Biden’s letter strikes perfect note

By Heidi Stevens

Chicago Tribune

I’ve read Joe Biden’s letter to the Stanford rape survivor a dozen times, trying to put my finger on why it feels like a turning point.

It’s beautifully written. (“We will make lighthouses of ourselves, as you did – and shine.”)

It’s unequivocal. (“What you endured is never, never, never, NEVER a woman’s fault.”)

It’s even optimistic. (“Your story has already changed lives. You have helped change the culture.”)

It’s all those things, but it’s more. It’s a powerful man with no new office to gain and no new voters to win talking about rape from the second-highest office in the land.

Not just talking about rape. Talking to a woman who was raped. Talking to all women who’ve been raped. Talking to them because their stories and their humanity matter.

It feels like a turning point because we’ve spent the last week watching as the Stanford rapist’s smile and swim stats shape him into a fully formed, multi-dimensional 20-year-old, even as his victim remains nameless and known for just one thing – the awful crime she endured.

It feels like a turning point because at this time last year, we were mired in a debate over YesAllWomen, an attempt by women to share their stories of violence and harassment in response to the Santa Barbara shootings. The stories were shouted down, virtually, by NotAllMen, a hashtag that missed the point altogether.

In 2014, I interviewed Anne Ream about her newly released book, “Lived Through This: Listening to the Stories of Sexual Violence Survivors” (Beacon Press), in which she bears witness to 18 stories of rape.

“For every person testifying in this book, there’s nothing to be gained but a sense that they’ve been heard,” Ream told me at the time. “There’s no way to understand this as anything other than people standing up, one by one, and saying, ‘I need you to understand this because what’s happening to me is happening to other people.’”

Ream is also a survivor. She was kidnapped and raped when she was 25 and living in Washington, D.C.

“Being truly heard will change your life,” she writes in her book. “Which means that someone has to do the listening.”

“It’s a hard thing to listen – truly listen – to another person,” she continues. “It often means getting so close to their suffering that it breaks our own hearts. But inside our open, broken hearts – that’s where compassion lives.”

It feels like a turning point to witness that compassion from a vice president.

I hope we use the moment to move in a better, more humane direction.

Heidi Stevens is a columnist at the Chicago Tribune. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC