#SaveOurDaughters
When I first entered college, I joined a women’s club on campus known as L.E.A.D., which stood for Ladies with Emphasis on Achievement and Distinction. The group took the time out to help women of color on campus by holding programs to bring us together as sisters, and sometimes that included watching out for an overly drunk freshman at a party. I’ve been to my fair share of parties and watched girls get sloppy wasted, vomit in basements, and get walked home to their dorm with a group of friends. During my first semester in college, I became that drunken girl at a party full of strangers. I happened to be on a date, if you want to call it that, and we were headed to his friend’s house for a typical weekend get together. I didn’t attend a big party school, so the parties were never so big that you didn’t recognize the individuals on campus. I had a heated argument with my date on the way to his friend’s house, which drove me to take a few shots. The angrier I became, the more I took shots and attempted to mask my feelings.
Can I tell you that THERE IS A GOD? Thankfully, I was amongst many people that were willing to take care of my drunken ass, make sure I got home, and my date even forgave me for being an embarrassment in front of his friends. It was a story I could add to my college list without being mocked on social media, and laugh about it later. My biggest fear entering college was getting slipped a roofie and possibly ending up date raped, which is why I always turned down drinking and would rather be the DD. I was always aggressive towards guys at parties when I’d see them feeling up a girl who could barely stand, or I’d make an attempt to nurse a complete stranger back to sobriety in the middle of a banging party. I never wanted to have a guilty conscience that I ignored a potential rape victim.
A few months ago, a tragic event happened where 300 Nigerian girls were kidnapped by military forces in Africa. While celebrities and prominent figures used social media and the #bringbackourgirls to raise awareness to the situation, it seemed as if the new sources let it go under the radar even after they were allegedly found. Just when you thought it was over, the world continues to showcase why the internet is no place for children, and why we have to be the Claire Huxtable’s and Mother Theresa’s too these little girls. I scrolled across a FaceBook post reporting an incident surrounding the internet’s ability to turn everything into a joke, including Rape. After a twisted picture of a 16-year-old girl named Jada went viral, it was then confessed by the victim that she had been raped. Unaware of if she had been roofied, a picture of her unconscious naked body floated around twitter and Instagram, while young people everywhere rushed to make memes and recreate the pose using the hashtag ‘#JadaPose’.
It amazes me how little remorse people felt about a naked teen’s body surfacing in cyber space with the ability to repost it, but more importantly I was confused on why Rape Culture continues to be something we let our young adults poke fun at or ignore? Even if this young lady had not been raped, why aren’t parents still monitoring their underage kids parties, teaching young boys and girls to respect their self, as well as their peers? We need to teach more kids how to stop being so coward that they would even condone their ‘friends’ raping someone or even being dragged off to get raped. Where does the conversation start on teaching our young boys not to rape or violate a female? Cyber responsibility is an issue that the parents of the 90s generation don’t have much expertise in educating their growing teens about, because the internet wasn’t around, but that doesn’t make an excuse for educating your child about rape, when to speak up and when to say no.
For further information about the story, you can visit: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/07/10/3458564/rape-viral-social-media-jada/
If you have interest in being apart of the #SavingOurDaugthers campaign then visit: http://savingourdaughters.org/