why the debate made me cry

In sixth grade, my reading teacher was named Mrs. Gillis. She was stern, ancient, given to bouts of yelling, possessed of an impossibly straight spine. She also occasionally stepped out of the classroom and left us, 30 eleven and twelve year olds, to work independently for excruciatingly long minutes at a time. Because of her prison warden approach to teaching, students were especially tempted to raise hell every time she turned her back. Often, I braced myself for chaos. 

One day early in the school year, and thus early in my tenure at a rough urban middle school, a boy who shall remain unnamed took advantage of one of those unmonitored moments to jump out of his seat, scurry over and squat down next to mine, grab the bottom of my wide-hemmed blouse, pull it out, and look right up it. 

I remember the shirt. It was Espirit. It was turquoise and sleeveless and had buttons up the back. Despite my weird shy white girl status, I felt very cool wearing it. But it turns out that fashion cannot save you from meanness. That boy nearly put his whole head up inside my new name brand shirt, then pulled back, looked up at me and said: Girl! You ain't got no bra on! You need a bra! 

And then, booming, to the class at large: She don't wear no bra.

A week or two after that, I was in reading, bent over my work. The classroom, organized into long rows of desks, was full and quiet. Mrs. Gillis was writing on the board. Suddenly I felt a sharp yank on my hair from behind. The same boy had grabbed my ponytail and pulled. He pulled so hard that my desk slammed backwards into the two empty desks behind me, sending all three desks, in their cold metal feet, squealing and scraping across the linoleum floor. What an awful sound.

It echoed in the quiet class. Mrs. Gillis' back was turned when it happened. She yelled at us for being disruptive.

Again, I only remember my stunned silence. Fight, flight, or freeze. (I think freezing is my specialty.) But the thing is, I knew I was powerless. Mrs. Gillis was old and pissed; she didn't want the details. My tormentor, a boy who for reasons unknown spent a few awful weeks picking on me in terrible ways, was a fast-talking, skinny, tough, charismatic kid with not a lot of capacity for self-control. That school was a place where violence was commonplace and normalized. Other kids thought he was funny. Hell, sometimes I thought he was funny. He had a kind of social smarts and influence that emboldened him to push boundaries all the time. 

In those awful moments, it seemed there was nothing I could do to regain any power or sense of safety. There was no comeback I could invent to reestablish a shred of social standing; there was no gesture I could make to protect myself; there was no adult to appeal to for help. 

Maybe in the end he was caught, or suffered some consequence. Honestly, I don't remember the aftermath of either episode. I mostly remember the feeling of silent helplessness and shame, unable to secure help, unable to even find words to defend myself with. And I know I never went to school training bra-less again.

I had forgotten about that kid. Until last night, in the middle of a conversation with Mike about the debate, he came back. 

Watching Trump stalk around Clinton, listening to him make assertions and bluster and interrupt and throw up his hands, was profoundly uncomfortable. I loved Hillary more than I ever have as I watched, because she kept her calm in the face of that menace. At one point I was afraid he was going to push her. How does she do it? How does she stand there, just a few feet away, and smile calmly?

I know I'm not alone when I say the debates are tough for me to watch. 

Afterwards, we talked about how it doesn't seem to matter what Trump says. His support doesn't seem linked to the content of his speech. That's why he can say anything he wants. It seems to be more about the assertion of power. As long as he appears powerful and confident, it just doesn't matter. So coming back at him with information, or policy details, or TRUTH, means very little - at least in terms of "winning" in the crudest sense.

I felt increasingly despairing as we talked. How can it be that so many people admire the worst kind of man? I wondered: what would a noble and effective response be? What could Hillary honorably do in these debates that would somehow make him less appealing, less valid? Because truly, I told Mike, he is just like a blustering mean boy in school. He is the kind of enraging person that it can feel impossible to win against. He is a person that makes you fear there is no justice.

I started crying. I felt a kind of helplessness, unable to imagine what another woman could do in the face of this charismatic, shameless meanness, with TV cameras running and millions of people watching her every blink in order to tweet about it.

And then I remembered that boy announcing to the class, after a careful, forced investigation, that I was not wearing a bra. 

Hilary handles Trump way better than I handled that bully. But the very idea that a presidential candidate could stir up that memory makes me want to cry all over again. 

We let Frances watch the beginning of the debate. I regret it. How can a mother protect her girls (and boys) from the worst kind of men, when PBS broadcasts one of them stalking the floor of a presidential debate? And what more would that lost boy in the sixth grade have been tempted to try, if he had been emboldened by the example set in 2016?