Light of awareness takes back the night

Senior Emily Schmit marched because she new someone.\nSomeone close to Schmit had been a victim of domestic violence. When the victim came forward, she was found mutually at fault. So Schmit joined about 200 students, faculty and community members for Take Back the Night Thursday night, a protest against violence against women.\nMarchers like Schmit gathered at Dunn Meadow about 7 p.m. to hear music from performers Serendiptiy and Sally Anthony, listen to speakers Cathi Crabtree, the Bloomington coordinator for the National Organization for Women, Lisa Hayes, representing Indiana attorney general Karen Freeman-Wilson, Marsha Bradford representing Safe and Civil City, and Toby Strout, director of the Middleway House.\n"(Take Back the Night) brings the community focus onto the issue of domestic violence," said senior Natalie Phillips, president of Campus for Choice, one of several campus groups supporting the event. "Even women who don't speak out tonight know they're not alone."\nSpeakers emphasized the statistics on violence and that victims need to come forward to stop others from being hurt.\n"Domestic violence and rape is so high it could be considered an epidemic in the state of Indiana," Phillips said.\nCrabtree repeated Phillips' message in her speech to the crowd, citing that one in three women will be raped in their lifetime according to the FBI. \n"We need to be aware both locally and nationally," Crabtree said.\nBoth speakers and marchers seemed frustrated at the small turnout. \n"It's ironic to me that last week Dunn Meadow had six or seven thousand students to watch Bobby Knight tell what happened to him," said marcher and Episcopal Chaplain to IU Reverend Linda Johnson. "Tonight we're here to witness act after act of violence and there are maybe 200 students. I have to ask where our priorities are?"\nWhile marches take place around the country every year, Bloomington's march was most important to the speakers and the attendants.\nStrout emphasized local awareness is important.\n"At Middleway house and at SACS here on campus, staffers haven't noticed a decline in requests for services," she said.\nTo bring this awareness to campus, she and marchers left Dunn Meadow, marched up Seventh Street to Crescent Street and across campus to Third Street, where cheering and screaming marchers stopped traffic.\nAmid cheers of "women unite, take back the night" and "end the silence, stop the violence," Schmit marched with friends and strangers. \n"It's harder now because I've seen that pain (caused by violence) first hand," she said. "I've lived with that pain."\nAs members of fraternities along Third Street stared at marchers, Schmit had a slight smile on her face. But she could only think of the numbers of non-supporters that sat on the fraternity house steps and angry motorists that followed the protesters on the two blocks of silence on Indiana Avenue.\n"We're being an inconvenience to them," she said. "Violence, to put it very lightly, is an inconvenience to our lives."\nMarchers continued up Kirkwood Avenue to the Bloomington Courthouse, where candles were lit for victims of violence including Jill Behrman, Jannifer Cockrell and other local victims of violence and rape. \nOver fifteen victims and friends of victims took the stage at the nights open mic portion. \n"It's hard to hear it," Schmit said, listening to a speaker read a poem regarding rape. "We're only a few who aren't keeping quiet. There are so many who are quiet, who stare as we walk down the street."\nBefore the march, Bradford told the crowd they didn't have to be quiet. As marchers held up their candles, she told them, "we can shine the bright light of day and take back the night"