Summary
During the State of the Union Address tonight many of the democratic female attending and all of the women in the Congressional Black Caucus will be wearing a red pin with the name Recy on it, in memory of Recy Taylor.
Recy Taylor, who recently died in December, was African-American woman from Abbeville, Alabama who had been sexually assaulted in 1944 when she was kidnapped by six white men. She was threatened to stay quiet about it but she told her family immediately and the news of the assault became national news. Since then she had been advocating for sexual assault victims. People were reminded of her when Oprah Winfrey mentioned her in her speech during the Golden Globes.
The idea of wearing Recy's red pins came from New Jersey Democrat Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who had a couple hundred of the pins made for the occasion. I addition Alabama Democrat Rep. Terri Sewell brought a relative of Recy Taylor to the address.
Opinion
I think this is a great gesture for the democratic women to do with the women of the Black Caucus, it helps remind people to not forget women like Recy Taylor and that the cause she advocated for shouldn't be forgotten and people need to fight to help women like Recy Taylor.
Question
Do you think that this demonstration will overall help bring attention to the overwhelming amount of sexual assault allegations that have been brought to light recently?
9 comments:
I do not think this demonstration itself will bring attention to sexual assault. I think all the events combined of the #MeToo movement, the white roses from the Grammys, etc. will bring attention to sexual assault. Like I don't think one Women's March made a difference, but it was the sheer number and amount of people who participated in dozens of cities which made it a huge event. I think it is cool that women are honoring Recy's death. However, I also believe it is a partisan move. It feels like presidents always talk about unity for their State of the Union addresses, but Congress is never united. And I do not think wearing pins and certain clothing makes the issue any better. It just visibly shows how divided the government is. I guess that it just calling a spade a spade, but it makes me frustrated and sad.
Similar to what Tori said, I don’t believe think solely the wearing of pins is a monumental shift in terms of changing the perception of sexual assault. I think wearing them is certainly a step in a positive direction and exposes people who were unaware of Recy’s experiences, including myself, to an important aspect of history. But, when I was watching the State of the Union and its “pomp and circumstance” introductory bit, I didn’t see a lot of camera shots of the Democrats with the Recy pins despite this being such a highly televised event.
It was also really cool to watch many of the men and women at the address wear purple ribbons for abuse awareness. I think that this awareness is a super important first step, but it's time for people to step up and start doing something about the problems we are seeing with rape and abuse.
I agree with the last two comments in terms of the idea that simply wearing the pins isn't going to shed more light on the subject than it has been in the past few months. However, what was extremely important was that, since Donald Trump said absolutely nothing regarding the sexual assault in both Hollywood and in the world as a whole being brought to light, this was a supremely important gesture to wear the pins. This is because it highlighted the lack of empathy the current Trump administration has for these sexual assault victims. This State of the Union address came off as vague, but the greatest injustice in the speech was the leaving out of key subjects. And this isn't just about the sexual assault cases, this includes items such as leaving out California when he asked the audience to pray for the states that have been effected by natural disasters. Highlighting the fact that Donald Trump didn't even mention the sexual assault being brought to light in this country was ultimately extremely important.
I definitely agree with you that this demonstration was a positive gesture done by the women of the Black Caucus. Although, as Angelique mentioned, the women weren't really shown on TV, I think that their actions still brought a lot awareness to this cause and to Recy Taylor. For example, I was not aware of who she was although Oprah had mentioned her at the Golden Globes until I saw this story of the pins being worn on the news and I know many of my classmates weren't either. However, reading Tori's comment, I guess I can see where she is coming from that this is a partisan move and thus illustrates our divided government.
I think that the demonstration is important because by having government employees call this to attention, more people will be willing to support the cause. Furthermore, having the physical red pins makes it easier to care more about this matter. Physical objects clearly make it easier to support a cause because they allow the demonstrators to form a personal attachment to the matter. However, like Lydia said, this is only the beginning and there undoubtedly needs to be more protests, but there should also be more action taken, hopefully within the government so that there is more legal confidence against criminals in abuse/assault cases.
Any publicity about abuse is important and should not be discounted. It's everything together that holds the big meaning that will bring change, but every small movement makes a different important contribution to it. One thing about this story that disappoints me is that somehow, abuse is a political issue when it should not be. Regardless of party or any other characteristic a person can have, people should have the same solidarity against abuse of anyone.
While I think that trying to raise any sort of awareness is helpful, like Tori said, one movement won't make a big impact. Other, more public demonstrations have been more helpful towards raising awareness as of late, but these demonstrations won't bring any justice for rape victims or harassment victims. I don't know why, but I'm not surprised that Trump did not address abuse victims in his State of Union Address (or at least I don't remember him doing so), but I think that Trump should have used that platform to raise awareness or at least acknowledge it.
I feel like a lot of "smaller" movements make a large impact. Just looking at a lot of what has happened following the Weinstein sexual assault allegations, these separate accounts of people coming forward to share their side of the story has brought a lot of visibility to the issue. While wearing a red pin may not do much, it's better than doing nothing, and to me it's an act of solidarity and a way to keep Recy Taylor's story and mission alive.
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