YourBlackWorld.net
By Ryan Velez
Posted July 2nd 2018
The current climate regarding sexual misconduct can be seen as a positive not only because it makes it easier to call out and punish those who have committed such acts, but also because it creates a more welcoming environment for victims to share their stories and heal. This is one side of the story that doesn’t make many headlines, and The Huffington Post reports that actress Viola Davis tried to shed some light on how much long-term damage sexual violence does.
Davis brought the subject up at Tina Brown’s 9th Annual Women in the World Summit in New York this year. This was one part of a long talk that covered everything from her love for acting to social justice and the importance of diverse representation in Hollywood.
“Women always say that’s the day that they died,” Davis said, referring to the day victims were sexually assaulted. “And that trauma escalates into side effects that are life-changing.” The effects she mentions include trigger suicidal thoughts, addiction issues, body dysmorphic issues and so much more.
“You could go into any prison in this country and, I guarantee you, you could trace it all back to sexual assault,” she added, speaking of women inmates. Mathematically accurate or not, Davis brings up an important point regarding sexual violence—that it occurs on a much more frequent basis than any of us may think, or are prepared to think.
Every 98 seconds, someone is sexually assaulted in the U.S., according to data from the Rape Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). Women and girls experience sexual violence at a much higher rate than boys and men, while transgender people experience sexual violence at the highest rate.
“We have 324 million people in this country, 51 percent are women, and trust me when one is traumatized and it escalates — it escalates into rage issues, incarceration, murder — all kinds of things,” Davis continued. When asked if there was a way to depict this honestly in Hollywood films, Davis stayed honest: “When we go to see movies, we want our buttered popcorn and diet soda and Sour Patch Kids — we want to escape,” she said.
She added later: “There’s not a whole lot of laughs in truth sometimes.”