About Malki Kawa

Earlier today, I was given a sharp reminder of an incident that I'd kept locked behind a 20 deadbolt door for 20+ years. "Door" might not be the right word here. Think of a giant bank vault with three combination dials, a fingerprint scanner and a retinal scanner. That's where I kept this dirty mother hidden.

I guess I should give you the particulars of how this memory jolt came to be. My Twitter pal, SoozieCuzie, posted an interview transcription excerpt that rattled me so bad, it made me cry, and for those of you that know me, know that I hate crying. I grew up with a domineering Italian mother that viewed crying as being manipulative and weak. I'm not saying I don't cry, because I do, frequently. I'm just saying that I hate it and will fight back a tear as if it were the only thing standing in the way of global destruction.

Back to Soozie's tweet. When I first saw it, I'll admit, I didn't read the full quote. There was a highlighted area, so I just read that and had an immediate kneejerk reaction to it. This is the highlighted part:

"If you're a girl at the bar, alright, and you have your drink there and guy comes and sits next to you and he slips something into your drink and you get raped, well, sweetheart, you should have been watching your drink."

The quote was from an interview MMA manager Malki Kawa had done with Chael Sonnen for his podcast. It immediately put me on the defensive, and I commented to Soozie, "Consider the source, sister. I love how he places the blame of the date rape not on the predator, but on the girl."

Fucking, really...? pic.twitter.com/TWZY04CtxD

— Suzanne Davis (@SoozieCuzie) July 20, 2016

Immediately, other folks let me know that he wasn't blaming women for their unfortunate date rapes; he was trying, in the most terrible way possible, to draw a comparison between his client's (Jon Jones) tainted supplement fiasco and a date rape.

Okay, fine. It wasn't what I initially thought, but it was still pretty bad. You just cannot compare a rape with Jones' situation. I don't care what angle you approach it from, or from what perspective you're seeing it, THERE IS NO COMPARISON.

My dark secret, that I keep locked up and contained like a deadly virus, is that I am a rape survivor. I won't go into the gory details. Suffice to say, it was when I was a very naïve 19-year-old at a house party that had more than enough alcohol to turn a happy, unsuspecting girl into a statistic. It's not an unfamiliar tale, and I know many women have gone through it, so when I speak on this, I'm speaking as a person with intimate knowledge of the lasting damage an ultra-violent act like rape can have. I'm living proof of it.

Imagine my surprise, after sitting and boiling in a combination of anger, outrage and shame, to get a text from Malki Kawa.

I should probably give you details on my volatile relationship with Malki. I've known him for eight years. I've interviewed him several times over those years, although the last one was more than three years ago. I routinely butt heads with him. I routinely crack wise about things I've seen or heard him say. I disagree with him on lots of things. I've called him out on Twitter (we do not follow each other), Facebook and my podcast. He has done the same with me on multiple occasions. We are not what you'd call "friends." I'd refer to our relationship as "professional acquaintances."

When he texted, it wasn't what I expected. There was no, "You've got it all wrong Crookie," or anything like that. It was "I want to apologize to you. I saw your tweets. I know what I said, but it's not what I meant. Please call me." That text was followed by a few phone calls. I didn't ignore them, I just didn't know he'd called because my phone is in a perpetual state of "Do not disturb," so I can allow only a selected group to actually audibly ring through with texts or calls.

At the time, I was recording my show with Iain and Mookie, so I just texted back, "I can't right now." He waited for me for the next two hours while I got the show wrapped, and the minute I texted to let him know I was free, he called instantly.

I'm going to go on record here and admit that Malki Kawa surprised me. When I answered the phone, the first words out of his mouth were, "Crook, I'm so sorry. I never meant to marginalize your situation, or anyone else that's been in your shoes. Please know that I realize my comparison was the wrong one to make."

The conversation lasted for 29 minutes, and much of that was Malki explaining himself and voicing concern of how he must have made me and other women feel. He seemed genuinely mortified when I explained how his comment came across, and by the time we had finished the call, I hung up my phone fully believing in his sincerity.

Make no mistake, the comparison was...well, there's just no way in Hell that you can compare the two. That said, I believe in his contrition, and don't think he made that statement with malice.

I accepted his apology. It's not likely we'll ever be friends in the traditional sense of the word, but I feel a lot better knowing that he's not a complete asshole with no empathy.

He has no idea I've decided to write this, and maybe I shouldn't have done so without asking him first, but I've been wound up about it for several hours now, so this is sort of my way of putting it to bed. Now that I've done that, I'll return you to your regularly scheduled day.