Renaming the “˜Rape Trail’

The Take Back the Night rally, part of the Clothesline Project, will feature musicians, speakers and victims of sexual assault to educate UCLA students about sexual violence.

Take Back the Night rallies occur nationwide and consist of marches, candlelight vigils, and speakers and survivors speaking out against sexual violence, according to the Take Back the Night Web site.

At UCLA, the rally will have a march and a vigil tonight from 6:30 to 9 at the Saxon Volleyball Court, said Karina Garcia, the Take Back the Night chair for the Clothesline Project.

The event is run through the Clothesline Project, for which students created shirts with quotes meant to visualize the “airing out of dirty laundry” on actual clotheslines in Schoenberg Plaza last week.

Ruth Do, a member of Clothesline who plans to attend the Take Back the Night rally, said the organization is important because people do not fully understand the gravity of the psychological results of sexual violence on the victims, and how one evolves from a victim to a survivor.

Garcia said the word “rape” in what students colloquially call the “Rape Trail” is psychologically harmful for survivors of sexual violence, and it is unacceptable to have a violent term such as “rape” in campus culture.

“”˜Rape’ is such a powerful word and shouldn’t be thrown around. It is not OK to have an aspect of this campus called “˜rape,'” she added.

At this point, the university has not officially recognized a name for the trail, but that is the eventual goal of the organizers.

The rally will feature a march along the “Rape Trail” and participants will then ceremonially rename the trail “Saxon Steps.”

Though the university has not officially decided whether to recognize the name yet, organizers hope this ceremonial renaming will notify students that casual use of the word “rape” creates a harmful atmosphere and they should stop using it.

Signs that will be posted tonight with the new name were purchased by the university, but the situation regarding official recognition remains complicated, said the resident director of Saxon, Kristo Gobin.

Gobin has been attempting to change the name from “Rape Trail” to “Saxon Steps” for two years .

“I had heard that the path behind Saxon is referred to anecdotally as the “˜Rape Trail,’ and I thought this was inappropriate and verbally violent. It excludes and silences people who have been sexually assaulted, which is statistically quite large and significant,” Gobin said.

Gobin wrote a paper about the Rape Trail and presented it at the National Communications Association in Chicago last November.

With feedback from the panel of communication studies scholars, he decided to change the name through a ceremony or event.

“We are really doing this because we don’t think students understand how detrimental calling it the “˜Rape Trail’ is. We make something acceptable that shouldn’t be,” Gobin said.

Victims who have not spoken about their experience yet should be able to feel comfortable they can open up and be heard by an understanding community, Do said.

“We are going to create an intimate, safe and hopefully comfortable environment for the audience and attendees,” Garcia said.

Blankets on the sand in the volleyball court and allowing people to remove their shoes will hopefully create a welcoming environment, Garcia said.

Musicians and speakers from the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network are going to perform from the beginning of the event until 9:15 p.m.

“All the performers are students at this school, so you can relate to it,” Garcia said.

This will be followed by a survivor speak-out, where survivors volunteer their stories to the group, and a candlelight vigil and, finally, the march down the Rape Trail.

“We could not have actual candles because Saxon is wooden and it was too much of a fire hazard, so we got LED lights that look exactly like candles,” Garcia said.

The vigil may not have candles, but it will still serve the purpose of helping to commemorate the survivors and victims of sexual violence, which is the most important part of the rally, Garcia said.