Editor,
It's been a serendipitous week at UNM. While standing at a kiosk lunch line Monday, I noticed a posted sign about a safety walk taking place on campus the next day.
I thought it sounded like a good idea, especially for female students, faculty, staff and community members who might be walking on campus after dark or heading home from work, school or a public event. However, the flyer didn't state what actions would be taken to protect people after participants identified unsafe areas on campus.
That evening, I grabbed a Daily Lobo as I headed home and was pleasantly surprised by Ben Tucker's column, "More to activism than voting." In it, he encouraged potential radical youth activists to educate themselves and listed the library and the Internet as places to glean both radical history and media activism outlets.
Additionally, Tucker asserted that "the second step to becoming a radical youth activist is to organize." He urged people to talk to each other about their concerns. Lastly, Tucker wrote, "you have to take direct action," which brings me to the serendipitous part.
Tuesday morning as I walked on campus to work, I saw a rather small but powerful sign stenciled on the pavement near Mesa Vista Hall. It said, "I WAS RAPED HERE" in red letters. With it was a female symbol with a fist inside it. I've seen that symbol before and associated it with radical feminism. So, maybe some potential youth activists read Tucker's article on Monday and were inspired by it to go out and paint, as he suggested.
For women and girls, old and young, such a statement as "I WAS RAPED HERE" serves notice that, as Tucker quoted Martha Ackelsberg, "Direct actions . provide ways for people to get in touch with their own powers, to take back the power of naming themselves and their lives."
-Marie Douglas
UNM staff member
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