(slow violin and keyboard music)
- In to sectionality theory.
I also want to refer to Beth Richie,
feminist, scholar and activist.
She looked at it as a timeline
of the work that we are all doing now.
I'm talking mostly about
interpersonal violence
and of course, sexual assault is part
of interpersonal violence.
In the late 60's, early 70's,
a number of the activists
wanted to be careful to
spell the stereotype of
the typical abused woman
as a poor woman of color.
In other words they said it
could happen to poor people,
rich people, it can
happen to any one of us.
Sometimes referred to as the,
woops I'm just gonna move the slide here,
the every woman approach, okay?
The fact is is that it can
happen to any one of us.
It happens in middle class
situations, but we don't
want to deny the experience
of working class people
and women of color
because it looks different
when they're responding
to interpersonal violence.
So by denying poor and
working class women are more
likely to be abused due to
the stresses of poverty,
these early activists created,
perhaps inadvertently,
a troubling new construct,
that of the battered woman
as the passive, helpless victim.
And that's where we get
into Lenore Walker's work
and of course her work was pioneering.
1979 she comes out with
the Battered Woman.
It was very important,
it brought the issue to
national attention,
international attention,
but she came up with a couple of concepts
that really worked better
with white middle class
women's situations than
working class people,
people of color, people
of LGBT community in fact.
So she said Learned Helplessness and
the Battered Women's Syndrome.
And what that does it ends
up erasing the experience
of working class women and in
a sense, enables their abuse.
So she did take a look
at different ethnicities,
but it was not a random
sample so that was kind of
a flaw in her research.
Then we have a couple
sociologists who try to revise
Gondolf and Fisher, try
to revise the theory,
oops, let me go back to that,
just to leave you there.
So they talked about
survivors and they said
the reason why a lot of
women are not getting,
and again I'm talking about
when we know there are
men who are abused also.
Generally men who are
abused, are gay men, they are
in male relationships.
Trans-women, trans-men are
abused, so I don't want
to ignore those situations
either, but when there's
a heterosexual relationship
and there's abuse
in that relationship,
because of gender norms,
way more often it's the
man doing it to the woman.
So often I'm going to be
referring to women as survivors.
So what Gondolf and Fisher
said is that we don't have
enough social support for
survivors and that's why
they have created inside, you
know, their own relationships
coping mechanisms and we
want to call them survivors
instead of victims, which
is a very good notion.
And they talked about some
of the coping mechanisms
would be I'm not gonna tell
people this is happening
to me because if I do that, my
abuser's going to retaliate.
Or I'm not going to leave
this relationship because
if I do that it could
get worse and it could.
So they were smart and Walker
acknowledged this whole
notion of surviving and coping.
But again, what we didn't
see and it was first
law enforcement that began to
see that this was going on,
is that working class women
respond a different way.
They don't respond with a
so-called Learned Helplessness
or passive response, they fight back.
And now this is different
than self-defense.
Self-defense I would say is if
someone's trying to choke me,
I'll do whatever I have to
do to get them off of me
because they're trying to kill me.
That's self-preservation,
that's self-defense.
Secondary aggression also known as
violent resistance looks different.
It's done out of frustration,
it's done out of anger,
sometimes a retaliation.
And sometimes people, third
parties, say "Oh, they're
"just fighting back and forth."
It's a cat fight if it's
two women, you know,
they're just gettin'
into it if it's two men,
or you know, she can sock
him one because she's strong
and her culture raised her to be.
You know they're not understanding
what's really going on.
They're not understanding
that there's usually a primary
aggressor who's driving the
abuse and a secondary aggressor
who's responding badly to it.
So as I said, law enforcement
actually began to understand
this and maybe there's
some really wonderful and
light law enforcement people
here, but sometimes you know,
I'm concerned about police
brutality and all that,
but they actually had a lot to teach me.
Which is that they would go
and make these dual arrests
based on mutual combat.
And they began to realize,
at least in California where
they started to change the
law about dual arrests,
is that they were arresting
a victim often times
and that victim would
often be a woman of color.
It's still happening all over the country.
It's ruined many survivors
of domestic violence
and personal violence, women
of color, working class women,
and so it's something we really
need to pay attention to.
Who's driving the abuse and
who's reacting badly to it?
So the other thing is that
batterers learn to manipulate
the system, right?
If they're with a partner
who's responding to them
with aggression, they
call the police and say,
"Hey look, she did this to
me, I'm the victim here."
And then the famous conflict tactic scale
which doesn't differentiate
between the power
and control motivation of many
men who are doing violence
and the retaliation and
frustration of women who are
fighting back badly or
you know, self-defense
which is actually
something you'd want to do.
Also, Lenore Walker's Cycle
of Violence you know, which
of course works for many people.
They understand it, the
lights go off, you can see it
when we talk about the Cycle of Violence.
But again, for many working
class people and I saw it
in my students, they would
say, "I never got those
"hearts and flowers.
"I never got those apologies.
"That's cool that you
did, but I never got it."
You know?
Instead they might get "You're one too.
"Look what you're doing to
me, I'm the victim here."
Because the woman has
started to fight back.
So it looks different.
We really have to address those needs.
I had to listen, being a
middle class white woman
who does fight back, but you
know, still I had to take
a look at the difference
that were going on
in my students' lives.
So what I want to leave
you with is not all women
suffer from Learned
Helplessness or trapped by the
Cycle of Violence.
They are fighting back badly,
feeling guilty about it,
and then getting trapped by that guilt.
So in other words, if you
are a secondary aggressor,
you will often think that, "Oh
yeah, it is my fault," right?
And there are ways to
distinguish a secondary
aggressor from a primary aggressor.
You know, who's afraid of whom?
Who's offering true remorse?
And so forth.
And so just like more
obvious and seemingly more
innocent victims,
working class people bear
no responsibility for
the abuse they receive.
They need our awareness and
our assistance, not our blame.
So that's so so very important
that we understand that
because often the secondary
aggressor is not going
to be a very appealing
person in many situations.
They're going to be angry,
they might be irritable towards
you and so forth, they're not
that sweet, passive victim
we see in a lot of television shows.
Okay, so I want to end by
talking again about the
importance that Laurene
brings up and that Alicia
will bring up also, social change.
And how are we going to
really prevent this work
and that means we have to address racism
and sexism and classes and
hetero-sexism, sys-genderism.
Until we dismantle
hierarchical, top-down systems,
that by their nature are
abusive, all relationships
among couples at the
workplace, in families,
will be troubled by the
possibility of abusive violence,
physical, sexual, emotional, economic.
So this is not a workshop
on transformative justice.
Probably some of you may be
doing transformative justice,
but if not, if you've
never heard about it,
I want to talk just very
briefly about it as I end.
Transformative justice treats root causes
and promotes structural and social change
while focusing on survivor needs.
It values moving forward via
political education and organizing.
It is promoted by community activists,
many of them women of color.
Many of them LGBT activists.
Who are the most vulnerable survivors
and transformative justice also welcomes
survivors as potential organizers.
In fact, one of its main tenants is that
survivors should be the
leaders of the movement.
So grass-roots organizing with
survivor's leading all of us.
So transformative justice
also values ongoing,
perpetrator accountability and of course,
community accountability.
In other words, it means
that when we work at
working class colleges and universities,
we know our best strategies will come from
the students we serve, thank you.
(applause)
- Hello everybody.
So my portion that I'm
contributing is around
bystander intervention and
working class students.
SM4 utilizes anti-oppression
framework throughout
all of our prevention education.
We do a multitude of topics
for people at college level,
high school level, middle school level.
And what our anti-oppression strives to do
is to, you know, our goal at
SM4 as many of our goals is
is to end sexual violence.
And our anti-oppression
framework guides us to really
look at if we want to end sexual violence
we have to end all forms
of oppression that continue
to use sexual violence
and relationship violence
as a tool of oppression.
So we really try to utilize that in a lot
of our work including
bystander intervention.
So today, what this piece
is going to focus on
is trying to utilize it by
anti-oppression framework
when we are utilizing bystander
intervention strategies
for working class students or communities.
And also looking at what
unique barriers exist
for students of working class.
So a lot of you have
probably heard of bystander
intervention at this point.
A lot of colleges and
universities are using
bystander intervention as a tool of
sexual assault prevention.
And as a strategy,
which is a good strategy
for building tools, but
it's really important
for universities,
administrators, crisis centers,
supporting working class
student communities
that we really consider
what varying factors
are contributing to either
supporting or hindering
working class students from
just being able to step up
or speak up in a situation.
What are those barriers that exist there?
What is that unique experience?
And really applying some
of our advocate survivor
center-ness to that bystander
intervention strategy.
Such as, meet a student where they're at.
If a student is telling
us that they are fearful
for stepping in and we're
like, "Well you just have to
"you'll learn, you'll get
better at, it'll become easier."
That's not really addressing
all the things that a
student might be coming with.
Students might be
survivors of various kinds
of oppression and violence
and not just sexual violence
or relationship violence.
So some strategies with
some considerations
for bystander intervention
and re-framing that
with an anti-oppression framework,
I was really considering
that not all students have the equal power
to intervene in a situation.
I mean that goes hand in
hand with that working class
students face multiple and interlocking
layers of oppression.
That presents, bless you,
the unique challenges
to intervention.
So using and rooting bystander
intervention strategies
in an anti-oppression
framework allows us to really
address and validate what
a student is coming with
and really start to tease out,
okay, what are those barriers?
And how can we as a campus
community address that?
And not everybody in here
is going to have the same
barriers even though we
might all be at working class
campuses, we all might
have something unique
that is contributing to
the atmosphere or barriers
to the students that you serve.
But using anti-oppression will
help us to really examine those
nuances that are happening
and the impact that
that violence has on the
communities, on bystanders,
on individuals and one
other consideration is that
targeting specific student
groups and campus spaces
is really gonna be a
strategy that allows for
that conversation to happen.
It really increases
trust and really can also
create collaborations
between student groups
that might not otherwise
have crossed paths
or seen each other as allies.
One example I can use is that
at city college last year
the gender diversity project
which primarily serves
LGBTQ students and the athletic
department came together
to put on a series of bystander
intervention workshops
due to sexual harassment
incidents that were
happening on campus.
So being able to target
that specific group setting,
that specific group
setting really allowed us
to have a conversation of you know,
what are the ways these
students are being viewed?
What are the issues that are coming up?
And what are the issues we need to address
as a campus community?
What resources that we have
to be able to address that?
And a lot of my role in
that right was to come
and give bystander intervention
tools, but within that
framework of anti-oppression.
The second bullet point down
here, the bolder one down here
is that as a person who, an educator,
who goes out and does
bystander intervention,
I want to say that bystander intervention
is not the solution to ending
sexual violence on campuses.
I know that it's very popular right now,
but it is not the solution
to ending the sexual violence
that students experience.
Right, but it is a great
tool, it is a great strategy
for building tools, but it
should not be stand-alone.
It should be something that's
coupled with educational
opportunities of root
causes of sexual violence,
of domestic violence and also
coupled with opportunities
for healing both as
individuals and as community.
And we'll talk a bit
more in a minute about
why that is important.
So one tool, as I said we utilize the
Four Roles of Oppression in
our bystander intervention
trainings and I figured
a lot of people in here
would probably be familiar
with the four roles
so we're not gonna go
through all of it in-depth
and I can provide a handout,
we can provide a handout
online hopefully, in the
documents that are on the CALCASA
website, right?
So this is something where
we utilize this so that
individuals and students
can start to see their
individual and collective
role when a situation
of violence or oppression is taking place.
And so I just wanted to
highlight some aspects
of each of these roles that
might pertain to working
class students that you've worked with.
So we'll start with oppressor.
So for the oppressor it
can be really important
to highlight for students
that oppressors are not
just individuals, but
they're also institutions.
And that we all have the
capacity at some point to
be in that role at some point in our life,
whether that's consciously
or unconsciously.
And that can be helpful
for some students to engage
with being critical of ourselves and also
of systems that uphold
violence, rape culture,
myths about relationships.
So really allowing us to be
critical of what's making
this possible and also
what is my role in that?
Have I ever contributed to something that
actually promoted negative
attitudes or beliefs?
And how can I start to
check that and change that?
For the target, for working
class students, a target
is generally a recipient of violence
or oppressive attitudes.
For working class students,
it can be important to note
that working class students
can be a target for multiple
or simultaneous forms of
violence or oppression
at the very same time.
As an example, I've witnessed
a sexual harassment incident
where a man was sexually
harassing a woman of color,
a queer woman of color who
was with her white girlfriend.
And you know, he was calling
her dyke or other epitaphs
like that and as the situation
progressed and escalated,
he actually also started
calling the woman of color
a monkey as well.
So in this case of sexual
harassment, it wasn't just based
on sexual orientation, but
it was also based on race.
So for applying our tools as advocates,
we can also apply that here.
How do we support a target?
How do we support our students
and being survivor-centered
or target-centered when they're
responding to a situation?
What was important or
impactful for us in a situation
that we witness and want to intervene in,
we might be viewing that
situation differently
than how the target is interpreting that
and feeling about that.
So facing multiple forms
of oppression at the very
same time, we really have to
get guidance from the target,
you know, how can I support you best?
What is important for you
right now that I interrupt?
We'll move to the ally role.
And the ally can take many forms.
This doesn't just have to
be prioritizing interrupting
in the moment, but also things
that are community-based;
survivor-centered interruptions.
Also, you know going back
to what Leslie mentioned
about culture shift, really
promoting and prioritizing
as well not just stepping
up in a moment where
something might feel for
a working class student,
threatening, but something
where after the fact
or prolonged social change
where are we interrupting
and prioritizing
interrupting situations where
there's oppressive attitudes,
where there is you know,
attitudes about gender,
attitudes about race,
attitudes about myths of sexual violence.
Are we also supporting and
prioritizing interrupting
that culture that upholds
the violent events
that general bystander
intervention trainings are
trying to invade in?
Really getting to before
an incident happens.
So in the bystander role
here, that's a witness
to an event or a violent
event or an oppressive event,
but as I mentioned, not all
bystanders have the equal
power to intervene in a situation.
So by addressing that with
students can be really complex,
but it can also be really
validating to a student
to be seen in their wholeness.
To be seen in everything
that they're bringing to
a situation and what might
be difficult for them
in that situation, right?
And not a cookie cutter
bystander intervention of
step up, say something,
and be a good person,
but what might prevent you
from stepping into a situation
and how can we start to
address that as a community?
Another thing for bystanders
for working class students
is you know, trying to examine,
especially for historically
oppressed groups or
communities, starting to examine
the ways that we are multiply situated.
And we might hold some power
or some privilege to be able
to step into a situation.
So helping a student to
really examine the ways
that we all hold some
oppression and some privileges
can help that student
start leveraging those
privileges as powerful in
a situation of violence.
And that could be anything like
you know, speaking English.
If a situation is happening
and you're bilingual.
So you know, things like
that can be really helpful
to a student.
Sorry, just for time I'm gonna move on.
One big barrier, so we're
gonna move a little bit
into barriers for working
class students when engaging
as bystanders to move
into an ally position.
And one big barrier could be the concept
of internalized oppression.
So this is a cycle of
oppression that is a model
that we utilize in our
anti-oppression framework
and presentations and I
wanted to utilize this here
today to really illustrate
and highlight some
of the complexities that
working class students
are faced when in bystander
intervention situations.
So for working class
students who are at the
intersection of multiple types
of violence and oppression,
they may have interacted
with systems of violence
throughout their life.
And so an experience of
oppression, whether it's
interpersonal, institutional, or cultural,
happens to an individual or a group
through fear, through hatred,
through de-humanizing or
other-ing of that individual.
And it's important to
note that in oppression,
violence is essential to
any form of oppression.
And so for a working class
student, even if they're not
a survivor and they're trying
to empathize with a situation
of sexual violence or a DV
or an oppressive situations
that are happening, you know,
there have been messages
and there have been cycles of violence
that they may have experienced
throughout their life.
The experience of being other-ed or of
experienced oppression
throughout their lives
or for prolonged amounts
of time can take an
emotional, mental, even
physical toll on people,
which can be called
internalized oppression.
Right, when a group or a
target begins to believe
the negative messages
that have been either said
about them or the group
that they identify with.
If they start to believe that to be true,
that's internalized oppression.
And you know, when internalized
oppression is something
that manifests, that can
present itself as either
horizontal hostility or violence to others
or violence to self.
And you know what this
could look like also,
I'll illustrate some examples here.
I'm sorry, I'm just uh...
So this cycle, this impacts the way that a
working class student both
interprets a situation
of violence and responds
to a situation of violence.
And that brings us to
some of our barriers.
And some of the barriers that
are specific to working class
students, and this of
course is not all of them.
We'll have a chance in
some small groups in just a
little bit to be able to
talk about what barriers
are faced by your unique campus.
Some challenges include,
again, the effects of
internalized oppression
and horizontal hostility.
And this could be for example,
internalized class-ism.
So maybe a woman identified
person who thinks
and who has internalized
'Oh poor women who
'experience abuse, we don't
speak out against the men
'in our community because
of what's been done to us.
'So I'm not going to speak
out, I'm going to endure.'
Or it can be internalized heterosexism
that a queer person experiences.
And that can be, 'I have
always been taught that
'sexual violence or domestic
violence doesn't happen
'if the couples are of the same gender.
'So that must not be
what's happening to me.'
That's a form of
internalized oppression where
that's violence to self.
That is a denial of our
experience that we really
might be going through that
we might need support for.
It can also be something
like internalized sexism.
So one thing I hear a lot
in presentations is a type
of horizontal hostility
or violence to others
where you know, a female
identified person will say
well the myth that I'm
sure a lot of us try
and break down in prevention
education workshops
of 'Oh, if she dresses like
that or talks like that
'then she must deserve that.
'She might have been asking for that.'
So that's a form of
internalized sexism that
actually projects itself
as violence to someone else
or harm or negative
attitudes towards somebody
of our same identity group.
The next point here is identifying power
and privilege as part
of an oppressed group.
So that's what I was talking
about with particularly
for communities who have been oppressed or
have experienced oppressive
cycles throughout their
lives, it can be really
hard to start or embark
on the conversation of,
'Okay, what are actually
'the ways I have power that I can leverage
'in situation if I ever need to?'
Right, so that could be for
example, maybe a male of color
has been, doesn't identify
their power as a male
because they've been oppressed
as a person of color.
Right, so they might
have trouble identifying,
'Okay, how can I leverage
my being a male in
'a situation especially
if my oppressor in the
'situation is another male?'
Or it could be for example,
sys-gendered women who
have felt oppressed as
women throughout their lives
so they don't identify
the power or privilege
that they hold as sys-gendered people.
Moving on the, you know,
being of the same identity
or target group as an individual
or a group being targeted
can be both triggering,
which is a huge barrier
for intervention, and
it can also be something
where the bystander or potential
bystander to be an ally
feels like they might be
more readily targeted.
If you see yourself mirrored
in a situation of violence,
that presents a huge
barrier to intervention.
'How can I possibly
intervene in that without
'becoming a target if that
person who looks just like
'me is being targeted so easily?'
So that can be a really huge
barrier to intervention.
One thing I hear from students
a lot to is consequences
for intervening as a working class person.
That can be interpersonal,
institutional, or cultural.
And that can be anything
from again, being targeted
more readily because of the
class identity or any other
intersecting identities
that are happening there.
Also, institutional where
criminalization happens, right?
Seeing communities that
are highly criminalized,
being part of that community
can be a huge barrier
to intervening in a
situation because of fear of
'will I be criminalized
if I step into this?
'Will I be arrested?
'Will I be told I am the perpetrator here?
'Or I was in the wrong place
at the wrong time, etcetera.'
The cultural backlash could
be you know, if we are talking
about campus communities,
it could be campus
class push back on, 'Oh, well you snitch
'or you said something.'
Right, and that could be
being isolated or being
ostracized on the campus.
It could be found out that
you stepped into something
and really experiencing
consequences because of that
as a student who is part of that campus.
Lastly, just wanted to highlight,
colleges and university
responses and policies that might be
potentially threatening
to working class students.
And this could be for
example, recording policies
or the school not providing
other options that might
be available to the students
that might be confidential.
For students of working
class who experience
other forms of oppression,
this might be something
that feels really threatening.
Again, especially for
communities who experience
a history of either criminalization.
That could be people of color, immigrants,
queer communities and you
know, finding other options
and prioritizing various
options besides just one
form of policy on a
campus can be supportive
to breaking down that barrier.
So I'll let Laurene come on as well.
I just wanted to highlight
that, I want to bring back
that these are rooting,
these bystander intervention
strategies in and
anti-oppression framework
can really help to for students
to pull some of the nuances
of violence that they
experience, that the campus
experiences, but it needs
to also be coupled, right?
With educational opportunities and also
healing opportunities,
particularly, also because
of that internalized peace and the various
forms of oppression.
And so I'll let Laurene speak on that.
(applause)
- Okay, so I kind of
talked about what I do.
Just to give you guys a little
sense of San Francisco State,
we're predominant, we're around
30,000 students on campus.
And predominantly, you know,
in the past it's been more
of a commuter campus and
probably in the last five years,
six years they've definitely changed.
They have a lot more on-campus
housing, which has kind of
changed I think also the
programming that people are doing
and how we kind of
approach engaging students.
Predominantly female, you
know, a little over 10%.
And in terms of ethnic
breakdown, we're like 68%
students of color.
Predominantly Asian and Filipino and then
Chicano-Latino are like
the highest percentage.
We have around 25% folks
that are light or non-Latino
in terms of how they identify.
So, 68%, yeah.
Oops (mumbles)
Yeah, we're like 68%.
And that's actually coming
into campus, not graduating.
Those are different numbers.
(laughs and clears throat)
In terms of guiding principles,
for the programming,
I mean one of the things
that I really want to put out
in terms of developing
programming is that I feel like
a lot of, a lot of the work
at The SAFE Place that's
been created really was
created because of the
people that were there.
It's kind of a no-brainer,
but it's like you know,
the people that are there
bring whatever strengths
and whatever you know,
areas that they feel are
important to them and
that gets kind of infused
in the programming.
And for myself, I've done a lot of work in
the Chicano-Latino
communities in San Francisco
and in the Bay area and
the concept of Cultura Cura
is something that I kind of got from
Instituto Familiar de la Raza.
It's a clinic in San Francisco
that predominantly focuses
on working with the
Chicano-Latino community.
And it's the concept
that utilizing culture
is really a part of the
healing process for people.
And in my experience working
at different campuses,
I feel like that is
something that students
are like hungry for.
You know, when I've been
in situations where we've
done healing circles or
where we have burnt sage
or you know, where people
have brought in drums
and done work like that
in circles where culture
has kind of been infused
in some of the programming,
it's been amazing to me to kind of see
what develops from that space.
En la Kech is also Tu eres mi otro yo,
You are my other self is
also a philosophy that I feel
with The SAFE Place is
something that's pretty integral
in terms of us realizing
that we're all different.
We all come from different
communities, but we also
we have to have a sense of
being able to work together.
I mean and really community
and developing community
is through experience.
It can be hard, but I feel
like if you stay in your
little part of campus, you're
not gonna get far. (laughs)
You know, you're just gonna
have the people that come
in that want to do
violence prevention work
and that's kind of it.
Which is great and I
think that's important,
but I do feel like for
me, I want to tap into the
communities that have come in.
You know, the people
that aren't gonna come
into a workshop, they're
not gonna come and get
a resource information, you
know, they're just kind of
on campus and then they
bounce and they take off.
And then it's like how do you
really engage that grouping?
We follow an anti-oppression framework.
I feel like one thing
that's really important
is really being able to
assess kind of what your own
strengths are and the areas
where you're really challenged
in terms of your work, in
terms of your understanding
around culture and issues around race
and anti-oppression.
And that you're also able
to assess kind of your group
or your organization in a
really real way, you know?
I think a lot of times people
try to run away from it,
but I feel like in order
for a lot of this work
to really change, we have
to look at looking at
the deeper issues around oppression.
And in order to do that, we
have to kind of go there.
And so to be able to
work and figure out who
your allies are so that
you can kind of develop
a space where you can develop
and then your programming
can also kind of develop
as a result of it.
The process is as
important as the product.
I feel like that is, for
me, the process of doing
a program or an event
and the work that you do
with the grouping and
the work that you do with
the students to develop
them, is just as critical
as the event that happens.
And if all you do is focus
on getting everybody to
that event or making sure
that, you know, you have press,
like it's just gonna be gone
and nobody's really gonna
be impacted by it.
But to really be looking at
how a program that you do,
like you started in fall
and then happens in spring,
like that program is really
like two semesters long.
You know and that that's part
of the development process.
And I mentioned kind of community
is built through experience.
So in terms of, we've been
around The SAFE Place has
been around for 23 years.
We've had like three
coordinators in that time period.
And each of them have,
including myself, have actually
done different types of community work.
I've been really involved
in the community in
San Francisco in the Latino community.
I don't do theater or spoken
word, but I definitely
hang around with a lot of people that do.
You know, for me, the
importance of kind of art
and culture and for me,
spoken word and theater
is really about giving people power.
And people being able to
kind of reclaim their voice.
And for survivors, I feel
like that is one of the
biggest issues for people
who are dealing with violence
is how do you create
situations and spaces where
they can start to reclaim that?
Which is one of the reasons
why we have always done
like theater and spoken word
pieces because I feel like
the process of being
able it's a lot of work,
but I do feel like what you get out of it
is really being able to create a space for
people to really be able
to heal in different ways.
So we initially did Vagina Monologues,
we've done like eight years or nine years.
We did The Good Body.
There's good things about
The Vagina Monologues.
I know people are familiar
with The Vagina Monologues.
I love the fact that it's easy.
If you've never done a production,
you can get everything on (laughs).
Eve Ensler has made it
really easy for people to
be able to get access to do a production.
One of the things that
was challenging for us
was that we felt like
it didn't really reflect
some of the stories that
the students were connecting
to and so people you know,
liked it and connected with it,
but it didn't quite gel
with a lot of our students.
So because of that we
actually created a program,
a storytelling project called Cocktales.
Cocktales started in
2009 and it was actually
a storytelling project
utilizing spoken word,
but also music, dance, it really depends.
It's done every year.
And we used different
mediums to really explore
the issue around masculinity.
Initially, it was really
a space for men to
be able to talk about different themes.
We'd have a different theme every year,
but it was a space where
men can come together
and talk about what was going on for them
and their pieces would
reflect those issues.
Through the years though,
we've changed that.
So we've actually had
the focus be more around
masculinity and looking at those issues
and we have had women.
We've had trans folks come in and people
have kind of changed the,
really changed the
production into a really,
I feel like it's been a
really great experience
to kind of have trans cast
members and gender queer folks
and females come in and give their
feelings and expressions
around masculinity
in regards to the different
areas that we focus on.
These are some of the themes we've done.
So 2009 was the first year.
2010 Honoring our Stories,
2011 was Confessions.
It reminds me of that song (laughs).
2012 is Fathers and Sons,
so all the stories that
people were doing were about relationships
between fathers and sons.
Reclaiming Love is 2013,
Breaking the Bro Code was 2014,
and last year we did
Unplugged and Redefined which
was actually the one time.
The reason why we did a
real merger with the two
productions is because
I lost a staff person
in my program and I was
doing all the prevention
programming and the crisis
support for the whole campus.
And this production takes
a lot of time and I had
we've always done two, we've
always done Vagina Monologues
and Cocktales so we usually
have one one semester
and one the other semester.
Sometimes we done 'em
both in the same semester.
But I had a partner that
really worked, Ishmel de Guzman
was the Director for five years.
And so he really took on that part.
But because I lost his position,
I decided I had to make
a decision and I dropped
The Vagina Monologues
and I took on Cocktales because
I felt like it's a space
that's not created very much on campuses.
And a lot of times, you know, I feel like
it's really important.
For me, space is very
political and creating spaces
on campuses, especially
for a production like this,
is really important because we don't,
in terms of the team, so
in terms of the successes
of the production, the
building of the teams
is really critical.
So it's not just the cast
'cause it's usually been
like anywhere from 10
to 15 people performing.
It's really the production team also.
So I always led the team
of The SAFE Place has
always led the team, but we
actually go out into the campus
and we have different campus
kind of program people.
Different people that do
different work on campus
to be part of the production team.
And that is a really
conscience kind of effort
at building community and
also being able to bring
in all the strengths that all
the different programs bring.
So we've had people
from the women's center,
we've had a lot of people
from Arrows, which did a lot
of work in the LBGTQ
community, we've had Speak
which is a spoken word
student organization.
So a lot of it is like
every year we've been like
okay who do we want to bring
in to kind of help pull
this production together?
So it's nurturing that
grouping and then we do all the
work in terms of finding the
director, finding the cast,
and actually working with the
cast to develop their pieces.
And that's really what the
creating and healing space is.
Is how do you kind of
create a space where people
can start diving into
these really difficult,
really intense issues around masculinity,
like for fathers and sons a
lot of people were writing
about their experiences with their fathers
that were not very positive, you know?
So it's how do you create
a space where people
can begin to write about them, process it,
and then learn how to perform it?
Because it's not just writing the piece,
they actually have to perform.
And it is a lot of work, but
I do feel like the planning
and the building of the
community were things that
were like really, really important for us.
In terms of challenges,
capacity and time were things,
I don't know, has anybody
ever done a Vagina Monologues
here or been involved in the
production at some level?
Okay.
It's a lot of work.
A lot of people just
think, 'Oh, it's written,
'people just go up there and do it.'
You know, but really, I
think the time and capacity
and building that team is
really what's critical.
And also knowing the
space, being able to work
with the campus community.
It was really important
that we connected with
other student organizations,
that we worked with
the theater department, which
was very difficult at times.
And being able to deal with funding.
This project really funds itself.
It's all a fundraiser.
We sell tickets, we do
fundraising in it, raffles in it.
So for me, it's not
really about making money,
it's just making sure
we don't go in the red.
Like I don't ever want to be
this program is losing money
so you can't do it.
But we've always been able
to make money out of it.
Not a lot, but I feel like
all the parties that are
involved actually get a
portion of the proceeds.
And we always donate another portion
to a community organization
in the Bay area
so we invite them also to the event.
(slow violin and keyboard music)
