Letter to the Editor

I believe we need to be mindful in both words and actions. As was brought up during the first event of Sexual Assault Awareness Week, "What is Rape?", statements similar to “that test just raped me”  or “I just raped that test” make a grave impact on an individual’s life. How does a survivor feel when they hear a classmate proclaim a similar statement in the classroom? How does an ally feel? Words hurt. And we need to be intervening bystanders when words are used without thought or care.

I feel I must be an intervening bystander for the community because of the haphazard comments that were written in the previous Greyhound.

First, the title “Letter to the Editor: Counseling Center promotes student awareness and support for sexual assault” is alarming.  We need to consciously read our words before we print them. I would sincerely hope that the Counseling Center doesn’t “support sexual assault” as the title implies. I would suggest that instead the Counseling Center promotes student awareness about sexual assault and supports students who have been affected by sexual assault. I would also suggest that the Counseling Center supports sexual assault survivors and allies.  Secondly, we need to use the correct information when referring to something that is so often unreported that the numbers are already skewed. The statistic is that “one in four college women report surviving rape or attempted rape since their 14th birthday” (oneinfourusa.org).  To say that it affects “one in four college students” is incorrect.

I am even more concerned by the insensitivity expressed in the Opinions article, "Changing what we have the power to control: Take Back the Night's efforts to stop sexual assault," and I ask for...no I demand journalistic integrity from my University’s newspaper. If you title a piece "Take Back the Night’s efforts to stop sexual assault" then shouldn't you talk about Take Back the Night's efforts, both the national and campus wide? But more importantly, a survivor’s story is their own story to tell. Survivors and allies are in a continual process of restoration, and this article, in my own opinion, did not further the restoration process. Though I am glad the writer was “appalled” that a sexual assault occurred, her statement “ordinarily, irony tickles me” was disrespectful and quite frankly, irresponsible. Why irony? Why not a coincidence? Why not a demonstration of one individual’s strength and courage to report the sexual assault because maybe, just maybe, they knew their community would stand by them since individuals were rallying together to raise awareness about an injustice that they just experienced? But at the end of the day, all of these questions should not and do not matter. What matters is that survivors, and every single human being, deserve to be respected. Part of the respect is for a community to honor the fact that the survivor's experience is their story to tell and for a community to stand with open arms when the survivor chooses to share their story. And this Opinion piece is not an article declaring the fact that arms are open to embrace the men and women affected by sexual assault in an expression of solidarity.

Every day, I am working to raise awareness about the realities of sexual assault in an unjust society so that men and women begin to honor human dignity. I am working so that survivors have a community of support and love. I am not walking around with a cape tide around my shoulders stopping rape, though I wish I could because no one deserves to experience a violence which silences them.  I am, however, walking around proclaiming a call for justice with arms that want to provide support for anyone who has ever been told it was their fault.

I would be remiss if I did not bring up what I viewed as unjust racial undertones in the Opinions piece.  Why bring up that we "evade the truth" and believe that Loyola is a "happy bubble" and then describe the city of Baltimore and the CVS on York Road, when the Loyola bubble was the initial concern? Isn’t a large part of Baltimore outside of the Loyola bubble? Assaults occur on this campus too, as well as campuses across this nation. This Opinions piece, which never really stated a direct opinion but instead danced around sensitive topics that aren’t “too pleasant” to address directly, revolved around fear instead of providing hope which is what the Take Back the Night Committee and allies on this campus strive to do.

At the end of the day, I want to share a message of solidarity so that we CAN support each other.

Joelle Sanphy

Class of 2012