Today through Thursday The Clothesline Project, a program that gives a voice to victims of sexual violence, will display T-shirts made by abuse victims. The program seeks to heighten awareness of sexual assault, which according to the U.S. Department of Justice, happens every two minutes in the U.S.
“It is held to bear witness to women and men who have experienced a variety of sexual violence and injustice,” said Beatrice Tatem, Sexual Assault Response Team coordinator. “It is a way to empower men and women and break the silence.”
The project gives victims of abuse a chance to tell their stories on T-shirts and then hang it on a clothesline for others to read and pay tribute too.
Randi Kellebrew, a data management assistant at MSU, said the Clothesline Project is close to her heart because at one time she was in a sexually and emotionally abusive marriage.
Kellebrew said her former husband belittled her verbally and crossed preset sexual boundaries, degrading her until she complied.
“I was always depressed and withdrawn,” she said. “I was very isolated from my family, and I didn’t want them to know how unhappy I was.”
Kellebrew said she was in denial about the abuse she suffered for years.
When she finally accepted the abuse for what it was, she said it was heartbreaking and she felt ashamed.
“Over the last couple years, the Clothesline Project has become a healing tool for me,” she said. “Because I am a survivor of sexual abuse, I have so much respect for all the T-shirts hung on the clothesline and for all the people who made those shirts.”
Kellebrew described her first Clothesline Project experience as frightening, yet liberating.
“It takes courage and sometimes just plain old desperation to express the thoughts and pictures you see on these shirts,” she said. “I believe we all need to be aware that this is real, that this is a problem and that this is unacceptable.”
The color of each shirt represents a different form of abuse. Blue and green represent survivors of incest and sexual abuse, while red, pink and orange represent survivors of rape and sexual assault. Purple represents those attacked for sexual orientation, yellow and beige represent battered victims, and black represents victims attacked for political beliefs.
While the abuse behind each shirt color is heart wrenching, perhaps the saddest is that of the white shirt. A white shirt represents people who have died because of violence.
MSU student Jamie Thomason has dedicated a white shirt to her cousin Heather, who was murdered in a domestic violence situation two years ago this Thursday.
“My cousin Heather was like a sister to me,” she said.
Thomason said she remembers the day she found out both wonderful and horrible news concerning her cousin. The good news was Heather was expecting a child.
“That day, she [also] told me about an incident where he had threatened to cut the baby out of her while holding a knife to her neck,” she said.
Thomason pleaded with her cousin to escape her abusive relationship to no avail.
“The stories kept coming, and then she started to cover up when bruises came more often,” she said. “All the time she kept saying he’s trying to get better’ [and] he’s just mad because he can’t find a job.'”
Thomason received a message over MySpace from Heather a few hours before her brutal murder. She believes Heather had worked up the courage to finally leave. She never had the chance though.
Heather was stabbed to death in front of her 9-month-old baby, wrapped in sheets and put in the trunk of a car. Her husband left her body in the trunk, where she was found two days later, and ran off with the baby.
“I tell this story hoping that someday it will touch someone, and that they will get out before it’s too late,” Thomason said.
Mary, who has asked that her last name be kept private, hung a red shirt during the 2007 Clothesline Project.
Making the shirt was the first step she had ever taken to reveal an instance that had changed her life in July 2006. She was raped by a man she barely knew and became pregnant.
“I chose to keep the baby and hide the truth of what happened to me from my friends and family,” she said.
Mary has also found healing in participating in the Clothesline Project.
“It helped me express some of the hurt and anger I carried for so long,” she said. “Since then I have become more and more open about what happened to me.”
Kellebrew said she hopes students will stop by the Drill Field throughout the week to read a few of the shirts.
“Maybe you can’t bear to read them all, but just read a few,” she said. “By taking the time to read some of these shirts, you are honoring the people they are representing.”
The Clothesline Project was one of the steps that helped Kellebrew realize the abuse she suffered was not her fault.
“I was a victim,”she said, “but now I’m a survivor.”
The girls all believe there is strength in sharing their stories and speaking out against the different types of abuse they have been through.
“Even in a whisper,” Thomason said, “if we all speak at the same time it becomes a yell.”