Asmany of you know, the annual Take Back the Night March was held this past Thursday. The march itself was as empowering as I expected, and possibly even more so. But the vigil in honor of sexual assault which took place afterwards was truly extraordinary. Not only was this candlelight ceremony unprecedented at Dartmouth, but it was the first time I, personally, had ever experienced something so touching and so powerful that I was moved to tears on several occasions.
Until now, I never knew the true meaning of the word community. Previously, community, to me, was some sort of prerequisite to conformity.Now, as I stood in the center of our beloved Green, listening to survivors -- both men and women -- relate their stories, I was awestruck.
Here on the Green stood my fellow Dartmouth classmates, and we were speaking without pretense. There were no boundaries, no lines drawn over which we could not step. All that mattered was that each person dared to share a part of herself.
In fact, the display was almost as surreal as it was empowering. The sense of community was more alive that I ever knew it could be. It flowed swiftly and passionately through each and every person present, moving us physically as well as emotionally. Candles circled the area, illuminating each face just to the point that you recognized that each was a living breathing human being; each was a person who was a wealth of feelings, desires, anger, sadness and fortitude.
We were held together by an invisible, but nonetheless intensely powerful bond. It represented the epitome of human understanding and human connectedness -- something I was not sure I would ever see on a large scale at our proud institution.
In our culture we are taught to stand tall, be strong and independent and to "be a man." We learn that true strength is to depend only on oneself, and that leaning is equivalent to weakness.
However there comes a time when we must learn to find comfort in our community, without severing communication with others. There comes a time when we must reach out to others and willingly accept the support they offer us without attributing the resulting emotional release to some internal weakness.
Clearly as men and women, we have an infinite amount of resilience and a tremendous capacity for survival. However in the end, everyone at the vigil reached out for one another. And by doing so, we learned a little about each other and a lot about ourselves.
This realization makes Dan Richman '95's mockery of Sexual Assault Awareness Week ("Awareness Awareness Week," April 21, 1995) all the more reflective of his own lack of "understanding and cognizance" of the potential of a powerful community. I wish he had been witness to the unity of his fellow classmates who did indeed raise their voices, breaking the silence that prevents our collective awareness. I wish he had not only heard, but truly listened to the moving stories of men and women who first spoke after twelve years and of those who had spoken many years ago.
Now the question remains, do we allow this feeling of community to die as easily as we extinguished our candles? Or instead, do we strive to keep our community, our dialogue and our awareness alive and flourishing in our every day Dartmouth lives? We must embrace the strength our community provides because it is this very strength that can move us towards becoming the vital human beings we wish to be.
The vigil on Thursday made me realize that it is, in fact, possible to remain a distinct and dynamic individual, while still pausing to lend some of that energy to one's community.
On Friday as the clock struck six and the Alma Mater rang clear from the top of Baker tower, the eloquent words spoken by Katie Koestner following the vigil suddenly chimed in: For me, "Dartmouth will be forever changed."
