June 7, 2021 Issue

Reading “Briefly Noted,” in this week’s issue, I discovered that Jacqueline Rose’s new essay collection, On Violence and On Violence Against Women, contains her brilliant “Bantu in the Bathroom,” an analysis of the trial of Oscar Pistorius. For me, that’s reason enough to acquire this book. 

I first read “Bantu in the Bathroom” five years ago when it appeared in the November 19, 2015, London Review of Books. It considers the Pistorius trial from every conceivable angle, including sex, race, and disability. Rose analyzes the accused, Oscar Pistorius, the victim, Reeva Steenkamp, and the judge, Thokozile Matilda Masipa. In one of her most powerful passages, she faults Judge Masipa for failing to appreciate the significance of a WhatsApp message that Steenkamp sent Pistorius eighteen days before she died, expressing fear of him. Rose writes,

Yet for me this is perhaps the darkest moment in the judgment, when the law, when a woman judge, fails to give due weight to another woman, one who didn’t survive. I don’t believe that all women are at risk from all men but I do believe that a woman doesn’t say she is scared of a man without cause and that when she does we must listen. It is the fear in the future tense – ‘I am scared of you sometimes ... and of how you will react to me’ – that, for me, most loudly calls for our attention.

“Bantu in the Bathroom” is one of the best trial analyses I’ve ever read. I’m pleased to see it preserved between hard covers.