I Am Tiffany Trump

What Happens When You Love a Monster

I am Tiffany Trump.

Ok. I’m not. I’m really, really not. She is a white girl born to the highest echelons of privilege that a lower middle class black girl like myself can only dream of reaching.

Even if the book deal of my dreams goes through,

And it gets made into a trilogy of movies,

And inspires the kind of following that makes Harry Potter such a powerhouse so many years after J.K. Rowling finished with “All was well.”

I could never come close to the kind of scratch her family is worth.

But she is me, and I am her. And we share only two similarities thrown in sharp relief this past Sunday.

She is a woman.

And she has a fucked up dad.

The above gif is making the rounds on Twitter. Tweeted and re-tweeted with the kind of commentary most if not all women are familiar with:

A man wants your attention, your physical contact. You don’t, but at the same time you realize completely physically rebuffing him might cause you more problems than you want to deal with. Perhaps he might make a scene. Perhaps he might take what he wants, forcing you into an embarrassing hug or kiss that’s far beyond what you were initially willing to suffer. Perhaps he’ll just make the rest of the night unbearably awkward.

Whatever the mental calculus you perform, you end up compromising with yourself. You give him the contact he wants but on your terms. And the result is the gif above.

I know this move. He leans in for paternal cheek kiss but you turn your head, leaning away, pretending you’ve heard your name called by a relative or your attention has been temporarily stolen by that interesting swatch of carpet on the floor. Whatever your excuse, the movement is quick and you lean far enough away to make any attempts for him to kiss you be too much an effort, an unnatural movement of the body.

He pulls back, but you have to mollify him somehow because no matter how masterful you are at this curve, it still looks weird. So you rub his arm, a tacit and nonverbal smoothing over of the previous seconds’ awkwardness. It’s an apology even though you’ve done nothing wrong. An acknowledgement of: ‘Yeah this isn’t what you wanted, but at least I didn’t embarrass you by denying you outright.’

Can you tell I know this move?

Much has been made of the reasons behind Tiffany’s side-hug-not-hug. Maybe someone really was calling her name at the precise time she turned her head. Or maybe she finds her father just as repugnant as I do after recordings of him reveal his penchant for sexually assaulting women.

I’ll make no assumptions to Tiffany’s motives, and for her sake, I hope it’s the more innocent of the two.

But if not,

Girl. I feel you.

I, too, have a repugnant father, one who’s track record of abusing women is also a matter of public record.

I, like Tiffany, am a woman forced to reconcile the sanctity of that womanhood against the sanctity of my familial bonds.

What comes first? Which do you uphold?

What happens when the anger you feel as a woman against men who sexually, physically, emotionally, and verbally assault women directly conflicts with the love you feel as a daughter for the man who is your father?

What the hell are you supposed to do?

For some, that answer is easy one way or the other. And I envy those women. I wish I could write him off completely or completely ignore the transgressions he likes to say all the time ‘happened in the past’ or that ‘all men do’.

But I can’t. I just can’t.

I exist at the center of a maelstrom of constant rage and constant sorrow. It’s maddening sometimes. You’re excited for to share your achievements with him but blanch at the idea of spending Thanksgiving with him. When you call him to make sure he’s okay, that he’s eating, going to the doctor, how his shoulder’s doing after that surgery, but midway through the conversation you are sickened by the sound of his voice.

How do you reconcile such a violent dichotomy?

I’ve never been a victim of his physical abuse, but I’ve witnessed it first hand and the damage it’s left behind. Occasions that, when confronted, he constantly denies happening thereby casting my shadow in his gaslight.

And I have been his beloved daughter. His baby girl. His pride and joy. Born on his birthday. The best gift he ever got as he tells anyone who ever asks.

So what you get, when those disparate emotions mix, is very much like the gif above. The half hug, the arm stroke. The defiant concession.

The kind of things that say without saying,

I hate my father.

But,

Damn

I love my father too.