To Bill and Others Like Him

You confessed. You hurt people. You terrorized them, you were their nightmare. You trampled upon the bodies of women as if their tears were as worthless to everyone as they were to you. And you said you did it. But you thought no one would ever read your admittance. You thought your violence was private because that's what sick folks always think. So you were bewildered when we drug you out to the light, to deal with your political acts of hate against these bodies. Bodies you believed had no value, no self determination, so you deprived them of their rights. But you were wrong. 

The public deserves to be protected from folks like you, the things that go bump in the night and are real. We must deal with people like you and this violence. Why should we feel invested in you? Defend you? You derided us in public. You spoke against us. You spewed hate against our community. You did not want to be part of us. Time and time again, you let us down. You ruined your legacy and now you will be erased from the annals of history and we are better for it. 

You have hurt people. People who matter to us. We will not make that okay. Our young men cannot look up to you to become like you, in a world where everyone already sees them as the monsters you actually are. Our daughters cannot call you father in a world that tells them it is their place to be abused, that they are as useless as you say they are. We are not criminals so we do not relate to you. We will not pardon you. We who are not rapists do not identify with you. We will not mourn you. 

You are a reminder that we should love ourselves and cast out the violence that hides amongst us. That we should clean house of those like you. That we should drag them out of the dark spaces in our families and communities where they hide. You are a corrosive form of violence which hurts so many in our community and we should speak about this violence, we should not hide it. You are a reminder that we should stand against others like you. That we must cast you each out from among us. That you are killing us inside out. 

We do not need you. We have many black stars who will take your place. We are full of talent, and novas, and magic, and role models. But you are not one of them.