Hang It Up

Suffering?? In Silence?? not in America...

Close those doors boys and girls... don't wash your dirty laundry, hide it before someone notices... revealing truth of pain is a mythical illusion... if someone knew what really went on, they might be ashamed to talk about the severity of the problem. This is the American delusion. If we ignore the problems of injustice, maybe they will just go away. The pain of poverty, racial injustice, rape, incest, murder, abuse- both hetero and homosexual, sexual stereotypes, gender stereotypes, issues thrown under the bed and piling up so deep within the heart that tears can no longer describe the hurt...

If these sound like personal issues, listen closer. Societally, our communities are being internally shredded by the secrets of injustice. It's no longer only the homosexuals who need to come out of the closet, but also the rape and incest victims, the child abuse victims, and every other told to keep quiet about their internal pain. Why is it that so many victims are afraid to speak up? Why is the result personal shame for being abused? Fear, guilt, remorse, shame, anger, and painful memories are permanently placed into the heart and lives of the sufferers, and there is little to ease the pain.

So what do we do to help provide closure to those who are suffering so deeply? The ClothesLine Project, started by the Young Women’s Christian Association has been providing a way since 1990 for women, homosexuals and other abuse victims to express their pain. “It is a vehicle for women affected by violence to express their emotions by decorating a shirt. They then hang the shirt on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of violence against women” (quote from cp website).

The ClothesLine Project, which is a project that occurs in different places around the States, provides color coded t-shirts (according to the crime) to those who have either been a victim of rape, incest, murder, or abuse including homosexual abuse or know someone who has been a victim. The person is then given time to write a message on the t-shirt about the pain of the crime. These messages can be anything including messages of forgiveness, stories, testimonies or simply words. The messages written are left to the writer’s discretion. Although this year at Eastern, leaders of the project are asked to monitor content and censor obscenities despite what profound truths those messages may hold.

According to S. Steiner, a professor here at Eastern University, the project helps connect the individual suffering to societal suffering- so that the problems may be recognized as larger than simply personal. The ClothesLine project is an opportunity to raise the awareness of “the dirty laundry” that sits unclean and unnoticed in American Society. Professor Steiner recognizes that "by hanging the tshirts in public at Eastern, our community shows empathy to those who suffer rather than rejection." She also says that there is a lot of healing and forgiveness as a result of the project, and that students are amazed at the amount of silenced pain that is brought out as a result of the opportunity to speak out about it.

The ClothesLine Project at Eastern will run from October 27- 31 in McInnis. A Prayer Vigil will be held the evening of the 30th.