like, a cathartic release. I think a lot of times, I worry that for some of these survivors to share their stories with me, and to change minds and hearts or whatever about sexual assault, it's part of like, re-traumatizing themselves. Like I still have to put something about the fact that they were raped in 2015 in the piece and they still have to hear their writing of saying, This is hard and traumatic and this is where someone let me down. So I always just hope that they feel as good as possible at the end of it too. Because I'm not sure that, either me or the survivor gets to walk away being like, Yeah, that was great. The hope is that everyone who picks up the story, maybe believes that they should go vote, or they should be involved in what's happening, or when their daughter or best friend or anyone that they know says [01:10:49] I was assaulted, they try to say something helpful. They know where to go, they want, they just expect a better response.
CARTER: Thank you and so much, I think, of being able to tell your own story in its own way as well and how that can interplay with, you know, with healing as a potential or still interplaying, knowing that trauma is something that doesn't necessarily go away. It's not just the one year, right? So I really appreciate all the care and devotion that you're describing.
I only have one other question for you, and it's maybe a little bit more specific to you in light of the past year. [01:11:34] But particularly, as we've all been navigating what the pandemic has done for so many of these issues that we follow and so many of the advocacy efforts that we try to put forth. I was curious, how you feel over the past year, the pandemic [01:11:49] has affected the way that you're able to report about these things, or even affected some of your sources’ experiences or even just, what kind of stories you're finding are emerging, as a result of, you know, these already incredibly difficult situations and then throw in, you know, a pandemic on top of it all. And so I want to make sure that I opened that up for you as well.
MARLOFF: No, it's a good question. [01:12:21] I think it's definitely, it's just been a whole bag of stuff, right? Like not all of it has been bad. I spoke about the statewide survivor advisory board [01:12:36] that managed to get off the ground and started in a pandemic. I don't know if they've even met in person yet, or if all of them are through Zoom. But like, so there have been some wins despite a pandemic. There was a record number, or massive turnout, where Jose Garza won in a landslide. I do have to say, I think that had a little bit to do with Black Lives Matter as well. I think those two things combined, really had a lot of power in Austin.
[Material Removed]
And then you have, you know, I don't know the numbers for Austin specifically for domestic violence or sexual assault, but I know that across the country, domestic violence was on the rise in the pandemic. Like, quarantining at home with someone who is violent, only got worse, and people probably got more violent, especially under intense amounts of stress, because who wasn't under intense amount of stress last year. I know in DC that the reports for 2020 for sexual assault are lower by like, roughly 700 last year, and it's because you couldn't––were you going to go to a hospital for a SANE exam if you know there's a pandemic going on? Probably not. So I think, I don't think we really know what the fallout is yet, but I think that over the next year, we will see it more and more. But I think that it's pretty safe to say that just because there was a pandemic happening didn't mean that, like, this stuff didn't continue, and that it added to probably getting swept under the rug.
And also, like some people need, you know, therapy for––if you're in therapy, some people really need to be in a room with their therapist. Some people love Zoom and Telehealth. I'm sure that those strains are probably really hard on people going through any kind of trauma. Like being cut off from your community and your friends. I think it was just, in general, a really hard year and if you have any other kind of trauma on that, it was amplified. [01:15:39]
CARTER: That's my last question.
KAMP: Is there anything that you want to add, Sarah? That we haven't covered that you think we should have covered?
MARLOFF: No, I think I've even like––no, I even wrote down things that I think are really important. But no, I think these really hit on all the stuff. I think that it's really important to believe someone when they say they were raped, and I think that it's really important to talk about it. And I just hope that the narrative [01:16:09] starts to change. And hopefully this helps.
KAMP: Well, I know, I mean again, I know that a lot of people here in the area feel that you have done so much to help. So, thank you.
MARLOFF: Thank you. I'm glad to hear it.
[INTERVIEW ENDS]
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
AMY KAMP: So the date is June, 4th 2021. My name is Amy Kamp and I am with Texas After Violence.
MURPHY CARTER: My name is Murphy Carter, and I'm also with the Texas After Violence Project.
SARAH MARLOFF: My name is Sarah Marloff, I am currently a freelance reporter. I spent about seven years working at the Austin Chronicle, the city's alt-weekly, where I covered basically everything, but my main beat was sexual assault and how [00:01:05] the criminal justice system in Austin and Travis County did or did not treat survivors and the handling of sexual assault cases. In the last year and a half, I've been freelancing and continuing that coverage as [00:01:20] I moved across the country to Washington DC.
KAMP: And you’ve still been writing for The Chronicle.
MARLOFF: Yes, yes, still to this day. Got a couple of pieces coming up for them in the next, like month and a half.
KAMP: Okay, great. So I guess the first thing I wanted to ask you was, if you could tell us a little bit about how you got started writing about sexual assault in Austin and Travis County and what [00:01:50] made you passionate about that topic?
MARLOFF: Yeah, of course. So I had this editor at The Chronicle, who might possibly be interviewing me right now. [laughs] I sometimes joke that I feel like you knew without me––like I didn't know. And you assigned me a story on the NFL donating a large sum of cash to the National Hotline for Domestic Violence after the Ray Rice incident in 2014, when Ray Rice, one of the Ravens football [players] beat his girlfriend and it was recorded. And that story, it was, like, 800 words max, and I never looked back. All I wanted to do was talk about sexual assault and talk about domestic violence––if you cover one you eventually end up, [00:02:50] I think, talking about both, because they're so intricately connected.
And I think that a lot of times the people who work in those fields––it's so, it's so under-talked about, it's so under-written about, it’s so under-reported, that when there is a writer, there is a journalist who is looking to learn more, there's people who are pretty excited to talk to you, and especially if you can show that you actually care, and you're not just looking to like, glorify the crappy stories. So I don't even––I think the second piece was about like, there being a high demand for rape kits. And in learning about that, I learned about rape culture for the first time and my mind kind of exploded and I just was like, Why don't we talk about this stuff? And, you know, I've known a lot of survivors. I've had my own bad experiences, and I just think that it's one of those things that, it's uncomfortable and it's painful to talk about. But like, I want to talk about it. If we don't ever talk about it, we're never going to get anywhere. And I just never got off that soapbox, and I don't plan to.
KAMP: So when I was in The Chronicle, when you were there, it was such a different time. Like it's amazing how much has changed since 2014, 2015. And, you know, looking back at some of your early stories, it's just, it's interesting to see, I think we had to be––it was almost like we had to also ask permission to say that these stories were important. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your memory of that time and trying to talk to people, and especially with one of your earliest stories, talking about the issue of sexual assault as it relates to Austin's entertainment industry––Sixth Street, music festivals, and things like that.
MARLOFF: Yeah, it’s––rape is a dirty word. And I think that pre the Me Too Movement, which was 2018, 2017?––more recent, we didn't talk about it. And still, we don't talk about it enough. I feel like it was just––I remember having an interview one day with a source of mine, and we were talking about, specifically colleges and how sexual assault [00:05:38] on college campuses is predominant, but colleges don't talk about it. They don't put it out there, they don't report about it. UT Austin offers rape kits on their campus so that their students don't have to travel to get them, [00:05:53] but they don't advertise that or promote that, so how would the students ever know? They don't promote that because, do you want to be the first university to go out there and say, People get raped on our campus. Because then [00:06:08] parents say, I'm not sending my kid to that campus, my baby girl can't go there. And so I think the way everyone has––at least previously and to some extent today––handled sexual assault has been to be like, Well, if we just don't talk about [00:06:23] it, no one will be scared [Material Removed] If we just say, it was that girl's fault because she did xyz or, it was that person's fault because they did xyz. Then it's not [00:06:38] that we've created some dangerous place or that boys, more often than not, are doing something wrong. It's because she did something wrong.
I feel like, reading that old piece today, I remember when I first wrote this piece about rape culture in Austin's entertainment district. I just remember how much backlash that piece got, like
the outside of a bar that was photographed freaked [00:07:09] out that they were photographed on the cover. The festival wouldn't even talk to me because I was a lowly freelancer. Literally, my editor had to call them and be like, No, really, like give us a statement. And it's [00:07:24] just, even their statement is like, No way, that would never happen at this music festival. We have a lot of cops here, so therefore, it's safe. And that's a different topic in general, but that doesn't really [00:07:39] help anyone. And I'm not, like, I don't think any bar or any festival, mostly blanket statement, is intending to be like, This is a spot where we'd like to see women get raped, but by not talking about it, it doesn't help anything. [00:07:54] It's not acknowledging––it's not helping protect women who go to your space for the fun time you're offering who are going to be victimized by people who are predators. I think that has changed a little bit now with [00:08:09] Me Too. I'm not sure if it's changed enough, in my opinion, but people are more open to being like, Yeah, well, it does kind of happen sometimes.
KAMP: I think people feel more pressure to acknowledge [00:08:24] it. I think that they fear the consequences of not acknowledging it in a way that they didn't when you first started writing about this. I think at the time they did think that they could kind of just, like, intimidate us into not [00:08:39] covering it anymore. But I mean, it never seemed like anything that deterred you.
How did you, personally, as a freelancer, which is not something with [00:08:54] a ton of job security, persevere in the face of all that push back? And how do you, as there still is pushback?
MARLOFF: Some days I just wake up and I'm like, Still not an alcoholic, doing great. [laughs] It's hard, it's really hard. I also frequently think, I wonder what it's like to write about movies or book reviews, [00:09:24] or do something that isn't always upsetting and depressing and so delicate, like you’re constantly––even just to get people to talk to you like, you can't tell the story, whatever the story is, you can't tell [00:09:39] it without the police or the DA's office or the other, you know, services that are being scrutinized, talking to you. And so, you have to always walk this line of being like, You can talk to me, too, and it's just, it's hard. [00:09:54] It involves a lot of email, it involves a lot of uncomfortable phone calls. [Material removed]
It’s hard, it's just constantly hard, but I also think that, I guess for me, the payoff is more worth it. [00:10:24] I’m sure it feels really cool to email or interview, like, Angelina Jolie and do some beautiful write-up for Vogue, but I'd like to think that maybe the stories I'm helping put out there could [00:10:39] maybe make even just the smallest of difference. And even if it just makes a difference in the people, in the survivors’ life, then it feels better and like it's actually doing something that matters. So that usually keeps me going. I've gotten really good at figuring out how to tell a story without certain people talking to me. [Material Removed] And so sometimes, it's just remembering that if you think there's a story there, you just gotta keep going until you have enough to prove that you're right.
KAMP: I think one of the things that you brought up is a good transition to my next question. I think a lot of people here in the area, the Austin and Travis County area, would say that you have made a huge difference with your [00:11:39] writing. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what you uncovered in Austin and Travis County. Looking at your old piece it was like, Oh, Austin is not unique, sexual assault is a problem [00:11:54] everywhere. For sure, Austin is not unique, but you certainly uncovered some specific issues with Austin and Travis County.
MARLOFF: Yeah, absolutely. I think that even broader, what's more [00:12:09] upsetting, even like––I'm starting to look into sexual assault in DC now, as well, and the issues are not, are still not necessarily unique to Austin. Like, in a way, that is almost more [00:12:24] insidiously uncomfortable. But I think, like, in 2015, I wrote this piece that––and I remember feeling this from talking to a whole bunch of players, and it was that Austin had this [00:12:39] kind of beautiful setup. Everyone was sitting at the same table, having these really important discussions, probably fighting a lot, but they were having those important fights. And then, in 2016 [00:12:55] end of 20––no, mid-2016, the DNA lab shut down. And I feel like that just leaked bad stuff all over Austin. I don't know if it leaked it, if it uncovered it, if it just broke [00:13:10] apart, like, tentative balances. But it was a really insightful thing to be like, Wow, this is a lot, there's a lot of stuff here.
With the lab shutting down because of like, [00:13:25] inaccurate DNA testing methods, quality insurance, poorly trained technicians. There's a sexual assault survivors class action lawsuit, against [00:13:41] APD and the district attorney's office––Austin Police and District Attorney's office. And one of the cases in there is literally one of the contamination cases that got the lab shut down. It was just the [00:13:56] system, all of these survivors were basically not––we were not hearing from these people, but they were being like, We're being re-traumatized by a system that isn't really set up to protect survivors in the first place anywhere, [00:14:11] in at least the U.S., and that was also horribly dysfunctioning, on top of a system that isn't working to help survivors.
I think it just kind of snowballed [00:14:26] from that. A year after the lab closed, they found a mold-type substance on over 800 rape kits, waiting to be tested in the [00:14:41] massive backlog that hit, like, 4000, somewhere around that, after the lab shut down. The mold became a problem because no one wanted to talk about the mold. There was defending of like, Well, some of [00:14:56] these rape kits are really old and we were never going to use them to prosecute a case anyways, because xyz. That led to advocates being like, Wait a second, what are you talking––like this is someone's––a rape kit is someone's life. [00:15:11] It is someone's traumatic, traumatic incident, and to say, like––the way that it was discarded in that comment makes it really, I think really took a lot of people by surprise and shocked [00:15:26] a lot of people and angered a lot of people. And so more snowballing happened and a larger divide in the city between, I'd say, the powers that be, and advocates and survivors who were [00:15:41] just not seeing eye-to-eye anymore. Did that answer any of that?
KAMP: Yes, definitely. So, to touch on the rape kits a little bit. I think that you do a really good job of this in your writing, but can you tell us a little bit [00:15:56] about what the procedure is for getting a rape kit and why it might be something, like you said, it’s somebody's life?
MARLOFF: Yeah. So I think in Austin, you have five days to collect evidence [00:16:11] after being sexually assaulted. And a rape exam, also known as a medical forensic exam, it's done by a certified nurse practitioner. It can take about four hours, [00:16:26] it's pretty invasive. And in my experience, from what I have heard, believed in Texas, only about 10% of survivors report to law enforcement. [00:16:41] Of those people who report, a lot of advocates say that you really only report when it was so bad that you don't want it to happen to someone else. and I have heard it from advocates, I've heard it from survivors. That is a common [00:16:56] theme you will hear over and over again. It was so terrible I didn't want someone else to go through this.
So you're already in this, like, I don't even want people to touch me. I don't want people to know what happened, because there's a lot of shame and stigma around that. [00:17:11] You're getting touched and photographed in weird places. If you've done it the way that nurses would prefer you do it, you go right after it happens. You haven't showered. You're not supposed to eat, you're not supposed to drink, you're not supposed to go to the bathroom. [00:17:26] I think even in the best of cases, getting a rape kit is very hard, and so, I think they deserve to be treated with the respect that that would entail, [00:17:41] or that would imply. Like you're going there to basically help someone else not end up in the same situation. You have felt like your body has been taken advantage of––think about how vulnerable people feel about the idea of having their car or [00:17:56] their house vandalized. And then imagine that being done to your body. I think that's the best way that people can describe rape.
So to not test those kits, to let them sit on a shelf, [00:18:11] collecting mold––a survivor once said to me, like, It's clear you don't see that as me up there, you just see it as a box of evidence, but it's me. This is my life and my story. And I think for some, whatever justice [00:18:26] and closure looks like, sitting on a shelf being untested and possibly growing mold is not either one of those things. I think that just the handling of it is––not every [00:18:41] case is going to end in prosecution. Not every case is going to end with someone in jail for a hundred years. And that's not even everyone's goal, but it's, like, a respect of being like, You went through something really [00:18:56] traumatic. You sat through something really invasive. And we are going to treat you like a human with dignity and respect, what you did to help us catch a criminal, if you want to, again, go into the criminal justice system.
KAMP: [00:19:11] Can you talk a little bit about the lawsuit, and about the issues that were uncovered, with the culture at APD towards, you know, rape, sexual assault, and people who are victims of those crimes?
MARLOFF: [00:19:27] Yeah. So there have now been, there are now two lawsuits, but the first lawsuit––I refer to it as the Survivor Suit in short––but the sexual assault [00:19:42] survivor’s class action was first filed in June of 2018, and then amended in August of 2018. The first time it had three survivors, and then five more joined on in August. So bringing the total to eight women [00:19:57] who are from Austin, all with very, very, very different––their rape stories are wildly different. One was raped by her live-in boyfriend while her kid was in a different [00:20:12] room. One girl was kidnapped and raped and escaped and had a major contamination in her DNA kit. One girl was kidnapped and held in a hotel for various hours––whatever. Not whatever. The thing that all of them come to have in common is that they went towards the criminal justice system looking for support, looking to say, like, This [00:20:42] was terrible. I can't let this happen to someone else. Or even like, I've watched enough TV shows, I've seen enough SVU to know that Olivia and what's his name, are gonna come in and punch the bad guy and [00:20:57] I'm going to be okay, right? And that’s never the case. Or that was never the case for these women in the lawsuit.
I think the lawsuit documents that––the lawsuit also goes back, like, [00:21:12] it's named the DA's office, the previous DA, her predecessor, the previous police chief, his predecessor––so it's not like they're saying it was just one group, [00:21:27] it’s saying that this is systemic, right? So, things were in there of being like, treating survivors like they were the criminal. Sometimes cases were closed without ever even trying [00:21:42] to interview the people who allegedly did it sometimes. If the perpetrator said, Yeah, we had sex, it was consensual, the case was closed. I think the suit makes a claim [00:21:57] that APD at one point had a board in their office, in the sex crimes unit, that listed all of the debunked rape cases, false reports that were made. It [00:22:12] quotes the DA at one point saying, like, Rape by an acquaintance when people are drunk isn't really rape, it's like an unfortunate experience. I'm paraphrasing. But [00:22:27] it just has a lot of things that make even people who are not involved in this conversation, be like, Oh! The lawsuit was probably the most––damning is [00:22:42] the word that comes to mind. I think just something that was, as a reporter, hard evidence to say, There's a hundred pages here documenting multiple failures at multiple levels by multiple players, for [00:22:57] multiple people. And I think that that really shook the grounds around Austin. I think it's still shaking it.
[Material Removed] So it’s made some big waves. And a lot of these cases––again, this isn't the first lawsuit that was filed like this––lawsuits in San Francisco, I think Detroit has had them, but none of them have ever––the plaintiffs in these suits have never won before, at least not on the grounds of what they were claiming. They're usually dismissed on grounds of like, [00:23:42] legal jargon that I'm not good enough at remembering to explain. But it's never like, Well, nothing wrong was done here, but about like, Oh, you did something incorrectly legally, so legality-wise, it's tossed out. So this one's making it pretty far.
KAMP: [00:23:58] You mentioned people watching SVU and having a certain idea of a legal system. To my knowledge, you don't have a legal background, but now, you're pretty much an expert in it. What has been the most surprising [00:24:13] to you, as you've learned about the legal system? Or some of the most surprising things?
MARLOFF: Totally. I have been accused of [00:24:28] my reporting as discouraging people from wanting to report, and I don't believe that that's necessarily true. But also, when I go to think about these things, I'm like, Well, if I heard this and I was raped, I would never want to go to report. That's not my problem. That's the system’s problem.
I think it's just how much of a disappointment it is. I at least grew up thinking––I mean, I can't ever say that I grew up really trusting police, but there was a belief system that like, if I was raped and something happened to me, they're the good guys, right? They're the people you go to and they're the ones who protect you. And these prosecutors are the ones [00:25:13] who protect you. But like, they're not protecting you, they're protecting the state, that's their job, and it's––I don't know if I have any one thing that's really shocking, but the way that the case got dismissed [00:25:28] in the district court that it was filed in, was basically like a legal jargon, obstination of, like, basically the judge saying, I don't, I don't want to deal with this and this shouldn't be in my court. It [00:25:43] should go somewhere else.
And I'm like, how is that justice, right? Like how––we have this legal system built up with so many loopholes that it seems like it's really hard to hold powerful people accountable. Shocking? Probably not. Disheartening when you see it at, like, every turn or so frequently? [Material removed]
KAMP: So you definitely are, I think, one of the reporters, [00:26:29] at least in the area, who has really made it––there's nobody who is more centered at your work than survivors of sexual assault. I was wondering [00:26:44] if you could talk a little bit about your process in doing that, how you work with survivors to make sure that their story’s told in a way that's respectful of them?
MARLOFF: Yeah. It's really hard. [00:26:59] It's slow. I guess, my goal of telling a rape story or a story about it, I'm not telling you the rape story. The [00:27:14] rape is not the story. People get raped every day, multiple times a day. It's not news, it's not new, which is maybe really depressing. What is the story is what's happening afterwards. So, I think that’s my focus, is being like, I am not going to ask you, What were you wearing? I'm not going to ask you for a play-by-play, I'm not interviewing you for your case, I'm not interviewing you to judge what you did right or wrong. I want to know what happened, where you are today. Talking to a lot of survivors, who talked to me, after the lawsuit, I could even be like, We don't even really have to talk about the actual incident itself [00:28:00] because I have it written here anyways. I can pull from that, whatever.
I acknowledge that there is some level of––I feel like there is an expectation that if you are writing about a rape survivor [00:28:15] who is fighting for justice, you have to give in some piece of their story. My goal is to do that in whatever way feels the most respectful, sometimes that's asking the rape survivor, [00:28:30] Are you okay with me saying these two sentences? Are you okay with me just saying two sentences? Trying to sum up, like, you know, I'm gonna note what happened. There's one person I've interviewed who, her case haunts [00:28:45] me sometimes. People would challenge, like, actually, her case and the suit was challenged, Was it really rape or was she consenting? And so, and because that [00:29:00] was challenged by the power, the systems, I felt like it was important to be like, Well, these were the documents, this is where she says in the case, she tried to escape and got hurt for that and decided like, Oh that might [00:29:15] kill me, so I don't escape. So I think it's important to try to put all those things into perspective, but I also think that it's really important to not make trauma porn. [00:29:31]
Sometimes with a lot of survivors, it's a slow––like, we can have a phone call, we can have a Zoom call, in pre-Covid times, we can get coffee. [00:29:46] It wouldn't be shocking if I met with the survivor five times and the last time is when I record and be like, This is on the record. And even then, I'm pretty open, I tell pretty much everyone I interview that, like, This is on the record and if you [00:30:01] tell me, Oh my God, don't put that on the record, or, Please don't say that. My goal wasn't, that's not––I'm not trying to do that. And that's usually really helpful for survivors, is taking it slow, listening to their story, [00:30:16] not pushing on the actual rape. Like that's not––no one's writing that story. This isn't Game of Thrones, we don't need to know what happened. And that's pretty much the way that I have seen [00:30:31] it the most, and it’s hard, it's hard to get people to trust you and it's understandable. Like, I don't want to tell a stranger my most intimate details, so why would they? [00:30:46] So it just takes a lot of communication and relationship building. So I feel like I end up close to these people.
KAMP: What are, maybe some criticisms, some advice, that you would have for other journalists? Some things you noticed in writing about the topic that you would ask people think more carefully about?
MARLOFF: [00:31:17] I think that it is really important to weigh the power structures when giving voice to people. You know, good reporting means everyone has a voice and every side is [00:31:32] included or mentioned. And I'm not saying that should not happen, that should absolutely happen. But remembering that, like, writing a story where you only interview people in power and not the people accusing the people in power [00:31:48] isn't really giving anyone a voice, right? People in power already have a platform and you're just amplifying their platform. So I think it's really important to hear from the underdogs, the survivors, you have to have those conversations. [00:32:03] If you can't talk to a survivor, talk to five advocates.
I think it's also really, really important to not glorify the rape, like, we're not writing trauma porn. [00:32:18] This is not Orange Is the New Black, this is not Game of Thrones. That doesn't need to be there, and anyone who's reading it for that like, again, go watch one of these horrible TV shows. It's there. And [00:32:33] I think that's really, really important. And I'd also extra add that, like, and it can be really hard, as I'm sure you know too, Amy. Sometimes in an interview you're having an on-the-record conversation and it goes off the record and then [00:32:48] it goes back on the record, but there are parts that might still be off the record. So it can get really confusing, but I know that like, I've had some people, some survivors, talk to me being like, We haven't talked to any media person in two years because the last time we talked to someone, they [00:33:03] said they'd let us see the quotes, or they wouldn't use this part of the story, and then they didn't let us see the quotes and they used this part of the story, and I've been––don't do that to either side, right? Like, I don't want to do that to the power systems and I don't want to do that to the survivors. I don't want to burn any of my sources’ bridges, but I think it's really, really important to treat the people who are sharing their personal trauma with you, with respect. And that means even if you’re like, Wow, [00:33:33] that is the juiciest detail, that is headline worthy, that's what I want. If they say No, that’s off the record, it's off the record.
KAMP: What are some changes that you've seen in the Austin, Travis County area [00:33:48] that you think are hardening since you first started reporting about this?
MARLOFF: Yeah, I kind of feel like Austin went in, like, maybe the reverse of a peak. I think it started out where I thought it was on a really good [00:34:03] note, and then we had a really steep crash and now we're moving out of that again. So, lots of things have happened kind of recently. The police chief retired and [00:34:18] at this point, they're doing a national search. Fingers are crossed, and I think that's a good sign. I just think that there were so many things [00:34:33] being said, I think the community lost faith that change could happen with, you know, the power systems that were in place before. And I think that this showed, I think that showed in the Travis County District Attorney [00:34:48] race in which Jose Garza won over the incumbent, and he won in what I think we could easily call a landslide. And I don't think that it's a weird coincidence that [00:35:03] Garza has promised to rejoin SARRT, which is the Sexual Assault Resource and Response Team. He's also promised [00:35:18] to listen to survivors again, he's promised––he’s, I think, really trying to make changes and I think that's huge. I think that it was pretty big that [00:35:33] the DNA lab has officially been ruled to not be under the police department's control anymore. I think that'll do some really good things. They just shouldn't be tied together, in my opinion. [00:35:48] [Material Removed]
I think the Reimagining Public Safety conversations happening in Austin right now are really heartening. I know there are some about sexual assault, and sexual violence in general, and trafficking [00:36:18] and sex workers, and how the overlap of all of these systems come into play. And I think that the conversations are being had more widely. I hope that the change keeps going. [00:36:33] I don't think we've reached like, This is great, this is where we need to be. But I think we're moving in a really awesome direction. I actually––my big fear is that momentum dies. You know, the fear of Biden getting elected as [00:36:48] like, well now that Biden's and office is everyone going to be like, Oh everything's, okay, so we can sit back again and like, No, no, we've got it moving, we've got to keep it moving. But no, I'm really optimistic for where we are right now.
KAMP: So you mentioned Reimagine Austin. [00:37:03] And I think it's interesting where, I think that you and I both agree that Jose Garza could not have gotten elected without the issue of sexual assault being such a huge concern in Travis County. [00:37:18] But at the same time, his platform was moving away––as much as one can when one is a law enforcement official––from the idea of mass incarceration as a solution [00:37:33] to everything. I don't know if it's a contradiction, but certainly that intersection is so interesting to me, when it comes to this desire to work [00:37:48] toward ending mass incarceration, to work toward alternatives to the police. But at the same time, you know, people have felt like they never got justice for their sexual assault. So, [00:38:03] in talking with survivors, what have been some alternative ideas of justice that people have mentioned to you? Or that you think have been particularly interesting.
MARLOFF: Yeah. I think that, if I'm being [00:38:18] super honest, the conversations I've always had have been a little abstract still, which kind of makes sense. It's hard to make a cemented plan when that's not what's being put in place. But I know that [00:38:36] already 90% of survivors in Texas aren't seeking help from law enforcement to do this, so they're getting support, we hope, from other services, maybe it’s a church, maybe it's their community center, maybe it's their friends, maybe it's their parents. So I think a lot of what some people talk about, is making sure that, you know, all of the community systems are also built to support [00:39:06] survivors and have, like, if it is the church in, if there's a church in Austin that five survivors are at, making sure that people there are trained to deal with it and have an appropriate response. Because that person's, a priest’s response–––I'm not very good with religion, so forgive me [laughs]. But, you know, anyone in power, anyone that you go to for help, it could be your parents who could say the absolutely wrong thing and make you feel like it's your fault too. It doesn't have to be a cop. [00:39:36]
So I think it's really about––part of it is about changing a dialogue. How we treat survivors, how we respond to sexual assault. Part of it is about how we prevent sexual assault in the first place, and then part of it is also, like, what does justice look like for people who have been assaulted? A lot of times, it's complicated, I don't ever want to say it's not about the criminal justice system, because I think that really needs to be reformed, but then it's not everyone wanting someone to go to jail. Sometimes it's wanting your perp, the perpetrator, your rapist, to hear you say, like, You did this to me. I think [00:40:21] about even [Larry] Nasser, with the U.S. Olympics team, how many people spoke against him at his sentencing. And that's, to some extent, that justice, that cathartic-ism, [sic] that needs to come out and be able to say that. [00:40:36] I know one of the people, one of my sources that I've talked to a couple of times, has kind of said, like, Maybe if there was a more open dialogue for me to say to my rapist, This is what you did to me. Maybe it changes, maybe [00:40:51] they have to face what they did and hold it accountable in a different way.
And I think there are probably like, I've heard some people say there are always probably some people that shouldn't be intermixed with society, [00:41:06] but that's not really, that's not everybody, right? So how are we, how are we fixing the problem? Which is not really an answer to your question other than like, I don't know if there is an answer, but it's certainly not happening [00:41:21] now or currently as the systems in place. I think it's about asking survivors what they need. I don't, I don't know, I think––there's a survivor advisory board that’s statewide right now, [00:41:36] that's made up of between 17 and 22 survivors, all with very different stories, some who reported, some who didn't. And I think they’ll all tell you, maybe something slightly different, of what justice would have looked like for them. [00:41:51] And I think the thing that they can tell you is what justice does not look like. So I think we take what is, what do they need? And how do we help with that? And then also, how do we have these conversations so that less [00:42:06] people are raped and consent is more clearly known. How do we stop men from being rapists? Which is what I'm more interested in. Not that that's a conversation we have that often.
KAMP: I mean, when you do have that conversation [00:42:21] though, I mean, what do you think are things that we’re missing? Especially as you've observed, like, the Austin/Travis County area, like what do you think, the government, communities could be doing to make sure that it doesn't happen as frequently?
MARLOFF: I think that it's probably far beyond, like, Austin or Travis County. I think it's a continuation of not talking about it, right? [00:42:51] So it's like another snowball effect. We don't talk about it. We don't talk about sex with kids. We don't talk about consent unless it's like, Oh, you don't hit Jennifer on the playground, but like, sometimes, boys are allowed to hit girls because it's cute and that's how they have a crush [00:43:06] on you. Like, No. We don't do that. Let's have some healthy boundaries of like, yes and no. We shouldn't force people to hug creepy men, that they are like, No, you're scary, I don't want to hug you as a child, or anyone. [00:43:21] I think that we need to understand that survivors don't always look like the three of us, maybe. Survivors look, can look like anybody because survivors are anybody. And I think the same thing kind of goes for perpetrators, [00:43:37] you know? I think it's really––men are more often than not the rapist, but they're not the only ones, and it happens in like, the queer community. It happens in lesbian relationships, it happens in queer relationships, it happens in nonbinary relationships.
I think, again, it's about having probably uncomfortable talks with kids and really drilling into what consent is. I also think [00:44:07] it's changing the conversation for adults too, like, one of the biggest arguments you'll hear across the board of like, why rape cases are infamously hard to prosecute, because he-said-she-said. And you know, there's never a he-said-she-said in a burglary, right? Like, he definitely broke into your house, here are the fingerprints. But, like, somehow, rape is he-said-she-said and you have a jury that's desperate to believe he-said-she-said because, from what I have heard, it's that if Amy was wearing the wrong outfit, I can't be raped. If Amy did the wrong thing, my daughter can't be raped. [00:44:52] If, you know, she's lying then my son, my brother, my father, anyone, my men aren’t rapists. And so, there's a lot of––we like to victim blame because it takes [00:45:07] the pressure off of us to have those conversations with our kids, to worry about our kids, to worry about us.
And again, I think all the conversations we have around rape to this day are like, Do you have your nail polish that [00:45:22] you can dip into your drink to test if you've been roofied and, like, Did you walk home alone? And did you have a whistle around your neck? Remember to yell fire because no one will come if you yell––wouldn’t every time I go for a run, my car key is pushed out between my fingers, just casually, in case I'm casually raped. And it's not funny, but like, I think it's all of those things combined. We just don't address it to anyone in the right way and we don't––prosecutors aren't challenging juries to think past that. And so how are we ever going to change if we're not pushing those conversations?
KAMP: Yeah absolutely. And I know, in my own life [00:46:07] I've been so struck by how many people who have been sexually assaulted, they really internalize that narrative. And they think or they say, like, I think, What could I have done differently? Could I have been dressed differently? You know, and they replay the incident in their head from a feeling of, you know, This was my fault. I had agency here, and I should have made a different choice.
MARLOFF: Yep.
KAMP: So I think, kind of what you're saying. It's also teaching people that, when these things happen to you, it's not, it's not about, like, the choices that you made, necessarily. There's nothing that, as you said, I think [00:46:52] you quoted someone, probably in more than one of your articles, one of your early articles, you know, I’ve passed out, that doesn't give you the right to rape me. Like there's nothing that I can do that gives you the right to sexually assault me.
MARLOFF: Right. I should be able to go to Sixth Street and [00:47:07] get drunk and not get raped because men can do that. I should be able to wear a skirt! If I want to walk naked
Down Sixth Street, I should be able to and not get raped, you know?
KAMP: Right. Yeah. Another thing that you said that struck me, and you’ve heard about this before, is that there's an idea of a rape victim, which is often a feminine white woman. And then there's reality of who's a rape victim. And I think that [00:47:37] certainly from my perspective, we haven't done a great idea as a society of making clear what the reality is, versus that idea. What do you think could be done to make that reality clearer? What do you think is something that all of us can be doing to make sure that we're not ignoring the reality of victims that are different than the idea in our hands?
MARLOFF: Is ending systemic racism and transphobia [laughs] too big of a statement to make? Because that would be the, that's the root, right? I think it's remembering that what can we do is being like, everyone got to where they are in a different path, right? Like, we all reach wherever we get to in life [00:48:39] on our own terms, on our own journeys, whatever disaster life throws at us, or trauma. So I think, sometimes it's learning to hold your judgment, like [00:48:54] sex workers can be raped. What? They work in sex work so how can they be raped? Well, because that's still not how it always works, right? And so being able to look past the things that again you hear [00:49:09] on TV, you've been taught, you see, and just listening to people's stories, listening to what they tell you. I don't know if it's SAFE or APD or who started it first. But there's a tag line somewhere in Austin of, like, start by believing, which is corny. But also true.
[Material Removed]
And I think like, it's just not always as cut and dry as media or TV or whatever makes it out to be. And then I think that if you're [00:51:09] going back to power systems, we have to see some of those cases move forward. One of my, an advocat [Material Removed] told me once that in her––this was last year, so February 2020. But [00:51:24] as of February 2020, in the ten years that she had been doing advocacy work around sexual assault in Austin, she never saw a single case with a Black survivor go to court. What does that tell Black survivors? There are already, if you're Black you're already fighting systemic racism, you're already fighting––If I call the cops and something happened to me, are they going to shoot me when they get here? So we already just have so many, there's so many [00:51:54] steps against certain people getting to report and getting to be believed. If we can't walk in and get believed, why would, you know, people who have even more oppression believe that they could? [00:52:09] So I think we just have to start trying to change who we believe gets raped, and understanding that it happens to everybody.
KAMP: So another thing that I wanted to discuss, and we had [00:52:24] talked about this a little before the interview, was the notion of vicarious trauma, and how, when you're writing about these topics, when you're interviewing about these topics, you know, you're obviously not the person who directly experienced the violence but sometimes taking on that role of listener, of somebody who's going to go tell that story, can feel and is genuinely traumatizing. I wanted to know how your experience of that has been, and if there have been ways in which you have been able to kind of mitigate those effects.
MARLOFF: Yeah. I think I actually just want to say thank you for saying that also, like [00:53:09] sometimes, you know, I think I try to play it off a lot but, like, it's real. It is really real. You do get affected. I'm not even sure if I would have called it trauma before you said it, but I do get a lot of vicariness, like I don't feel good. I've had a lot of, I've cut out a lot of, like, pop culture in my life because of it. I don't watch things like SVU anymore. It can't even be on in my house. [00:53:41] I think it was season two of The Handmaid's Tale, and I made it into the third episode and I was like, I can't, I just, I cannot do this. It took me two year––like, a year to watch that Netflix [00:53:56] show, Unbelievable, which is actually about a Propublica story that made me want to write about sexual assault and, like, emphasize how you write well about sexual assault. If you haven't read it, everyone should read it. But halfway through the first episode, I was like, Oh my god, I know this story but like––and I had like nine people who were like You cover this, you're gonna love this story, watch it. And I was like, I can't, I haven't watched, I May Destroy You because it's really real. I feel like I live these stories every day. I live them. I feel them. One of the girls in the sexual assault lawsuit was kidnapped and raped by a rideshare driver. And I remember even after reading that lawsuit that day, I had to take a Lyft to the office. Like, do you know how terrifying it is to get into a [rideshare] right after you meet about someone getting raped in a [rideshare].
It’s real and, you know, you have to do––my job, first and foremost, is to make the people talking to me and sharing this trauma with me feel safe and comfortable. And so I'm holding a lot of that for them and I happily do it, but there's a lot of things that means, like––I'm not a big comedy person and now I'm, like, maybe comedy is the way I need to go. Like, I can't watch heavy dramas anymore.[00:55:26] Love a Marvel movie. And sometimes I think I probably stress, like, my wife out but I just, I need to talk about it sometimes. I have a lot of anger in me about it. As I think I told [00:55:41] you on the phone earlier, like I talk about this stuff for hours. Sometimes to the point where I think like, I get so far in the weeds and my wife is like, What are you talking about? But it's just, there needs to be some kind of outlet for it. I also work out a lot, which is a good way for me to like––I do a lot of like kickboxing and stuff like that. It's a good way of being like, just punch something until you're not mad. And by punch something, I mean punch the air. But yeah, it's really, [00:56:12] it's a lot.
And I think sometimes just making space to be like, Today sucked. Because like, I think two Sundays ago, I talked to someone about her assault for a story and afterwards, someone asked me, like, You seemed, you were kind of down today. And I was like, Oh, no, I just had a rough day, a tough interview. Like it's just, it's hard. It sits with you.
KAMP: I think one of our colleagues refers to it as like an interview hangover, you know. Where it's like you kind of just need, kind of just need a while to decompress.
MARLOFF: Yep. Sit in a dark, dark room. Maybe a cup of tea, glass of wine, pick your poison [laughs] And breathe.
KAMP: Yeah. But you know, I know that there's so much more to, I mean, what you do at The Chronicle, what you do in your life. You know, you are a person who in my opinion, you know, does have a lot. You do find a lot of joy in things. You wrote, it’s Qmmunity now, but when we started, it was Gay Place. And so, like, I'm curious to know, what are the things that you really find joy in, and take you out of this?
MARLOFF: Oh, that's a great question. I find joy in a lot of things. Working out is a really great way for me to like––as I also just have a lot of anxiety in general; most writers do, I feel like. But, that usually helps me and it's a good place. I usually do it after I work, like after the work day too and I think it does help me like, transition and clear my head. I have a really awesome little Chiweenie [00:58:00] and she's my favorite thing in the world. But you know, I'm also hugely involved in the queer community. And I actually, I came into reporting and covering the queer community in a very different way. Like, when I first started as a blogger in DC, my friend who started the blog was like, We're never going to write about the bad stuff, like fuck that, [00:58:30] basically, you know? We're only going to write about the joys, the things to celebrate, the parties, the fun stuff. And we have a lot of fun. And sometimes I really enjoy that like, that has been mostly where I've gotten to continue my attention for reporting on the queer community. Like, there's so much awful stuff that happens every day in that community. But there's also so much good, and really getting to feel like that space is like, my little [00:59:00] spot where I get to be me and covered in glitter and ridiculous and home.
But yeah, there's a lot that's, you know, there are lots of different ways. I go outside and try to get lost as much as possible [00:59:15] to be like, I try to hide my phone under pillows after work days so that no one can talk to me. Trying to unplug, trying to just accept that some days, I'm not in a good headspace and accept that and you know, [00:59:30] find my people or read a book, whatever I need––giving myself that space to be like, You don't have to always be okay. So, yeah.
KAMP: And so, I guess like, one, final question that I have is, what would justice look like for you? I know that in your work you want to center survivors, but for you like, [01:00:00] would there be a point where you feel like Yeah, you know, we've moved toward a more just world for people who are victims of sexual assault?
MARLOFF: Yeah, I think that, I think it would be believing, right? I think that it would be, you know, taking someone's story at face value. And I understand our criminal just[ice system], like we have to prosecute cases and don't want to throw innocent people in jail [01:00:30] and I'm a hundred percent for that. But I think that, I wish––sexual assault is the only crime that I can think of where we don't believe the victim automatically. And I think that that's also convenient that it happens to be a thing that's placed on, more often than not, women's bodies. So I would like to see more of just a belief, more of a, you know, We understand that something really bad happened. And I think that a lot of survivors that I have talked to kind of agree that or have said, like, You know, it might not be about like, that my case gets prosecuted, but it's about feeling like I was listened to, feeling like I was treated humanely, having a detective call me back, having the DA's office call me back. Having someone sit down and explain to me and [01:01:30] like, talk me through, why it's not going to move forward. Things like that are really important.
I think, you know, I also––and I don't have an answer on this one, but I constantly think like, what do we want from rapists? Like, other than for them to not exist, but like, is there anything that, like Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein or, you know, Woody Allen, whatever, but like, all of them––is there anything that they could do or say even like, Louis CK? What does, like moving forward, what does reformative justice really [01:02:15] look like? What do, what do––and I think that it's because I've never actually really seen a rapist say, I did that. I acknowledge that I did that and I'm sorry. Or even like I did it you know, I think that like the first step––I have no idea what I want from them because I want ownership before everything else. And I think that like, so often I was just like, a couple months––last summer, the head, you know, Power Bottom? They were a big like, queer band. Heartbreaking when that came out. The singer, who was accused of sexual assault, released a solo album last year after, you know, hiding for two years or three years. And, you know, they came out and said like, I've done XYZ, but there was never ownership. There was never a, I did this. It was always a, She lied, she lied, I didn't do that. I would never do that. I would never do that.
And I'm just like, this many women aren't lying. That's, I feel, basically impossible. So someone else is lying and I just––how many [01:03:30] women have accused Harvey Weinstein, has he said one word about raping anyone, you know? So I think for me a lot of that is being like, I think the first step is I want to hear rapists hold themselves accountable. And then, I think they should get to hear how what they did made their survivors feel. If that is a thing that a survivor would want to do. And I think justice is also going to, again the route of being like, Let's figure [01:04:01] out how to eliminate rape as much as humanly possible. It needs to be a conversation that men and trans people and queer people and like, everyone needs to be having it, right? It can't just be [01:04:16] cis women in a room together talking about it. It has to be bigger than that.
KAMP: Yeah, you know, and I've thought about that a lot, about what you were saying, about wanting people to just acknowledge what they did. And I personally think, [01:04:31] you know, our criminal justice system makes that so hard. Like, no lawyer on Earth would say, Oh yeah, admit it, it'll be fine. There's a real cost to admitting it.
MARLOFF: Mm-Hmm. And what if that was like––what if you could go into, a mediation room and you couldn't––a person could admit it and the survivor could get to have that conversation and maybe that's all they need. Maybe they don't want to have a trial [01:05:02] where everyone's life is ripped apart in front of people. Like, maybe they just need to have some ownership of what happened to them. And I just think yeah, our criminal justice system, it's not set up for anyone to win that, right?
KAMP: Yeah. Absolutely. Well I think that that's all the questions that I have. So I just want to thank you for answering all my questions [inaudible] and thoughtfully. I really appreciate it. Murphy, were there any questions that you wanted to ask?
CARTER: Yeah, I have one or two things and I think––thank you so much, by the way, Amy. I feel like I was just falling into such a rhythm where you get so engrossed and I'm just listening so close. I get––my face gets closer and closer to the screen. But I am so grateful, Sarah, that you mentioned, you know, the word accountability, right? Or you said accountable. And so kind of coming up against these ideas of like, the idea of justice as being this thing that feels like we don't get to see what that can and could and should and would and all the subjunctive mood things, look like, and the idea of accountability as well. This thing that we're trying to figure out what that can look like.
And so something that I, just from listening to everything you've described, you know, you talked about how the stories in your reporting complicates ideas of what a survivor's [01:06:32] story is, you know. So some of this work that you're doing is about breaking down these ideas and making them real and showing people how they're real. You know, when you get into a Lyft and how you live with the reality behind all of that. And so [01:06:47] I was just curious, if you––to talk about like a story, and to talk about even a conversation of accountability as a story, what you feel in your experience, like you see survivors [01:07:02] after you’ve published their stories. And these survivor-centered stories, what the conversation with your sources has been like, and what the experience of having published or shared those, what that does to change them [01:07:17] or you know, or maybe not to change anything. But I'm kind of curious about that, after their shared piece. I don't know if you want to speak to that at all.
MARLOFF: Yeah. I want to do it in like, the [01:07:32] most––it's heavy afterwards. I used to get nauseous on print days, especially when a big piece came out. [Material Removed]
I don't know if there was ever like, a cathartic release. I think a lot of times, I worry that for some of these survivors to share their stories with me, and to change minds and hearts or whatever about sexual assault, it's part of like, re-traumatizing themselves. Like I still have to put something about the fact that they were raped in 2015 in the piece and they still have to hear their writing of saying, This is hard and traumatic and this is where someone let me down. So I always just hope that they feel as good as possible at the end of it too. Because I'm not sure that, either me or the survivor gets to walk away being like, Yeah, that was great. The hope is that everyone who picks up the story, maybe believes that they should go vote, or they should be involved in what's happening, or when their daughter or best friend or anyone that they know says [01:10:49] I was assaulted, they try to say something helpful. They know where to go, they want, they just expect a better response.
CARTER: Thank you and so much, I think, of being able to tell your own story in its own way as well and how that can interplay with, you know, with healing as a potential or still interplaying, knowing that trauma is something that doesn't necessarily go away. It's not just the one year, right? So I really appreciate all the care and devotion that you're describing.
I only have one other question for you, and it's maybe a little bit more specific to you in light of the past year. [01:11:34] But particularly, as we've all been navigating what the pandemic has done for so many of these issues that we follow and so many of the advocacy efforts that we try to put forth. I was curious, how you feel over the past year, the pandemic [01:11:49] has affected the way that you're able to report about these things, or even affected some of your sources’ experiences or even just, what kind of stories you're finding are emerging, as a result of, you know, these already incredibly difficult situations and then throw in, you know, a pandemic on top of it all. And so I want to make sure that I opened that up for you as well.
MARLOFF: No, it's a good question. [01:12:21] I think it's definitely, it's just been a whole bag of stuff, right? Like not all of it has been bad. I spoke about the statewide survivor advisory board [01:12:36] that managed to get off the ground and started in a pandemic. I don't know if they've even met in person yet, or if all of them are through Zoom. But like, so there have been some wins despite a pandemic. There was a record number, or massive turnout, where Jose Garza won in a landslide. I do have to say, I think that had a little bit to do with Black Lives Matter as well. I think those two things combined, really had a lot of power in Austin.
[Material Removed]
And then you have, you know, I don't know the numbers for Austin specifically for domestic violence or sexual assault, but I know that across the country, domestic violence was on the rise in the pandemic. Like, quarantining at home with someone who is violent, only got worse, and people probably got more violent, especially under intense amounts of stress, because who wasn't under intense amount of stress last year. I know in DC that the reports for 2020 for sexual assault are lower by like, roughly 700 last year, and it's because you couldn't––were you going to go to a hospital for a SANE exam if you know there's a pandemic going on? Probably not. So I think, I don't think we really know what the fallout is yet, but I think that over the next year, we will see it more and more. But I think that it's pretty safe to say that just because there was a pandemic happening didn't mean that, like, this stuff didn't continue, and that it added to probably getting swept under the rug.
And also, like some people need, you know, therapy for––if you're in therapy, some people really need to be in a room with their therapist. Some people love Zoom and Telehealth. I'm sure that those strains are probably really hard on people going through any kind of trauma. Like being cut off from your community and your friends. I think it was just, in general, a really hard year and if you have any other kind of trauma on that, it was amplified. [01:15:39]
CARTER: That's my last question.
KAMP: Is there anything that you want to add, Sarah? That we haven't covered that you think we should have covered?
MARLOFF: No, I think I've even like––no, I even wrote down things that I think are really important. But no, I think these really hit on all the stuff. I think that it's really important to believe someone when they say they were raped, and I think that it's really important to talk about it. And I just hope that the narrative [01:16:09] starts to change. And hopefully this helps.
KAMP: Well, I know, I mean again, I know that a lot of people here in the area feel that you have done so much to help. So, thank you.
MARLOFF: Thank you. I'm glad to hear it.
[INTERVIEW ENDS]
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
People:
Sarah MarloffLocation Description:
North America--United States--Texas--Travis County--Austin
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Texas After Violence ProjectCategory
Activism and Advocacy, US Criminal Legal System, Surviving Violence, Visions of JusticeProtocol:
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Austin Police Department, Austin, TX, Journalists, Travis County, TX, Reimagining Public Safety, Policing, Justice Reform, Sexual Assault, Sexual Assault Forensic ExamOriginal Date:
2021 June 4thCreator:
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
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Texas After Violence ProjectIdentifier:
tav00121Type:
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