Take Back the Night 2007
Still decompressing. The Daily has an article on it in today's issue. Here's a rundown of how it went for me:
-There were camera crews from both the Kiro 7 and King 5 news channels. Part of it was because Margo Myers from Kiro 7 was one of the speakers, but probably also because of the candlelight vigil for Rebecca Griego. What pissed us off, though, was that they wanted to stay and record the entire rally - for those who aren't familiar with Take Back the Night, it always ends with a speak-out by survivors of sexual and relationship violence, or those who have otherwise been affected by it. This requires a safe space, and not camera crews. (And no, the media's insistence that "this is a public event," coupled with conciliatory attempts of "we'll fuzz out their faces," wasn't worth crap.) Publicity for SARVA Week and the vigil for Griego? Great. Invading the safe space for survivors for the sake of your news byte? Like hell.
Luckily, the building's media director came to the rescue and said that yes, we do have the right to keep the media out for certain portions of the event. Which we did.
-President Emmert came and made a speech at the beginning. Listening to him speak, as well as seeing him hanging around with people prior to the rally, I found him very ... well, political. He knows how to say the right things. I've heard that's what he does, and that's what I saw him do. He gave me absolutely no sense that he was actually doing anything beyond saying what we wanted to hear. He said some polished words, acknowledged our efforts - and didn't give us any reason to believe that tomorrow, he or the University would handle sexual and relationship violence any differently than they had last week. And that made me squirm in my seat.
On the plus side, the purpose of his speech was to deliver this joint statement from Griego's family and the University. That was worthwhile, if nothing else.
-Oh, but then Jennifer Self, director of the Q Center, spoke. I'd always heard good things about her and her work, but I've never had the chance to meet her, and she just. Blew. Me. Away.
She started off by warning us that she was angry, and she was - in that demanding, invigorating, empowering way. Have you ever heard something that made you cry because it was so true, but you'd just not known, or been too afraid, to say it yourself? It's disheartening, to have your fears and anger confirmed - but at the same time, almost comforting, because at least you know you're not crazy or alone. That's what she did for me, and a hell of a lot of people in the audience. I so wish that I could get a recording of her speech, but the news crews either didn't get it, or just haven't posted it to their websites.
-Unfortunately, Margo Myers was the next speaker. Nothing against her - apparently she volunteers her time toward sexual violence awareness and treatment - but her safe, palatable, surface-level discussion of sexual violence just fell flat after Self's speech. Myers didn't challenge or analyze the causes of sexual violence, just talked a lot about reporting sexual violence in the news, and ended with a "but we're okay, really" set of statistics. I think, had she gone right after Emmert, I would have accepted her as inadequate yet inoffensive (like Emmert himself). After Self, though? She didn't stand a chance.
-After the speeches, the director of C.O.R.E. kicked out the media for the open-mic speak-out, which pleased me immensely. A lot of people came up to the mic to speak: a guy who thanked C.O.R.E.'s assistant director for helping him get a friend out of an abusive relationship. Survivors who hadn't ever told their story publicly, who hadn't been planning to speak. Person after person who talked about how family, friends, and official sources abandoned them, blaming their experience of violence on their own actions, their perceptions - basically every goddamn thing except the perpetrator. I can't say this was a good thing to hear, or even good for every person to say - it probably helped to speak it aloud, but I'm not sure - but it was really, really important. So much more relevant and true than the "of course we support the victim" platitudes from official sources, which mask their judgment and dismissal and neglect.
-Once the speak-out ended, we lit candles and marched to Gould Hall for a vigil for Rebecca Griego. A cameraman followed us, which I'd expected; but I found his constant prodding for interviews from the marchers irritating. Once we reached Gould Hall, though, the news crews did not intrude.
-After the vigil, there was a lot left to process. Some of my friends suggested going to the College Inn Pub for a while, and I was glad to have some time to just hang out and decompress. (Incidentally, that was my first trip to a bar. Fitting that it would be with a bunch of Women Studies classmates. XD) We also ran into some classmates from last quarter's white privilege and racism course, and it was good to see them. As if all that wasn't nerdy enough, we also ended up making notes to write a letter regarding Margo Myers' speech (either to the University or Myers, I'm not sure).
Thus ends SARVA Week 2007. It was pretty crazy for me since I was much more involved this year, but it was totally worth it. The other events of the week were all fantastic (though more humorous than heavy, and so not really worth attempting to translate into a blog post).
I hope you're all wearing jeans today for our Denim Day remembrance/protest. I've been wearing my SARVA Week t-shirt all week, so my co-workers all know about it and a bunch of them are wearing jeans today. :D
Oh, and ha ha.
-There were camera crews from both the Kiro 7 and King 5 news channels. Part of it was because Margo Myers from Kiro 7 was one of the speakers, but probably also because of the candlelight vigil for Rebecca Griego. What pissed us off, though, was that they wanted to stay and record the entire rally - for those who aren't familiar with Take Back the Night, it always ends with a speak-out by survivors of sexual and relationship violence, or those who have otherwise been affected by it. This requires a safe space, and not camera crews. (And no, the media's insistence that "this is a public event," coupled with conciliatory attempts of "we'll fuzz out their faces," wasn't worth crap.) Publicity for SARVA Week and the vigil for Griego? Great. Invading the safe space for survivors for the sake of your news byte? Like hell.
Luckily, the building's media director came to the rescue and said that yes, we do have the right to keep the media out for certain portions of the event. Which we did.
-President Emmert came and made a speech at the beginning. Listening to him speak, as well as seeing him hanging around with people prior to the rally, I found him very ... well, political. He knows how to say the right things. I've heard that's what he does, and that's what I saw him do. He gave me absolutely no sense that he was actually doing anything beyond saying what we wanted to hear. He said some polished words, acknowledged our efforts - and didn't give us any reason to believe that tomorrow, he or the University would handle sexual and relationship violence any differently than they had last week. And that made me squirm in my seat.
On the plus side, the purpose of his speech was to deliver this joint statement from Griego's family and the University. That was worthwhile, if nothing else.
-Oh, but then Jennifer Self, director of the Q Center, spoke. I'd always heard good things about her and her work, but I've never had the chance to meet her, and she just. Blew. Me. Away.
She started off by warning us that she was angry, and she was - in that demanding, invigorating, empowering way. Have you ever heard something that made you cry because it was so true, but you'd just not known, or been too afraid, to say it yourself? It's disheartening, to have your fears and anger confirmed - but at the same time, almost comforting, because at least you know you're not crazy or alone. That's what she did for me, and a hell of a lot of people in the audience. I so wish that I could get a recording of her speech, but the news crews either didn't get it, or just haven't posted it to their websites.
-Unfortunately, Margo Myers was the next speaker. Nothing against her - apparently she volunteers her time toward sexual violence awareness and treatment - but her safe, palatable, surface-level discussion of sexual violence just fell flat after Self's speech. Myers didn't challenge or analyze the causes of sexual violence, just talked a lot about reporting sexual violence in the news, and ended with a "but we're okay, really" set of statistics. I think, had she gone right after Emmert, I would have accepted her as inadequate yet inoffensive (like Emmert himself). After Self, though? She didn't stand a chance.
-After the speeches, the director of C.O.R.E. kicked out the media for the open-mic speak-out, which pleased me immensely. A lot of people came up to the mic to speak: a guy who thanked C.O.R.E.'s assistant director for helping him get a friend out of an abusive relationship. Survivors who hadn't ever told their story publicly, who hadn't been planning to speak. Person after person who talked about how family, friends, and official sources abandoned them, blaming their experience of violence on their own actions, their perceptions - basically every goddamn thing except the perpetrator. I can't say this was a good thing to hear, or even good for every person to say - it probably helped to speak it aloud, but I'm not sure - but it was really, really important. So much more relevant and true than the "of course we support the victim" platitudes from official sources, which mask their judgment and dismissal and neglect.
-Once the speak-out ended, we lit candles and marched to Gould Hall for a vigil for Rebecca Griego. A cameraman followed us, which I'd expected; but I found his constant prodding for interviews from the marchers irritating. Once we reached Gould Hall, though, the news crews did not intrude.
-After the vigil, there was a lot left to process. Some of my friends suggested going to the College Inn Pub for a while, and I was glad to have some time to just hang out and decompress. (Incidentally, that was my first trip to a bar. Fitting that it would be with a bunch of Women Studies classmates. XD) We also ran into some classmates from last quarter's white privilege and racism course, and it was good to see them. As if all that wasn't nerdy enough, we also ended up making notes to write a letter regarding Margo Myers' speech (either to the University or Myers, I'm not sure).
Thus ends SARVA Week 2007. It was pretty crazy for me since I was much more involved this year, but it was totally worth it. The other events of the week were all fantastic (though more humorous than heavy, and so not really worth attempting to translate into a blog post).
I hope you're all wearing jeans today for our Denim Day remembrance/protest. I've been wearing my SARVA Week t-shirt all week, so my co-workers all know about it and a bunch of them are wearing jeans today. :D
Oh, and ha ha.