To the Editor:
While I appreciate the coverage The Dartmouth has given the Domestic Violence Awareness Week events overall, I would like to express my concern about the house editorial in Thursday's paper titled "Speaking Out?"
To begin with, I'd like to emphasize and applaud the strength and courage of the survivors of domestic violence who shared their stories at the vigil. Your editorial completely devalues the power it took for those survivors to speak, by deciding that they weren't "truly speaking out" unless they went on record with The Dartmouth.
I think The Dartmouth illuminates society's misunderstanding of domestic violence when it refuses to consider the many reasons why domestic violence survivors would choose not to have their names and/or stories printed in a newspaper.
The first priority is the safety of the survivors, who may need to protect themselves from retaliation by keeping their names out of print. Second, the survivors may have unresolved feelings of shame, embarrassment or guilt that discourage them from "going on the record" with their stories. Or they simply may not wish to relive their pain over and over again, to friends, acquaintances and strangers.
The 150 people present recognized that only after the supportive and understanding groundwork was established, could students find the reassurance to share their own personal accounts of domestic violence. The Dartmouth cannot provide the same safe atmosphere that was created at the vigil, so it is understandable that the survivors would not be willing to publish their names in The D. While those present at the vigil in some ways proved their support, the much larger readership of The D hasn't yet.
And lastly, no one who attended the vigil on Wednesday night could ever doubt the credibility of the survivors as they told their stories.
