Rain did not slow down the 20th annual Take Back the Night march Oct. 1 at the Campus Pond Pavilion.

Hundreds of students of all races and walks of life came out for the vigil to show they do not want sexual assault, domestic violence, racism and homophobia to continue in their community.

This walk empowered survivors of abuse and surviving friends to overcome their pain. Daniell Reynolds, senior psychology major, had an important reason for going.

“I had an aunt who was a victim of domestic violence and she passed away a few years ago and her husband murdered her,” Reynolds said. “This is my way of paying my respects to her.”

Torchbearers Alicia Hill, senior sports management major, and Brittney Carr, junior psychology major, led the march. They are members of Zeta Phi Beta

“We are the ones holding the torch and leading the line,” Carr said. “It means we are the ones to take a stand in what’s going on and showing the seriousness of being raped.”

Carr said she has had friends raped.

Rape and sexual assault starts with bullying with a sexual twist, physical inappropriateness in a steady progress, said Erin Walters, director of education at the Sexual Assault Counseling and Information Service (SACIS).

She said stopping sexual and physical violence has “100,000 steps” in between, not just marching in Take Back the Night.

“There are comments that we can interject like you made a sexually charged joke that really offended me,” Walter said.

Walter’s said that if someone is saying a victim blaming statement, tell them that no one asks to be sexually violated or physically assaulted.

Jeannie Ludlow, coordinator of women’s studies and assistant professor of English, said that sexual assault and domestic violence are of equal concern in minority and mainstream communities.

“The thing about these forms of violence is that they often stay within racial groups because relationships often stay within racial groups,” Ludlow said. “So, generally, white men rape white women and colored women are raped by colored men.”

Ludlow said there is no good data that says any racial group commits these violent acts more.

“People have stereotyped domestic violence as a Black problem but it’s not,” Ludlow said. “There is some data that in African American communities, there is less reporting of it because they are worried about the stereotypes.”

On the issue of homophobia, Ludlow said the African American voters in California who voted for President Barack Obama is being correlated with the passage of Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage law. However, Ludlow said this is not the case.

“There were not so many African American people voting that they could do that by themselves,” Ludlow said. “White people are homophobic too, but they often like to hide it.”

Homophobia is a societal problem, Ludlow said, and does not originate from race or the churches. Also, she said violence happens to men, but is severely underreported because of the homophobic and hyper masculinity remarks they fear hearing.

Besides women, men came out for the march. Joshua Jackson, freshman mass communications major, said he was marching to protect women.

“Women go through a whole lot of things in life, and it’s always maximized by what men do and women never have a voice,” Jackson said. “This is a time where we could give women a voice.”

Jackson has an Eastern friend who is suffering a situation with her father. His mother was also a survivor of domestic violence before he was born.

Bob Bajek can be reached at 581-7942 or rtbajek@eiu.edu.