Today people around the country are wearing red to protest violence against women of color.
Aishah Shahidah Simmons on why she's wearing red, and on an upcoming action:
I am wearing red because I am a survivor of incest and rape.
I am wearing red because I live in a City (Philadelphia) where a White Woman Judge Terri Carr Deni dropped all rape and assault charges in the case of a woman gang-raped at gunpoint. Because the woman was working as a prostitute, Judge Deni decided that she could not have been raped and changed the charge to “theft of services.� Deni later said that this case “minimizes true rape cases and demeans women who are really raped.�
On Thursday, November 1, 2007, in Philadelphia, there will be a Press Conference at 1pm Outside Municipal Court (Criminal Justice Center)1301 Filbert St. On November 6, 2007, I will voice my opinion to Judge Deni by voting “NO!� on her retention as Judge in the Municipal Court of Philadelphia.I am wearing red because I am very clear that it doesn’t matter if you’re a stripper, a prostitute, a lesbian, a bisexual woman, a heterosexual woman, a single mother (especially with several children from different fathers), on welfare, a high school drop out, college educated, working in corporate America, working at a minimum wage job with no health insurance, or working in the film/music/television entertainment industry. Yes, I placed what some people would view as very different/distinct categories of women of Color in the same category because history has consistently shown me and all of us that if any of the aforementioned Black women are at the wrong place at the wrong time (which could be at any time), we, women of Color, will be left to heal our very public wounds alone.
Check out the images of women who are wearing red today, and find out how you can get involved.
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Whoops, I'd have worn red instead of solid black if I'd known about this!
Me too!
Dude, wish I had gotten the memo before now :(
I was wearing a red plaid skirt today by coincidence, but if I'd seen this earlier I would have really redded up!
I'm so glad you posted this here... I was lucky enough to eat dinner with her tonight along with the other sexual assault advocates at my school. She's great, so is her documentary.
I find this statement racist. What was the need of specifying the woman's skin color? If she was black and someone had specified her as black we would see a number of people shouting out against it.