The other night I did a reading and, as I listened to the venue host introducing me (with information I had provided), I had a question that remains with me. One of my credits involves the name of a man now tainted by #MeToo accusations. Well, the accusations had enough credibility that he lost his popular radio program and the newer, smaller radio spot that focused on poetry. I was one of the poets whose work was selected to be featured on that spot and, later, be included in an anthology alongside other poets whose work I admire. And I’m left with a credit that doesn’t shine as brightly as it once did. It was a credit I was rightly proud of. And now it leaves a small sourness and a question: should I continue to use it? Mine is the most minor of damages, but it makes me wonder about the fallout for others.
Of course I am sure my answer is yes, I will continue to list that credit. And my puny discomfort, in the face of his misdeeds, is small potatoes. Not even half a french fry. But what about all those innocent others? Not only the other poets whose credit, like mine, carries this unseen asterisk, but the people who worked for him, whose livelihood was upended by his selfishness in being a thoughtless jerk. And, of course, all the other perpetrators and all the others who to any extent depended on them? My experience was at a complete distance; my contact with the office of the man in question was a woman, who now possibly is without that job because of his actions.
Someone close to me worked for years for the man whose name most symbolizes the #MeToo outrages. We haven’t specifically discussed this but I’m guessing that, unlike me, she is comfortable with that credit on her impressive resume, maybe because her employer’s sins were so outsize, like his personality, that it was a badge of honor to have worked for him and survived.
There were those who were complicit, who, cowed by the power of the violators, took no action to protect or support real and potential victims. But with those men who acted like jerks and worse, their bad behavior rippled out to touch innocent men and women. My career and my income did not depend on someone else’s behavior, but other people’s did.
I live in a building where I think often of the Paul Simon line, “One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.” Yes, this too, in actions as in construction. I only have this tiny injury if I could even call it that, inflicted at great distance from someone I will never have actual contact with. Still, along with my minor accomplishments I carry this less than minor scar, the tarnish of a credit discredited.