June 2013
45 posts
(tw!) "I was Raped at Disney World and Nobody Cared"
I couldn’t believe this when I read the headline. I would understand if it was difficult to handle a rape case that happened several weeks previously, but the way the company and its counselors shut her down and blamed her for it is absolutely disgusting and abhorrent. Leaves a really bad taste in my mouth about this program: note that it was very difficult for her to report the rape at all.
For friends and others currently in the program or planning to be, putting my best vibes your way and hoping you never have to go through something like this.
It took a lot of strength for this person to report what happened to them even after everything they went through.
Go to title link above for full piece, a lot of it is in excerpts here below. Again: TW for rape, and rape culture
I had heard about the Disney College Program from a few friends that had an amazing time working for the company and thought it would be better than nothing. Add the unlimited access to their theme parks, warm weather, and four extra months to figure out what to do with my life and it sounded pretty ideal.
I was accepted into the program and arrived in mid-August. After a few days of orientation, I started work on Main Street U.S.A. in the Magic Kingdom.
Three weeks into the program, I was raped by one of my co-workers.
I don’t feel a desire to share every detail from that night, but I’ll give you the bare bones: He and I went to a party together, we went back to his apartment later, and I said “no,” but he wouldn’t stop.
For two months I kept everything that happened that night to myself. I told my roommates that things went fine and I had a good night. I didn’t know how to feel about what happened. In the beginning, I told myself it was a misunderstanding; maybe he hadn’t heard me. I blamed myself; I should have yelled louder. I should have pushed harder. I should have punched him and ran out of the room. I always thought that if I was ever raped I would beat the guy up. Does that mean I wasn’t raped?
I finally decided to talk to someone after the first time I ran into him outside of work. He showed up at my friend’s Halloween party dressed as the Phantom of the Opera, which made seeing him that much more unnerving. I spent the rest of the night watching him hit on girls, worrying, and wondering whether or not I should tell my co-workers what happened.
I made an appointment to see one of the counselors in Disney’s Employee Assistance Program. I tried to be optimistic.Of course they’ll listen to me. It’s Disney, a company built on childhood innocence and happiness. Wouldn’t they want to fire an accused rapist immediately? (Spoiler Alert: No.)
I recounted everything that happened that night while the counselor stayed silent and seemed at least mildly sympathetic. When I told her we had been drinking, her face changed from “concerned” to “you made a mistake.” Still, I told her, I said “no” the entire time and he never listened.
The first thing she said to me was “Well, now you know not to be hanging around boys in the middle of the night. You know what they want.”
Take a few seconds and re-read that. Now let’s unpack it.
A certified counselor was insinuating that it was my fault that my coworker decided to rape me — as if I should have known better than to interact with any man after dark. Not only that, but she was advising me to approach every interaction with a man as if he is a potential rapist, including every man that works at Disney World. If I react to a man with anything less than hostility after sundown, whatever happens is my fault.
I told her that “no” means “no” whether it’s day or night. That was apparently too radical an idea for her, as she said nothing in reply. She continued to make excuses for my rapist.
BRAND X: gingerbatch-addict: phangirlingphanatic: OKAY. THIS SHIRO MAKEUP STUFF... →
brandx.tumblr.com
OKAY. THIS SHIRO MAKEUP STUFF IS PROBABLY ONE OF THE
WEIRDESTBEST THINGS ON THE PLANETSo to fucking start they have fucking Hobbit eyeshadow
trust me tho, it gets better.
They have fucking Hunger Games and Pokemon?!
But if…
OH MY GOD Where all my femme geeks at?!
I'm shopping for Avengers bedsheets at Target for my dorm. There's 2 left, I grab one, and so does a little boy with his mom.
- Me to boy: Wow, we got lucky! The last two, just for us!
- Little Boy: I know! *Then he starts staring in awe at the Avengers*
- Boy's Mom: Are you buying those for your little brother?"
- Me: No, it's for me, for college.
- Mom *looking at me weird*: But these bedsheets are for little boys. It's really not appropriate for a young woman, especially a college student.
- Me: Wait, so it's "appropriate" for little boys to sleep on top of hot grown men in spandex, but it's weird when a college girl does it?
- Mom:
- Mom:
- Mom:
- Me: Have a nice day, ma'am. And rock those Avengers bedsheets, little man!
“When I was a kid, you know I immigrated to the States in 1978, and I’m six years old and watching TV and I didn’t see any Asians on television. And you turn on Star Trek and there’s this Asian guy not chopping anybody up. He’s honorable, a helmsman of a spaceship, and it was a big, big deal for me to see that and have a role model.”
—
John Cho (x)
The only Asians I remember seeing on mainstream TV when I was a kid were Sulu on Star Trek, nameless Asians loading trucks in the background or dying on MASH (which was all about funny lovable white US Americans waging war on Asians), and the “ancient Chinese secret” Calgon laundry detergent commercial.
(via zuky)
Was the same when I was a kid. That moment of seeing George Takei not being overly-stereotyped when I was a kid was a powerful one. I think the only place I had really seen other Asians on the screen was finding the rare (because I was a kid in mountains, far from the rest of the community) movie that had Asians in it. Unfortunately, a lot of those were the “white guy learns martial arts, beats up Asians because ‘Merika” type movies. Which, of course was not TV. They were still the “Asian other” just as in MASH backdrops. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that Sulu always has a special place in my heart. Star Trek helped me get through some bad emotional spaces as a kid, and I think part of what made it welcoming was having POC, especially George Takei ( since I’m JA too, and the other Asian American actors who came later), represented on screen in positive and whole characters, with names instead of “Solider #1, Henchman #4, Ninja #18”.
(via reallifedocumentarian)
(Proper) representation matters.
(via angryasiangirlsunited)
It makes me incandescently angry that the makers of the current trek movies don’t grasp that the incredible imagination and sense of potential that gave the original series its beauty and power had literally nothing whatsoever to do with alien starship battles.
Mae Jemison became the first black woman in space, and do you know why she joined NASA? Lt Uhura. Can you imagine, can you even BEGIN TO FATHOM how many scientists, doctors, teachers, artists, mechanics, diplomats, there might be out there in the world who were like John Cho, like Whoopi Goldberg, who turned on their tv one day and the tv said to them YOU CAN DO THIS, YOU MATTER.
Star Trek’s heart and power is that it painted a reality where people were going to go out into the universe with a sense of curiosity and unity, and where everyone was fundamentally equal. And it didn’t just tell you that, it showed you.
(via sharpestrose)
Definitely everything everyone said, I definitely felt less hated when I saw actors and role models I could relate to in the media. Does anyone remember that study done that indicated the only children who didn’t get their confidence damaged watching tv were white boys?
(via thisisnotjapan)
Seven Surprising Facts About Asian-American and Middle Eastern Boys →
sara-huynh.tumblr.com
-Racial profiling is a routine part of life for Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander boys. In 2006 in Oakland, Calif., those of Samoan descent had the highest arrest rate of any racial or ethnic group, coming out to 140 arrests for every 1,000 Samoans in Oakland.
-Asian-American, Pacific Islander and AMEMSA youth are the most frequent targets of school bullying. More than half of Asian-American teens are bullied in school. At 54 percent, the rate far exceeds the rates reported by white teens (31 percent), Latino teens (34 percent) and black teens (38 pecent). And yet, youth rarely report the incidents of harassment, fearing retaliation or because they lack the linguistic capability to voice their needs.
-The rates of bullying are higher for turbaned boys. For South Asian boys who wear turbans, nearly three-quarters, or 74 percent, report facing some religious or racial bullying. It’s common for turbaned youth to be called terrorists.
-Asian-American LGBTQ youth in particular deal with homophobia, transphobia and racism in school. Nearly one-third of Asian-American LGBTQ youth reported dealing with harassment based on their race. And in a California report of LGBTQ youth, Asian-American youth reported the highest incidence of bullying of any group of students of color.
-More than 40 percent of Hmong youth live in poverty. Rates for other Southeast Asian youth are similarly high. Thirty-one percent of Cambodian youth live in poverty, compared to 27 percent of black youth and 26 percent of Latino youth. Almost half of Bangladeshis too (44 percent) are considered low-income, along with 31 percent of Pakistanis.
-Many Asian-Americans are undereducated. Among the broader U.S. population, 19 percent of people in the U.S. lack a high school degree or GED, but more than 40 percent of Cambodians, Laotians and Hmongs, do not have a high school degree.
-One in four Koreans in the U.S. is undocumented. And one in six Filipinos is undocumented. And between 2000 and 2009 the undocumented Asian Indian population grew 40 percent. The nation’s immigrant community is broad and multifaceted; these statistics attest to that.
I wish these stats were surprising
