WEBVTT

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It was April last year,

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and I was on an evening out with friends
to celebrate one of their birthdays.

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We hadn't been all together
for a couple of weeks

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and it was a perfect evening
as we were all reunited.

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At the end of the evening,

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I caught the last underground train
back to the other side of London.

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The journey was smooth.

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I got back to my local station

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and I began the 10-minute walk home.

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As I turned the corner onto my street,

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my house in sight up ahead,

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I heard footsteps behind me

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that seemed to have
approached out of nowhere

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and were picking up pace.

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Before I had time to process
what was happening,

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a hand was clapped around my mouth
so that I could not breathe

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and the young man behind me
dragged me to the ground,

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beat my head repeatedly 
against the pavement

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until my face began to bleed,

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kicking me in the back and neck

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while he began to assault me,

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ripping off my clothes

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and telling me to "shut up"
as I struggled to cry for help.

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With each smack of my head
to the concrete ground,

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a question echoed through my mind
that still haunts me today.

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"Is this going to be how it all ends?"

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[Little could] I have realized
that I'd been followed the whole way

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from the moment that I left the station.

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And hours later,

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I was standing topless and barelegged
in front of the police,

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having the cuts and bruises
on my naked body photographed

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for forensic evidence.

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Now there are few words to describe
the all-consuming feelings

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of vulnerability, shame, upset
and injustice that I was ridden with

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in that moment and for the weeks to come.

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But wanting to find a way
to condense these feelings

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into something ordered
that I could work through,

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I decided to do what
felt most natural to me.

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I wrote about it.

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It started out as a cathartic exercise.

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I wrote a letter to my assaulter,

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humanizing him as "you,"

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to identify him as part
of the very community

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that he had so violently
abused that night.

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Stressing the tidal wave
effect of his actions I wrote,

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"Did you ever think
of the people in your life?

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I don't know who the people
in your life are.

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I don't know anything about you.

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But I do know this:

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you did not just attack me that night.

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I'm a daughter, I'm a friend,

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I'm a sister, I'm a pupil,

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I'm a cousin, I'm a niece,

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I'm a neighbor,

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I'm the employee who
served everyone coffee

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in the café under the railway.

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And all the people who form
these relations to me

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make up my community,

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and you assaulted
every single one of them.

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You violated the truth that I
will never cease to fight for,

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and which all
of these people represent --

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that there are infinitely more
good people in the world than bad."

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But determined not to let
this one incident make me lose faith

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in the solidarity in my community
or humanity as a whole,

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I recalled the 7/7 terrorist bombings
in July 2005 on London transport,

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and how the mayor of London at the time,

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and indeed my own parents,

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had insisted that we all get back
on the Tubes the next day,

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so that we wouldn't be defined or changed
by those that had made us feel unsafe.

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I told my attacker,

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"You've carried out your attack,

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but now I'm getting back on my tube.

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My community will not feel
we are unsafe walking home after dark.

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We will get on the last tubes home,

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and we will walk up our streets alone,

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because we will not ingrain
or submit to the idea

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that we are putting ourselves
in danger in doing so.

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We will continue to come together,

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like an army,

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when any member of our
community is threatened,

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and this is a fight you will not win."

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At the time of writing this letter --

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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At the time of writing this letter,

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I was studying for my exams in Oxford,

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and I was working
on the local student paper there.

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And despite being lucking enough

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to have friends and family supporting me,

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it was a pretty isolating time.

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I didn't know anyone

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who'd been through
something like this before,

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at least I didn't think I did.

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I'd read the news reports, the statistics,

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and I knew how common
sexual assault was

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and yet I couldn't actually
name a single person

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that I'd heard speak out about
an experience of this kind before.

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So in a somewhat spontaneous decision,

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I decided that I would publish
my letter in the student paper,

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hoping to reach out to others in Oxford


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that might have had a similar experience

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and be feeling the same way.

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At the end of the letter,

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I asked others to write in
with their experiences

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under the hashtag, #notguilty

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to emphasize that survivors of assault
could express themselves

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without feeling shame or guilt
about what happened to them --

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to show that we could all
stand up to sexual assault.

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What I never anticipated

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is that almost overnight,

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this published letter would go viral.

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Soon we were receiving hundreds
of stories from men and women

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across the world,

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which we began to publish
on a website I set up,

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and the hashtag became a campaign.

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There was an Australian mother in her 40s
who described how on an evening out,

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she was followed to the bathroom

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by a man who went
to repeatedly grab her crotch.

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There was a man in the Netherlands

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who described how he was
date raped on a visit to London

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and wasn't taken seriously
by anyone he reported his case to.

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I had personal Facebook messages
from people in India and South America

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saying how can we bring the message
of the campaign over there.

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One the first contributions we had
was from a woman called [Nikki],

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who described growing up
being molested my her own father.

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And I had friends open up to me

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about experiences ranging from
those that happened last week

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to those that happened years ago
that I'd had no idea about.

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And the more that we started
to receive these messages,

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the more we also started
to receive messages of hope.

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People feeling empowered
by this community of voices

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standing up to sexual assault
and victim-blaming.

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One woman called Olivia,

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after describing how she was attacked
by someone she had trusted

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and cared about for a long time,

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said, "I've read many
of the stories posted on here,

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and I feel more hopeful
that if so many women can move forward,

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then I can, too.

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I've been inspired by many

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and I hope I can be
as strong as them someday,

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and I'm sure I will."

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People around the world began
tweeting under this hashtag

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and the letter was republished
and covered by the national press,

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as well as being translated into several
other languages worldwide.

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But something struck me

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about the media attention
that this letter was attracting.

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For something to be front-page news,

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given the word "news" itself,

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we can assume it must be
something new or something surprising.

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And yet sexual assault
is not something new.

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Sexual assault,

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along with other kinds of injustices,

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is reported in the media all the time.

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But through the campaign,

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these injustices were framed
as not just news stories,

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they were first-hand experiences
that had effected real people,

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who were creating,

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with the solidarity of others,

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what they needed
and had previously lacked:

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a platform to speak out,

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the reassurance they weren't alone
or to blame for what happened to them,

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and open discussions that would help
to reduce stigma around the issue.

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The voices of those directly effected
were at the forefront of the story,

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not the voices of journalists
or commentators on social media,

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and that's the story was news.

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We live in an incredibly
interconnected world

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with the proliferation of social media,

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which is of course a fantastic
resource for igniting social change.

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But it's also made us
increasingly reactive,

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from the smallest annoyances
of, "Oh my train's been delayed,"

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to the greatest injustices of war,
genocides, terrorist attacks.

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Our default response as become
to leap to react to any kind of grievance

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by tweeting, Facebooking, hastagging --

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anything to show others
that we too have reacted.

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The problem with reacting
in the manner on mass

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is it can sometimes mean
that we don't actually react at all --

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not in the sense of actually
doing anything, anyway.

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It might make ourselves feel better,

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feeling like we've contributed
to a group mourning or outrage,

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but it doesn't actually change anything.

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And what's more,

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it can sometimes drown out the voices

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of those directly
effected by the injustice,

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whose needs must be heard.

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Worrying too,

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is the tendency for some
reactions to injustice

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to build even more walls,

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being quick to point fingers

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with the hope of providing easy
solutions to complex problems.

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One British tabloid,

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on the publication of my letter,

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branded a headline stating,

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"Oxford Student Launches Online
Campaign to Shame Attacker."

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But the campaign never
meant to shame anyone.

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It meant to let people speak
and to make others listen.

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Divisive Twitter trolls were quick
to create even more injustice,

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commenting on my attacker's
ethnicity of class

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to push their own prejudiced agendas.

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And some even accused me
of feigning of the whole thing

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to push, and I quote, "my feminist
agenda of man-hating."

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I know, right?

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As if I'm going to be like,

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"Hey guys! Sorry I can't make it,

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I'm really busy trying to hate the entire
male population by the time I'm 30."

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(Laughter)

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Now, I'm almost sure that these people
would say the things the say in person,

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but it's as if because they might
be behind a screen,

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in the comfort in their own home
when on social media,

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that people forget that what they're
doing is a public act --

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that other people will be reading it
and will be effected by it.

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Returning to my analogy
of getting back on our trains,

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another main concern that I have

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about this noise that escalates
from our online responses to injustice

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is that it can very easily slip
into portraying us as the effected party,

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which can lead to a sense of defeatism,

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a kind of mental barrier to seeing
and opportunity for positivity or change

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after a negative situation.

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A couple of months
before the campaign started,

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or any of this happened to me,

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I went to a TEDx event in Oxford

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and I saw Zelda la Grange speak,

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the former private secretary
to Nelson Mandela.

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One of the stories
she told really stuck me.

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She spoke of when
Mandela was taken to court

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by the South African Rugby Union

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after he commissioned
an inquiry into sports affairs.

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In the court room,

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he went up to the South African
Rugby union's lawyers,

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shook them by the hand

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and conversed with them each
in their own language.

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And Zelda wanted to protest,

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saying they had no right to his respect

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after this injustice
that they had caused him.

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He turned to her and said,

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"You must never allow the enemy
to determine the grounds for battle."

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And at the time of hearing these words

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I didn't really know why
they were so important,

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but I felt though they were

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and I wrote them down in a notebook
that I had on me at the time.

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But I've thought about
this line a lot ever since.

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Revenge,

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or the expression of hatred
towards those who have done us injustice

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may feel like a human instinct
in the face of wrong,

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but we need to break out of these cycles

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if we are to hope to transform
negative events of injustice

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into positive social change.

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To do otherwise

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continues to let the enemy
determine the grounds for battle,

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creates a binary

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where we who have suffered
become the effected,

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pitted against them, the perpetrators.

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And just like we got back on our tubes,

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we can't let our platforms
for interconnectivity and community

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be the places that we settle for defeat.

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But I don't want to discourage
a social media response,

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because I owe the development
of the #notguilty campaign

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almost entirely to social media.

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But I do want to encourage
a more considered approach

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to the way we use it
to respond to injustice.

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And the start I think
is to ask ourselves two things.

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Firstly,

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why do I feel this injustice?

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In my case there were
several answers to this.

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Someone had hurt me and those who I loved,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
under the assumption that they
wouldn't have to be held to account

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or recognize the damage they had caused.

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Not only that,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but thousands of men and women
suffer every day from sexual abuse,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
often in silence,

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and yet it's still a problem

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that we don't give the same
air-time to as other issues.

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It's still an issue many people
blame victims for.

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So next ask yourself how,

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in recognizing these reasons,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
could I go about reversing them?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
With us, this was holding
my attacker to account --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and many others.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was calling them out
on the effect that they had caused.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was give air-time to the issue
of sexual assault,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
opening up discussions amongst friends,
amongst families, in the media

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that had been closed for too long,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and stressing that victims shouldn't feel
to blame for what happened to them.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You might still have a long way to go
in solving this problem entirely,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but in this way,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we can begin to use social media
as an active tool for social justice,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as a tool to educate,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to stimulate dialogues,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to make those in positions
of authority aware of an issue

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by listening to those
directly effected by it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because sometimes these questions
don't have easy answers.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In fact they rarely do.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But this doesn't mean we can't
give them a considered response.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In situations where you can't
go about thinking

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
how you'd reverse this injustice,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you can still think
maybe not what you can do

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but what you can not do.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You can not build further walls
by fighting injustice with more prejudice,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
more hatred.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You can not speak over
those directly effected by an injustice.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And you can not react to injustice
only to forget about it the next day

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
just because the rest
of Twitter has moved on.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Sometimes not reacting
instantly is ironically

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the best immediate course
of action we can take.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because we might be angry, upset
and energized by injustice,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but let's consider our responses.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Let us hold people to account

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
without descending into a culture

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that thrives off shaming
and injustice ourselves.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Let us remember that distinction --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so often forgotten by Internet users --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
between criticism and insult.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Let us not forget
to think before we speak

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
just because we might
have a screen in front of us.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When we create noise on social media,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
let it not drown out the needs
of those effected,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but instead let it amplify their voices,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so the Internet becomes a place
where you're not the exception

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
if you speak out about something
that has actually happened to you.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
All these considered
approaches to injustice

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
invoke the very keystones
on which the Internet was built:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to network,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to have have signal,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to connect --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
all these terms that imply
bringing people together,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
not pushing people apart.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because if you look up the word
"justice" in the dictionary,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
before punishment,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
before administration of law
or judicial authority,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you get, "The maintenance
of what is right."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I think there are a few things
more "right" in this world

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
than bringing people together,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
than unions.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And if we allow
social media to deliver that,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
then it can deliver a very
powerful form of justice, indeed.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Thank you very much.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Applause)