Why the Hell is Rape Culture Not Trending?

Protestors stand at the intersection of Mountain and College Ave. in Old Town Ft. Collins to fight against Rape Culture.
Photograph taken by Megan Fischer

Today –Monday December 8^th – in Ft. Collins, the decision on the Andre Alders case was made, allowing an alleged rapist to walk free. In response to the decision, an immediate protest took place organized by a few people who had been following the trial and updating members via a Facebook group page. Also today, there were no protests on campus, or in Old Town, for #BlackLivesMatter. When the protests were on campus and trending as the thing to do last week for social justice minded folk, the turnout was significant. So where were these protestors today?

To be fair, this protest was organized fairly suddenly, and awareness about the case and events being protested were not very widespread. However, this is not the fault of the protestors or the protest organizers on the Facebook page, rather it is representative of the larger problem of rape culture. Either collectively we do not care about rape, or we are content with living in a society where rape goes largely unpunished, and as long as we don’t have to hear about it or get uncomfortable talking about it, we are content to let it keep happening. If you’re not making the connection, the institutional and societal acceptance of rape aligns almost perfectly with the institutional and systematic acceptance of unwarranted violence against black bodies.

This is not suggesting that one issue should be prioritized over the other, or that we should direct our focus toward the issue of Rape after we are all burnt out on Black Lives, but it is to bring awareness to the fact that right now there is a unique opportunity for coalition based directly upon the intersection of institutional injustice that bonds Rape culture and Black deaths. The issues of unwarranted black deaths and unpunished rape are problems where the institutions designed to bring justice and to protect and serve its citizens are failing.

Now, my last post called for people to take the next steps after protesting, however it seems that the fight against rape culture isn’t even being allowed to take the first steps. Rape culture is brought up as a concept in Women’s and Ethnic Studies classrooms, but not forced into a public space where we all have to come to terms with the fact that it surrounds us. When we do see Rape in the media, we see it on Law and Order: SVU as a highly stylized, dramatized, and surreal occurrence. Or we see coverage of Rape on a global scale, looking at how bad they are in India or Saudi Arabia, instead of how bad we are in our own communities. While the global media coverage is definitely full of merit, exposing the widespread injustice of rape culture permeating societies across the world, and while SVU attempts to tell stories that people would rather not have to think about, especially for entertainment, there is still always an aspect of rape that becomes a spectacle in these stories. The most mainstream stories are about graphic gang rapes in foreign lands, which become tales of consumption for people to say that when a woman has her drink spiked and has her body used without her consent, well, at least that’s not as bad as those evil gang rapists.

Even recently, when the accusations against Bill Cosby, one of the largest rape scandals that’s been discussed for years in feminist circles, but now comes to light due to a man briefly discussing it in a stand-up routine, the story is not about what happened to the women who were raped. The story is automatically about “Well, Bill Cosby was always an icon, such a good guy, I don’t believe he would’ve done this,” which leads only to the next logical point of blaming the victims, saying that they are just seeking media attention, that these accusations can’t be true. The women making the rape allegations are completely delegitimized, and the one who gets the most attention is the one who gives the most graphic verbal depiction of her rape, which becomes spectacle for the media and it’s consumers, re-broadcasting her words in fully graphic detail as some kind of sick and twisted perversion that takes her intended meaning and turns it into safe-for-air pornography.

We not only see this victim blaming and exploitation just in rape culture, but with the black bodies as well. Think back to beyond the two Grand Jury decisions, to earlier this year when Janay Rice was brutally attacked by Ray Rice in an elevator. Without her consent, that video was broadcast and shared, exploiting her image under the guise of bringing awareness. She did not give permission to share that video and share her traumatic experience, however she was made a martyr, and her body, or at least the image of its brutalization, was used without any question as to what she would have wanted. The video of Eric Garner has been shared in similar ways, however he is not alive to give consent, which maybe changes the meaning, and changes the way in which it can be consumed. Still the lasting discussion concerning Janay Rice became what did she do to deserve that, or that it was her and Ray Rice’s business, and with the Michael Brown and Eric Garner, the discussion gets narrowed down to asking what they did to antagonize the cops or questioning the legality of selling loose cigarettes, respectively, as if these acts were prompting their results. Either way, there is a trend here of bodies being exploited without consent, of bodies being blamed for the violence enacted upon them, and of a culture that seems to be collectively okay with all of it.

On a local scale, there have been a string of reported sexual assaults this year in Ft. Collins, and around campus. It took 11 reports before the school even spoke out about the assaults, and even then refused to take a definitive stance. The messages sent by the institution were more victim blaming, telling women what THEY could do to prevent being raped, as opposed to speaking to what steps men, or the entire community together, could take, to eradicate rape culture.

The group “End RAPE Culture Fort Collins” organized the protest today with little support, but they do not seem to be slowing down, and are planning more protests with more notice later this week. As opposed to being reduced to hashtag activism and gathering around with no goal besides collectively being upset, they are forcing protestors into a space to disrupt institutions allowing injustice to happen. Today they protested at the location in Old Town where the rape from the Alders case occurred. They were at the heart of the scene as a reminder that this happens in right in front of the Ft. Collins community’s face on a regular basis and goes unpunished. There seems to be organized leadership within the group with a goal in mind to take to task the businesses, the community, and the justice system who are participating in allowing rape culture to thrive. Hopefully the cause catches on, and one form of injustice is not favored during protests at the expense of another. Hopefully these two causes can combine forces, and substantial change can be made on a small scale within Ft. Collins that can pave the way for larger future change. If the emotion and momentum behind recent protests can remain, and these intersections can be made between all related issues of systemic injustice, the power and opportunity to take the next steps toward change will be in place. The all that will be left to do is put one foot in front of the other, and march in solidarity toward overturning a culture of racism and rape.

I Don’t Think We’re Talking About the Same Thing Anymore: #Blacklivesmatter and the Misunderstanding of What Protest Looks Like

If you’ve been online at all for the past two weeks, or watched the news, or talked to someone, or are part of civilization right now and not just wandering off into the Wild like Reese Witherspoon, you are aware of the events that are taking place surrounding the Grand Jury decisions in the cases of Eric Garner, a black man choked to death on camera by New York Police officers, and Michael Brown, a young black man gunned down by an Officer in Ferguson. Neither of these Officers were indicted, and the results have sparked protests and visible unrest throughout the nation, including social media hashtags like #blacklivesmatter, #handsupdontshoot, and #icantbreathe.

Ferguson was the catalyst for the social media discussion and viral protest, and then the Eric Garner decision in New York only further escalated the anger that many Americans felt at seeing a gross and corrupt system that is allowing Police Officers to go free of punishment for taking black lives. Now, if you type those hashtags or names or keywords into any search engine, you are sure to see pictures of people holding signs, doing “die-ins” (laying on the ground in large groups in public spaces) or school walkouts, all over the country. However, I believe in the heart of this social unrest and protest, there is a serious disconnect happening in which #blacklivesmatter is meaning two separate things for two different populations, and it is going ignored under the illusion of true solidarity.

The “#blacklivesmatter” and “#icantbreathe” hashtags can be understood as cultural texts within the social media landscape, meaning that they are works open to interpretation and different use based off of a constructed meaning by each individual who is using them. They were started with a very deliberate intention and meaning, but once they hit the social media sphere and become active texts, that original meaning no longer matters as much as the new meaning that will be ascribed, or coded, onto them by twitter, Facebook, and Instagram users. The disconnect that I think exists is that generally, “Black Twitter” and people of color are seeing an opportunity to express sentiments that they have felt for years, and are witnessing a peak in an ongoing battle. On the other hand, there are well intentioned white people who are having a reactionary response to these recent events, and instead of understanding that there is a flawed and racist institutional hierarchy, and that ALL #blacklivesmatter within the oppressive hierarchy, they are reacting only to THESE specific deaths, and THESE specific injustices. When white people are saying #icantbreathe they’re saying how awful Eric Garner’s death was and seeking justice for the cop that killed him. When Black people use it they’re saying #icantbreathe day to day in a system I’ve been suffocating under my whole life.

Most white people right now are reacting like Rowdy Roddy Piper in THEY LIVE when he puts on the glasses for the first time and sees how fucked up everything is. People of color are like the underground resistance in the movie who have known that this shit has been going on since long before the glasses to make it visible even existed. While the coalition and welcoming of any people willing to fight for a cause is welcome, I believe that these separate and mostly unspoken perspectives are allowing an opportunity for social change at an institutional level to become watered down to gathering masses of angry individuals being angry together, unaware of how to take the next step toward change beyond hashtags and awareness. I don’t want to be misunderstood as saying that awareness is a bad thing, but it is the first step toward making real change, and when awareness is just being raised among other folks who are already aware, there is less of a movement toward change and more of a stagnant mass unrest that eventually disperses.

When using the label of “Protest,” as opposed to a large gathering of people making noise, I think there needs to be context of what successful protests have looked like in the past, and to understand that on a fundamental level, most, but not all, of what is happening right now surrounding the Grand Jury decisions, is not a successful Protest. Malcom Gladwell outlined in a 2010 New Yorker article how Civil Rights protests (which are pretty much the established aesthetic of what a protest looks like for millennials) were organized systems, with dedication, strong-ties and relationships between human beings, and disciplined authority structures designed to have leadership to make hard decisions and direct the networks of protestors. This system of organized protest, much more than a Facebook invite to meet up in the campus student center with a sign, were effective at seeking ways in which people within the power structure of flawed institutions could be directly taken to task and held accountable to use their power for change. There was dedication and there were organized and directed political objectives, which goes beyond the images our generation has been fed of the million man march and even three days of peace and music being all that was necessary to make change.

Twitter does not hold anyone accountable. Facebook does not take authority figures to task. These protests are becoming, quite literally when you look and the cardboard signs and t-shirts, physical manifestations of hashtag “revolution.” On my campus, I have seen people do a “die-in” at the student center, and know that 4.5 minutes of silence were organized on the plaza through a Facebook organized meet-up, and saw statuses glorifying the “protests” for being able to just be there with everybody and hug strangers and share the moment. Well after the self-congratulatory stranger hugging is over and the groups disperse, these weak dies are broken and not one authority figure or hierarchical system has been challenged or taken to task. The protests were not even anywhere close to the Administration building or campus police force, directly addressing anyone who, even on the smallest scale, could make any kind of real systemic change. It’s nice to spread tweets and pictures letting people know you’re mad, but being mad doesn’t disrupt anything, it just creates noise.

If the system of injustice is a man (more like “The Man”) walking down the street and you see him, standing behind him and shouting will just allow him to walk away. Following behind him and shouting will keep creating noise, but he can just as easily keep walking. But by standing directly in front of The Man and shouting in his face, refusing to get out of his way until he makes a substantial change to the situation that meets your demands, you have just created change. You forced someone in a position of power to make a change. It could create conflict. He could punch you square in the fucking face. But I think maybe that’s what protest is. True protest is the willingness to get in the way and challenge authority, to risk getting punched square in the face, and to get back up as many times as you can and repeat, until the system of oppression that’s punching you has a broken fucking hand.

You can tweet or hold a sign, reminding everyone, and maybe even yourself having a crisis of privilege realization, that #blacklivesmatter, but what can you actually organize and accomplish that forces a historically racist institutional hierarchy to change on a fundamental level so that people know for a fact when they leave their home that all #blacklivesmatter?

The last thing I want to say is that my grandparents and most of their generation were aware of the way Black people were treated daily. They participated in it. Not everybody, but definitely a lot of old white people were fully aware, and didn’t give a shit, and still don’t. If there were hashtags notifying them that the Little Rock 9 were being integrated, they still would’ve opposed it. But the protests that constituted Civil Rights Movement, because of the organization and leaders within all oppressed communities including Chicano, Asian, Black, Women, and all of their intersections, directly attacked institutions and racial hierarchies. They took over buildings that represented oppression, they disrupted the system by getting in front of its leaders and forcing change, and they made or changed policy that was the direct source of institutional oppression. While not everything worked, or was perfect, or successful, the change that was made has a lasting effect and is engrained now as slight improvements within oppressive institutions that still require overhaul. The past protests forced new systems and laws into place that racist and ignorant people just had to learn how to tolerate, and still have to until they die off and leave the world in younger generations’ hands.

There still is a long way to go, but if the best we can do is tweet and post our frustration to be read only by others who feel it, and organize cathartic gatherings that refuse to directly challenge oppressors in exchange for the “feeling” of doing something powerful, then we’re failing to take the necessary steps to evolve the successful protests of the past, and all of the injustice that everyone is so angry about remains in place. If all we can do is tweet and post at the system, then all it’s going to do is block us and hide us from its newsfeed.