Name: 【TED】Ione Wells: How we talk about sexual assault online (How we talk about sexual assault online | Ione Wells)
Uploaded: 2017-09-24T21:01:28.000Z
Duration: 14 min 10 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

We hadn't been all together for a couple of weeks;

it was a perfect evening, as we were all reunited.

I caught the last underground train back to the other side of London.

that seemed to have approached out of nowhere

Before I had time to process what was happening,

a hand was clapped around my mouth so that I could not breathe,

and the young man behind me dragged me to the ground,

beat my head repeatedly against the pavement

ripping off my clothes and telling me to "shut up,"

With each smack of my head to the concrete ground,

a question echoed through my mind that still haunts me today:

Little could I have realized, I'd been followed the whole way

I was standing topless and barelegged in front of the police,

having the cuts and bruises on my naked body photographed

Now, there are few words to describe the all-consuming feelings

of vulnerability, shame, upset and injustice that I was ridden with

in that moment and for the weeks to come.

But wanting to find a way to condense these feelings

into something ordered that I could work through,

I decided to do what felt most natural to me:

to identify him as part of the very community

that he had so violently abused that night.

Stressing the tidal-wave effect of his actions,

"Did you ever think of the people in your life?

I don't know who the people in your life are.

I'm the employee who served everyone coffee

And all the people who form these relations to me

And you assaulted every single one of them.

You violated the truth that I will never cease to fight for,

that there are infinitely more good people in the world than bad."

But, determined not to let this one incident make me lose faith

in the solidarity in my community or humanity as a whole,

I recalled the 7/7 terrorist bombings in July 2005 on London transport,

and how the mayor of London at the time, and indeed my own parents,

had insisted that we all get back on the tubes the next day,

My community will not feel we are unsafe walking home after dark.

because we will not ingrain or submit to the idea

that we are putting ourselves in danger in doing so.

We will continue to come together, like an army,

when any member of our community is threatened.

and I was working on the local student paper there.

Despite being lucky enough to have friends and family supporting me,

I didn't know anyone who'd been through this before;

I'd read news reports, statistics, and knew how common sexual assault was,

yet I couldn't actually name a single person

that I'd heard speak out about an experience of this kind before.

I decided that I would publish my letter in the student paper,

that might have had a similar experience and be feeling the same way.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

【TED】Ione Wells: How we talk about sexual assault online (How we talk about sexual assault online | Ione Wells)

campaign

determine

negative

thrive