Many give victim a voice
A chorus of politicians, celebrities and TV hosts are reading her statement aloud
PALO ALTO — In this era of short attention spans, Snapchats and 10-second sound bites, something surprising is happening with the Stanford sexual assault victim’s letter to her attacker, which has gone viral across social media.
Not only is the letter being absorbed in profound silence by those reading it online, but in the past few days, a chorus of politicians, celebrities and TV hosts have begun reading it aloud — all 12 pages and 7,139 words of it. They are giving voice, literally, to the victim who has chosen to remain anonymous.
“The first time I read her statement, my stomach was just
twisted in knots. I felt like I was right there with her, pulling the pine needles out of her hair,” said U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, who read a portion of the statement on the House floor Thursday and is organizing a full recitation on Wednesday by 30 members of Congress — Republicans and Democrats, men and women.
“I see this as a potential tipping point. This issue has never really gotten the kind of attention it deserves.”
Speier and other victims advocates are hoping that the emerging power of this long-form, spoken word, along with the faces of those who deliver it, will add a new, poignant dimension to the debate over campus sexual assault and help turn the tide for an issue that some say has for too long been fraught with excuses and leniency.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, actress Cynthia Nixon and 20 men and women on the mayor’s staff recited the victim’s entire statement in a 50-minute video.
“There was something about the emotion, of having to vocalize what this woman went through, that was incredibly powerful and transcendent for our staff,” said de Blasio’s spokeswoman Andrea Hagelgans. “Not one of them wasn’t touched by saying the words out loud.”
The family of Audrie Pott, the Saratoga teenager who killed herself in 2012 after she was sexually assaulted by three classmates at a drunken house party, said they tried to give voice to Audrie by going public with her name and photo.
The Stanford victim’s statement, and the reading of it, gives “a voice for all rape victims,” said Audrie’s stepmother, Lisa Pott. “I think it’s being done for all the victims who can’t speak out, who are too ashamed, too fearful they will be revictimized themselves either by the system or their attackers or the schools they attend.”
Other movements have had their powerful rallying cries, most often boiled down to a single image or hashtag: LeBron James and the Miami Heat basketball team donned hoodies to protest the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.
The “blacklivesmatter” hashtag was created to bring attention to police violence. “WeAreParis” tweets and T-shirts brought a sense of international solidarity after the terrorist attacks there.
“It’s an interesting case study,” Richard Craig, San Jose State professor of journalism and mass media, said of the phenomenon following the Stanford case. “I have a lot of students who read a lot. They’re not all about the quick sound bite. It shows that in spite of us being in the age of Twitter, a lot of people are interested in The Stanford assault victim’s impact statement has been read aloud by Rep. Jackie Speier on the House floor (top), Ashleigh Banfield on her show “Legal View” (middle) and actor Cynthia Nixon (bottom). The 7,000-word letter went viral due to her attacker’s lenient sentence. deeper context, especially in issues that are important to them.”
Midcentury media scholar Marshall McLuhan famously coined the phrase “the medium is the message” — that the medium influences how the message is perceived. Indeed, when actress Cynthia Nixon, former star of “Sex and the City,” looked straight into the camera at Gracie Mansion last week and read her part, the effect was profound.
“I tried to push it out of my mind, but it was so heavy. I didn’t talk. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. I didn’t interact with anyone,” Nixon recited. “After work I would drive to a secluded place to scream.”
The victim’s letter was published after she read it in a Santa Clara County courtroom to her attacker, former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, who was sentenced last week to six months in county jail after being convicted of three felony counts of sexual assault. He was eligible to receive as many as 10 years in prison.
The backlash has intensified since. A petition drive has begun to take action against Judge Aaron Persky who, following a probation department recommendation, handed down the sentence. Vice President Joe Biden, who is involved in the White House campaign against campus sexual assault, weighed in, calling the victim a “warrior.”
“I am in awe of your courage for speaking out,” Biden wrote in an open letter to the woman, “for so clearly naming the wrongs that were done to you and so passionately asserting your equal claim to human dignity.”
In a text message to Santa Clara County Prosecutor Alaleh Kianerci earlier this week, the victim — after numerous media requests for interviews — said she has chosen to remain anonymous to protect her identity.
“But it is also a statement that all of these people are fighting for someone they don’t know. That’s the beauty of it,” the victim wrote in the text message. “I don’t need labels, categories, to prove I am worthy of respect, to prove that I should be listened to. I am coming out to you as simply a woman wanting to be heard. Yes, there is plenty more I’d like to tell you about me. For now, I am every woman.”
Sofie Karasek, a 2015 UC Berkeley graduate and co-founder of the nonprofit End Rape on Campus, said she hopes the reaction to the Stanford case becomes a defining moment, one that marks a cultural shift in the understanding and prevalence of campus rape and assault. But she isn’t sure it will. “I think it does signify that something is changing,” Karasek said. “But I think we still have to wait and see where it goes.”