This update has been one I have been wanting to write for a long time but I’ve been worried I won’t find the right words - in the end though, the message is too important, even if there will never be the exact right words, and it will never be the exact right time.
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First and foremost, we are still sitting here three months out from the Illinois Court Commission (a tribunal)’s ruling to remove ex-judge Robert K Adrian directly from his office just, like…. ecstatic about that decision. I mean, I’m kind of planning to continue telling people about it any time possible. Indefinitely. I’ll be 85 years old sitting in the sun porch off the cafeteria where I go to put together jigsaw puzzles and watch the birds after my 2pm pudding and ask the kind orderly, “Did I tell you about that time I really put it to that blasphemous old coot of a judge, Young Master William?” I had a custom “JUDGE SLAYER” shirt made. Suffice to say, I am glad the truth won.
But also >> It’s insane what a crumb it is to prize that a child, her family, her friends, a very small core group of unaffiliated private citizens, and a rather large international group of supporters had to fight tooth and nail for, cumulatively, 2.75 years to see our lawful rights upheld, when…. that’s what we pay for a judicial system to do in the first place. And what a pity it is that in the end, another rapist was able to skirt out of the lawful consequences of their actions.
It’ll never be exactly right.
But it sure could be a hell of a lot better.
And what gets us to that place is us. All of us. We’re not fighting to see a democrat win or a republican win. We’re not fighting Catholics versus Agnostics. There is nothing to gain pitting men against women, or Americans versus refugees, or divide our numbers by ethnicities, or gender identities, or any of that stuff - we don’t have time for any of that. We just need everybody to put aside whatever urges to say “my thoughts are superior to your thoughts” and figure it out, together.
Because this one case, this one time did eventually lead to some accountability (concessions aside), but it HAS to be apparent that if this is how difficult the entire system made the process, how long it took, how many people and offices handed it off to some other office and some other office said they didn’t have any power to help - then where does that leave survivors who don’t have their families and friends to support them? How many survivors have been shamed, intimidated, and physically prevented from ever seeking justice? How many don’t survive?
What kind of justice system do we have when perpetrators are not held accountable and those wronged often feel like it wouldn’t make anything better (/could make things much worse) to seek justice?
We can make this better. And the most important thing is to keep speaking out and turning up. Never lose hope. If you’re told to be quiet, question why it is that person doesn’t want your voice heard. If the truth isn’t actively winning, silence only helps the wrong thing continue to happen.
I’ll never stop being impressed and proud of one intensely fierce and brave teenage girl who stood in front of the Adams County Courthouse in Quincy Illinois and said THIS ENDS HERE.
Amazingly well done.
And although life is always going to be full of twists and turns, although there will be days when the sun just won’t shine, you won’t know the right words to say or the best answers to the hardships - there will be so, so much love; there will be laughter so hard you can’t stop; there will be loud music blaring with the windows all the way down; there will be so many good things that happen along the way that it would be impossible to count them.
And remember,
Should you need us….
We will ALWAYS
#StandWithCammy
💟