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Civic Imagination

The Light at the end of a Dark Tunnel

This story is about a girl who was able to find the light at the end of a very dark tunnel in her life and she has become an inspiration to many, if not all women. A recent tragedy, the story took place in 2015 at Sanford University. The story goes like this, it was a typical college party on a typical college campus, alcohol surged through the rooms of the party, college students who attended were having a good time, letting go of their worries and enjoying the night. There was a 22-year old girl was at this party. She was visiting her sister for the night and was innocently consuming alcohol much like the rest of the people at this party, and as the night went on, so did the partying. At some point during the night, she was approached by a boy who has also been partying the night away. Soon, one thing led to another and the boy had brought her outside, behind some garbage cans and began to rape her. He stripped her of her clothes and had his way with her while she was completely unresponsive and was not in the right state of mind to give any kind of consent. The boy continued this action until interrupted by two boys passing by who tackled him to the ground and saved the girl from this terrible occurrence. The girl was sent to the hospital and was examined by several doctors, all to find out that she had been raped. She contemplated keeping this to herself but it was eating her up inside and she finally told herself that she needed to take action. She started by confronting her family and her boyfriend about what had happened and soon after, the case was brought to court. After hearing the case in court, the judge ruled that the rapist would be given the smallest sentence of just three counts of sexual assault and only six months in jail, all because he was an award winning athlete at Stanford University and his parents were able to use their money to afford a highly skilled attorney that would get him off.

The story was broadcasted on all the news stations when the verdict was made, but when her story became public, it seemed as though the news and social media focused more on her words rather than the rape story itself. I first read this story on Facebook, after I had seen someone share it on their timeline. The minute I heard of this story, I really felt for her and I got to thinking about how many girls are out there, struggling to come to terms with their own demons. This story truly touches my heart because I know of many girls who have been affected by rape and their rapists, too, got away with such a horrible crime, because they were afraid to speak up and bring them to justice. This story and her words have further inspired me to pursue the one dream I have always had, to become an attorney some day. Hearing this makes me want to fight for justice and for those girls who have experienced such a traumatic occurrence because no one should be taken advantage of this way. This story is broadly known throughout the United States because of the media coverage that it was given and because this girl is one of the very few victims of rape who actually spoke up and confronted her demon to the world. I have shared and will continue to share this tragic, but inspiring story because I believe that people should be aware of the problems that we face every day in the United States.

This story has since been made an inspiration to many people throughout the states. The girl’s words have truly touched the hearts of America, as many people much like myself have expressed their anger towards the justice system, and the rapist, and their empathy towards the girl and her family. Soon after this story was broadcasted, an online petition was made against the judge who wrongly sentenced the rapist in this case. The petition received thousands of signatures from all over the U.S. and it gave people a reason to fight for justice against people who have gotten away with their actions because they have money. It shouldn’t matter how much money a person has, if you commit a crime, you must pay the price for it, in every single case, and America has realized that this whole story was so wrong in so many ways, from the action itself by this boy, to the verdict that he was given, and now it is time for change. How many girls must be raped before we realize the corruption of our justice system?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G1bNbKRfB0

justice, women, girls, strong, fight, rape culture, USA, social media

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6. Chef "Chef is a film released in 2014 that was written and directed by Jon Favreau who was inspired by his own career in film and love of the culinary arts to create a movie about a popular chef who needs to find his creative spark and fall in love with cooking once more. The film begins in California where Chef Carl Casper lives and works. After receiving a brutally negative review from a well regarded food critic, Carl reevaluates his job at a fancy restaurant in California. He realized that sticking to a strict menu has taken away a lot of joy from the profession he used to love. After he quits his job, Carl heads to Miami, Florida with his family because his ex-wife, Inez, needs him to watch their son, Percy, while she works.
7. Freedom Writers: Bridging Racial Divides Through Writing Freedom Writers (the movie) is based on a true story of a school in Long Beach, California. The main character, Erin Gruwell, is a new teacher at Woodrow Wilson Classical High School and placed with the students who are considered at-risk and unteachable. These students were almost entirely comprised of minorities, with the exception of one student. With such a diverse class and a group of students who had no apparent desire to learn, the film explores the real-world challenges that Gruwell faced trying to get her students to come to class wanting to learn, if they would even want to come to their classes at all. The class divides itself based on race, and fights and arguments breakout regularly. The class later finds common ground on their feelings and discussions around The Holocaust. Her students become inspired to break free from the things that originally divided them, most notably with one character speaking out against someone who she was being forced to lie for during a trial. She tasked her students with writing in a diary and then compiled those journals and writings into a collection of them all in “The Freedom Writers Diary.”
8. Sanjay's Super Team This is an animated short film from Pixar directed and written by Sanjay Patel who based it off his experiences as a child. The story revolves around a young boy, Sanjay, and his father, an Indian-American migrant. Sanjay is watching his favourite superheroes on TV while his father is praying by the shrine in the same room. His father urges him to join in the ritual but Sanjay refuses so he switches off the TV and takes his toy in order to force him into it.
11. Sailor Moon Sailor Moon is a young teenage girl that learns that she has magical powers that allows her to fight against the evils of the extraterrestrial world. She finds the Sailor Scouts, Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter. Each of them have powers that relate to the symbolism of their planet and a specific superhero outfit that they wear. Based in Neo-futuristic Tokyo the story was released in the 1990’s as a manga and then a television anime came out. It became very popular among teens especially young Asian-American girls because of where it was based although the characters were many depicted as white skin tone.
15. The Lion King
18. Train of Hope
19. Dana G.
24. Sandokan: A Post-Colonial Coldwar Hero The plot of the novel revolves around the adventures of Sandokan - a Bornean man who lost his status, home and family to British colonialists. Embittered by his experience, Sandokan sets up camp at the island of Mompracem. From there he leads a gang of pirates under the flag of the Tiger. Together they destabilize the colonialists’ authority through robbery and violence. Steeped in the colonial period in which it was written, Salgari’s novel pitted indigenous populations against the colonial powers in ways that highlighted the evils of imperialism and celebrated resistance. As Maria Bianca Gerlich (1998, 34) observes, “Sandokan, Mompracem, and the flag of the tiger are allegories in the fight for freedom.”
27. The colonial city
28. My Dad
29. The Diary of Anne Frank
30. Maus: A Survivor's Tale
31. How the tortoise got cracks in his shell
36. Emmeline the Suffragist
45. Stephanie Q
48. The doctors' team of the Aegean sea
59. How I "Eat, Pray, and Love"
62. A Leader
69. Tiajna A
71. Julia B. I am a third year student at the University of Maryland in the U.S. studying Journalism with a minor in French. Writing is a passion of mine, and journalism is one of the many real world applications of writing. I hope to be able to use writing to make an impact on the world through the news and help others get the information that they need in order to be informed citizens. In my free time I like to do triathlons and write poetry.
75. Nick C
77. Roaring Lion
84. Zootopia: Disney's Introduction to Reality for Children
88. SkyNet: the danger of Artificial Intelligence
90. Nour H
97. Nina N.
102. The Infinite Forking Possibilities of the Future
103. Be kind to yourself
111. We are all Martín Fierro
112. Rafael DCB
121. The Myth of the Mansfield Hanging Tree
122. Ghada G.
124. Nora S
126. Equilibrium Equilibrium is set in 2072 in Libria, a city state established by the survivors of World War III. “Equilibrium” is an action/thriller movie following John Preston (Bale), an enforcement officer in a futuristic world where a regime has decided to eliminate war by suppressing emotions using a certain type of drug. Books, art and music are strictly forbidden and "feeling" is a crime punishable by death.
127. Michelle S
132. The Light at the end of a Dark Tunnel
134. The Help
Contents of this tag:
2. Maus: A Survivor's Tale
6. How the tortoise got cracks in his shell
9. My Dad
10. Sanjay's Super Team This is an animated short film from Pixar directed and written by Sanjay Patel who based it off his experiences as a child. The story revolves around a young boy, Sanjay, and his father, an Indian-American migrant. Sanjay is watching his favourite superheroes on TV while his father is praying by the shrine in the same room. His father urges him to join in the ritual but Sanjay refuses so he switches off the TV and takes his toy in order to force him into it.
11. Freedom Writers: Bridging Racial Divides Through Writing Freedom Writers (the movie) is based on a true story of a school in Long Beach, California. The main character, Erin Gruwell, is a new teacher at Woodrow Wilson Classical High School and placed with the students who are considered at-risk and unteachable. These students were almost entirely comprised of minorities, with the exception of one student. With such a diverse class and a group of students who had no apparent desire to learn, the film explores the real-world challenges that Gruwell faced trying to get her students to come to class wanting to learn, if they would even want to come to their classes at all. The class divides itself based on race, and fights and arguments breakout regularly. The class later finds common ground on their feelings and discussions around The Holocaust. Her students become inspired to break free from the things that originally divided them, most notably with one character speaking out against someone who she was being forced to lie for during a trial. She tasked her students with writing in a diary and then compiled those journals and writings into a collection of them all in “The Freedom Writers Diary.”
17. A Leader
22. Train of Hope
24. The Light at the end of a Dark Tunnel
27. Emmeline the Suffragist
28. The Diary of Anne Frank
33. We are all Martín Fierro
39. The Help
42. How I "Eat, Pray, and Love"
43. The doctors' team of the Aegean sea
Contents of this tag:
1. The Light at the end of a Dark Tunnel