By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press
PAXTON – “Mommy didn’t want me,” says a baby’s onesie. “She gave me away … Now my foster Mommy HITS me … And my foster daddy RAPES me … WHO LOVES ME?”
“Parents need help and support too,” says a bigger person’s T-shirt.
Tracy Casey, an adjunct professor at Anna Maria College, displays such clothes to tell other people’s stories, whether specific experiences or typical ones. And if you listen long enough, you can hear her story too.
Nov. 30 she stood by hundreds of shirts hanging in Anna Maria’s student center. She’d organized The Clothesline Project there for the seventh consecutive year – to raise awareness about different types of violence and to advocate for victims.
She started this project at Anna Maria in 2011 because she wanted to help students in her sexual assault class learn to do advocacy, she said. (She teaches forensics, victimology and criminal justice courses.)
The Clothesline Project was started in 1990 in Hyannis, she said.
“It is a vehicle for women affected by violence to express their emotions by decorating a shirt,” says the website theclotheslineproject.org. “They then hang the shirt on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of violence against women.” The project has now spread to other countries.
“In 2011 my class decided to make the T-shirts,” Prof. Casey said. They invited Anna Maria students, faculty and staff to design shirts about abuse they suffered, or support they gave victims, and they received 200 shirts.
In 2012 the display grew, as Prof. Casey’s “children as victims” class collected 100 more shirts. Since then, more people have donated shirts, and now she has more than 300 for the annual display, she said.
Each year her students help, talking to passersby in the center and offering literature and ribbons: blue for child abuse, teal for sexual assault and purple for domestic violence.
Rebecca Raphael, a junior in Prof. Casey’s victimology class, said that last year friends gave her ribbons.
“This year it’s more of an eye-opener for me,” she said. “You get to see and hear everyone’s story” on the shirts. It makes her want to be there for anyone she meets who’s been victimized.
Prof. Casey said they usually display the shirts one day in October, domestic violence month. This year the project got pushed to Nov. 30.
She said Ann Marie Mires, director of the college’s Molly Bish Center for the Protection of Children and the Elderly, sponsored the project. Boy Scout Troop 26 from Barre, which one of Prof. Casey’s sons belongs to, helped hang the shirts.
How do people react to the display?
“Shock,” Prof. Casey responded. “Some people actually turn away and are not able to see the T-shirts. Some are excited that we’re talking about it. … We’re trying to start conversations,” to bring about change. “We can’t do that if we’re silent.”
How can ordinary people bring about change?
“Talking about it,” Prof. Casey said. “It creates more services for victims. … It opens the doors for victims to say, ‘This happened to me.’ For some offenders, it’s not just about convicting them, but treating them.” Some have been abused themselves, or have mental health or substance abuse issues. This is not about excuses, but prevention, she said.
“What happens after prison?” she asked. “What happens after court?” Perpetrators may fear further punishment and imprisonment if they admit they have a problem abusing others.
Some of the shirts offer suggestions for change.
“Violence breeds violence,” says one. “Control what you can. Turn off violent TV.” It gives a Scripture reference – Philippians 4:8 – which admonishes Christians to think about what is true, just, pure and lovely.
Prof. Casey eventually pointed out that her family has shirts in the display too.
Her grown sons’ shirts call for stopping sexual assault and “any type of abuse” and for spreading the word. Her husband’s mentions destruction and changes families experience and calls for listening, helping and saving victims. Her own shirt calls for supporting victims’ families.
“My boys were assaulted by a family member when they were younger,” she said of her sons who designed the shirts and have spoken to her classes. “So it’s really important that I keep doing this work.”
She said she was a social worker working primarily with young mothers in 2007, when her sons told her of an offense that took place against them five years before that.
The perpetrator took a plea bargain and was not sent to prison or registered as a sex offender, she said.
“We were pretty angry,” she said. “It definitely tore our lives” apart and turned them upside down.
It also moved her to try to help victims. In January 2008 the case was heard, and the following September she returned to school for a master’s in criminal justice, with a minor in victimology, she said. In 2011 Anna Maria College hired her.
“It feels good,” she said of doing the Clothesline Project here. “It’s very humbling to be able to do this work and have people be open and accepting” and tell their stories. “It’s just another reminder of why I keep doing what I’m doing. I know it sounds odd, because it’s such a somber, negative thing.”
But, she said, “the exciting piece” is that she has created a safe environment in which others can tell her their stories.