By Mansfield Frazier
The decade of traumatizing violence Michelle Knight (along with Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus) experienced at the hand of a diabolical monster is something few people — thankfully — will ever go through. Thank god she has emerged as safe and strong as she has, determined to move ahead with her life on her own terms. That’s an opportunity every human being deserves.
However, the route she is selecting to achieve this independence is puzzling, to say the least, and perhaps foretells of troubling times ahead for this brave young woman.
After her rescue she soon parted ways with the other two former captors, which certainly was her right. But some of her other decisions are questionable at best. She penned a best-selling memoir and appeared on Dr. Phil, but now she says she simply wants to be left alone, to be able to fade into obscurity; unfortunately, the world simply doesn’t work that way. No one can turn the hot spotlight of fame (or infamy) on and off whenever they so desire.
Even her plea for anonymity, broadcast far and wide in a Plain Dealer article (along with her photo) somehow rings hollow. If you don’t want to be recognized, why allow your visage to be plastered all over the place in a newspaper article? What am I missing here?
In the article she says that she would one day like to become a chef and to record music, fine ambitions — the first probably achievable, the latter, questionable. But everyone is entitled to have dreams and pursue them.
If, as she says, being recognized makes her nervous (and that folks only want to be friends with her because they want something), then perhaps she should move somewhere she won’t be recognized. She certainly has the financial wherewithal to do so — thanks to donations and the media attention she so aggressively sought — and she seemingly has no close ties to anyone in the Cleveland area.
She eschews any contact with her mother or any other family members (who could perhaps offer a degree of protection from the outside world she says she finds so threatening) so relocating to another part of the country would not mean severing ties — by her own choice she doesn’t have any ties to sever.
By all appearances Michelle is mildly developmentally disabled; she certainly is an odd duck to say the least. But if she expects the world to simply forget who she is and what she went through simply because it makes her uncomfortable, she’s going to be in for a rough ride indeed. How rough is anyone’s guess.
After what she endured for an entire decade she certainly deserves to find happiness, but it’s doubtful Michelle will find it here in Cleveland. If she sincerely wishes to disappear (rather than find a backhand way to keep the spotlight on herself), all she has to do is just that: Disappear.
Somehow I’m getting this sinking feeling that every six months or so Michelle is going to surface again, complaining about the attention she says she doesn’t want … or some other tale to once again have the spotlight focused on her. The fear is, over time, these appearances will become increasingly bizarre, as we, the gullible public, witness a fragile life deteriorate right before our eyes.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.
3 Responses to “MANSFIELD: She Doth Protest Too Much – Michelle Knight”
Alice Jeresko
What insensitive commentary! Let her find her way on her own terms without criticism — she has been through hell and deserves empathy and support.
For goodness sake, Mansfield, you just published an item about how unjust it that a convicted felon couldn’t attend a Whitehouse event — then turn around and chastise a traumatized victim for being inconsistent about media coverage. BTW, you violated her recently stated wish for privacy by using her for your own media topic!
Mansfield Frazier
No, she violated her supposed wish to be anonymous by allowing her face to be plastered in the PD. I understand she’s confused, but the fact is, she actually craves to extend her 15 minutes of fame, whicle3 saying otherwise. Unless she is somehow checked, she will eventually go to any lengths to do just that. But the PD shouldn’t keep playing along with her.
Mark Wilson
Um, does a person who is barely a year out of this sort of captivity really need to be “checked,” especially by some random blogger? She has issues, she’s confused. I’d agree with that, so let her work them out on her own now. Providing snarky social commentary isn’t going to be beneficial in any way to her. God bless.