Erasing the stigma

“What do we want? Safe streets! When do we want it? Now!”
“Two-four-six-eight—No more violence; no more rape.”
“People unite! Take back the night.”

Students, staff, faculty and members of the community came together Thursday night for the annual Take Back the Night rally. The event—organized by the Women’s Resource Center, Women in Learning and Leadership (WILL) and Inkster’s Delta Sigma Theta chapter—is designed to urge the community to take a stand against domestic violence and sexual assault and create a supportive environment in which survivors can share their stories.

Keynote speaker Holly Rider Milkovich, director of U-M’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center (SAPAC) in Ann Arbor, told the crowd of nearly 150 campus and community members that erasing the stigma—that somehow an attack is the victim’s fault—is the single greatest way to change the system.

“The most profound piece of advocacy that you can do is seek to shift that cultural assumption that a sexual assault is a survivor’s responsibility to have prevented; to seek to shift the way we think about this crime and place the full responsibility on those who make the deliberate choice to sexually assault another person.”

Along with the keynote address, the event included spoken word performances and a march around campus and The Union at Dearborn.

“Take Back the Night is a safe place for survivors to not only share their experiences but also to bring awareness to the issue,” said student organizer Benita Robinson. “Their experiences are not just their own experiences here. We all share the experiences together.”

They are experiences familiar to many in the community. According to Robinson, nearly one in four women is a victim of domestic violence each year and one in six has experienced a sexual assault or attempted sexual assault.

“Coming together tonight is a way of saying that in this community we are testifying against the violence that is perpetrated against women in America,” said Stanley E. Henderson, vice chancellor for enrollment management and student life. “I cannot think of any other event that we do on campus that is more emblematic of being a community than Take Back the Night.”

Tiffany Marra, director of WILL, said before the event that in light of the statistics, survivor empowerment is key.

“There is such a stigma attached to survivors of these crimes,” she said. “But we want others to know they never have to be afraid to report; they don’t have to go through the experience alone.”

After the march, the evening concluded with survivors’ stories.

“By sharing stories, survivors show that domestic violence and sexual assault cross all socioeconomic, cultural and racial boundaries,” Marra said. “And it gives survivors an opportunity to say, ‘I am strong and powerful. I am not a victim; I’m a survivor.’”