I am writing this letter in response to the The State News article that was posted last week regarding the poor attendance at this year’s Take Back the Night.
It is not only unfair, but false to claim that the MSU and the Greater Lansing community is indifferent to the issues of sexual assault and relationship violence. MSU and the Greater Lansing community have organizations such as the Listening Ear, Ending Violent Encounters, Capital Area Response Effort, Sexual Assault Crisis Intervention team and the Firecracker Foundation that provide services to survivors and victims of sexual violence as well as educate people about this topic.
The sheer number of services and passionate advocates are indicative of the community’s continuous efforts to end sexual and domestic violence. Take Back the Night is only one gauge of community involvement.
Take Back the Night began in the late 1960s and has been held in over 30 countries around the world. The movement began and has continued to strive to “create safe communities and respectful relationships.” This year’s event was missing a crucial element to their planning and programing — community.
Take Back the Night has always been about the people we live with in every part of our life. It’s more than university experiences, yet this year’s event was framed narrowly around protesting MSU’s administration. The call for the community to take back the night was not made.
Why would the community rally around such a narrow image of survivors? This experience of being a survivor on campus is by no means something that no one else could connect to, but rather is one of an infinite number of experiences. Others might have felt uncomfortable interacting with a narrative with which they might not identify.
It’s not a matter of people simply being afraid of protesting, but rather feeling uncomfortable with the specificity of this year’s event, as well as the sheer quantity of events. The number of events and how late locations were made available were confusing and served to turn people away from participating.
To say Take Back the Night is representative of our community’s desire to eradicate sexual assault is erroneous, because much of the community was not made aware of the specific details of the event. People protest the issue of sexual assault in many ways, and just because they chose not to attend, or were not aware of Take Back the Night, does not mean they do not care.
Mariah Hall
Neuroscience and anthropology senior
