“Shooting the messenger” or “killing the messenger” or in any way blaming the bearer of bad news is a metaphoric (we hope) phrase used to describe the act of blaming the bearer or bringer of bad tidings, despite the messenger having no direct responsibility for the bad news – or for the bad thing/event/etc. that happened being, after all, JUST THE MESSENGER.
Studying this phrase seems apt in the age of Dumpster Fire as he surrounds himself with ass-kissing good news bearers, only – but the idea of killing the messenger first appears in Plutarch’s (49 ish – 119 A.D.) Lives “The first messenger, that gave notice of Lucullus’ coming was so far from pleasing Tigranes that he had his head cut off for his pains, and no man dared to bring further information. Without any intelligence at all, Tigranes sat while war was already blazing around him, giving ear only to those who flattered him.” Sound familiar?
But why am I researching the phrase, versions of which are used twice by the great Will Shakespeare (Anthony & Cleopatra and Henry IV, pt. 2)? Well, I’ll tell ya. Someone I know unfriended me on Fakebook, which I noticed about a year ago and let go of – doing nothing – because she’s 30 years younger than I am, we don’t socialize in real life, and while I like her and her husband – y’know what? Fuck it. Social media ‘friendships’ or ‘followings’ are not real, or real life, and if I have offended her in some way, them’s the breaks! And then, in the process of paying my tax bill, there she was, working behind the counter, a recent hire as deputy town clerk. I congratulated her on her new job and we chatted for a brief moment about that, and then – because why not – I said, “So, A_______, I noticed months ago that you unfriended me on social media, why was that?”
Well, she was upset because when Mr. T___________ died I revealed in this blog that he had sexually assaulted me the summer after I graduated high school, along with grooming a handful or more of other female children while working as a vocal music instructor at our mutual alma mater, and that really bothered her.
Huh? What?
Saying something bad about him after he died! It’s just wrong, unfair, and very upsetting.
Imagine how I felt, A___________, when that fat brotherfcker rolled over on top of me in his low slung auto – and in my parents’ driveway, no less, Mr. Respectably Married Man whose wife was also my teacher, who was a customer of my father, who went to my church, who was a colleague of my mother, who manipulated me into accepting a ride that night – a ride my mom insisted I accept because there was an energy crisis on and – well – y’know!! I was safe with him, right? Uh, no. Yes, imagine that, A_______________, you young, self-righteous mother of two young daughters.
But I didn’t say that.
Instead I said “Hey, I admit he did a lot of good things for the community during his life and tenure at the school, and that lots of people loved him. I did not.
I also didn’t say the following because we were in a public place and no one, no one wants to talk about this shit, including me but in case you didn’t know, A_________, it’s called grooming, that public facing bullshit niceness and good guyness! Because the truth is, he wasn’t nice, he used his position in that school and in the community to groom more than one female CHILD AND TAUGHT SUBSEQUENT GROOMING PREDATORS BY EXAMPLE, and because of that, the sexual abuse of female children at our mutual alma mater went on for another 40-fucking-years.
I did say, “I’m sorry you’re upset, A________________. But it happened.” And then I left. I left and felt myself getting angrier and angrier because – wtf?! I get assaulted at 18 by not just one but two of my recent high school teachers, it takes me years to come clean about it, and heal (still working on it, quite frankly) – yet – you’re upset I disrespected that fcker in a blog after he died? LOL. It felt like, in those first moments after I left town hall, that I was being punished yet again for what he did. Because I was.
Deep breaths.
Women and girls are never just the messengers when we tell on male perpetrators. We are perpetrators, too – by upsetting the dominant group (white men), and their many, many fans. We are hurting others by making people re-think or reconsider their heroes, forcing them to face the unpleasant reality of life’s messiness and the shitty nature of many men (oh, not all men – but always men) in our lives and culture. I’m still angry at her. Blaming me, punishing me because my timing wasn’t right on exposing that POS in her limited view? Puh-leeze.
That is, however, how the patriarchy works. It’s designed to protect and elevate male needs, including their need to seem like good guys, always, no matter how shitty they actually are or were, and it’s working as designed, almost all the fucking time.