From: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org (precious-things-digest) To: precious-things-digest@smoe.org Subject: precious-things-digest V9 #29 Reply-To: precious-things@smoe.org Sender: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "precious-things-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. precious-things-digest Tuesday, February 24 2004 Volume 09 : Number 029 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: RAINN confusion [Richard Handal ] Re: RAINN confusion [e m ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 05:34:52 -0500 (EST) From: Richard Handal Subject: Re: RAINN confusion AJ said: > i was always under the impression that tori was the founder of RAINN, > and RAINN was the first of it's kind: the first non-profit toll-free > 24/7 resource hotline for sex abuse victims. > is this true? It's my understanding that it was the first of its kind, and that Tori was the main force behind its creation, yes. Surely, the entire staff of the D.C. Rape Hotline was instrumental in the creation of RAINN, and I expect others also were, including, of course, the corporate involvement with the initial funding. http://www.yessaid.com/interviews/94-06-20WashingtonPost.html The Washington Post June 20, 1994 Tori Amos, in the Pink Singer Moves Beyond the Horrors of Her Past to Stardom By: Richard Harrington, Washington Post Staff Writer [ . . . ] It was Amos's courage in openly addressing her own rape in the acappella song 'Me and a Gun' also from 1991's 'Little Earthquakes,' that earlier this month earned her the 1994 Visionary Award from the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, alongside such figures as Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, activist Mabel Haden and actress Marlo Thomas. The center is helping Amos establish a national rape crisis hot line, which she hopes will be in place by fall. The idea for it came from the hundreds of letters Amos has received in response to 'Me and a Gun.' [ . . . ] I checked my original printed copy. The online citation is accurate. Also: http://www.yessaid.com/interviews/94-07-10StarTribune.html Star Tribune [of Minneapolis-St. Paul] Sunday, July 10, 1994 By: Roger Catlin, Hartford Courant [originally published in the Hartford Courant on 9 June 1994 as "HAUNTING AMOS MINES A DEEPLY PERSONAL PAST"] Edition: Metro Edition Section: ENTERTAINMENT Page: 08F AMOS REVEALED WITH PERSONAL SONGS AND POLITICAL ACTION THE SINGER CONNECTS WITH HER AUDIENCE [ . . . ] And Amos is still getting responses to her 1992 debut, "Little Earthquakes," especially for its raw descriptions of rape on "Me and a Gun." The song earned her the 1994 Visionary Award from the DC Rape Crisis Center, along with U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders, New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen and actress Marlo Thomas. The DC Rape Crisis Center was instrumental in helping Amos establish a national rape crisis hot line, which she hopes will be in place by the fall. "The thing that stands in the way is liability insurance," she said. "But there you go. That's this country for you." Amos got the idea for the hot line when she received scores of letters responding to her confessional songs of having been raped. "It's been feedback from a lot of girls--and a lot of men actually, you'd be surprised how many men have had uncle torture or whatever," she said. "Or men who've had wives, girlfriends, sisters raped and they don't know how to help them." [ . . . ] http://www.yessaid.com/interviews/96-01george.html [ . . . ] Although Amos generally talks about politics in a rather abstract way (i.e., if we heal ourselves spiritually, the political details will fall into place), she felt compelled to take direct action. In 1994, she helped set up a hot line, RAINN (The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network), funded by her record company, the Atlantic Group and Warner Music Group. The hot line receives some 50,000 calls per year. The year the hot line was inaugurated, Amos won the Visionary Award from the D.C. Rape Crisis Center in recognition of her "fight to create a world free of sexual violence and other forms of oppression." [ . . . ] http://www.yessaid.com/interviews/96-02-19Newsweek.html Newsweek February 19, 1996, p. 71 Tori the Subversive-You love her, you hate her, you made her a star - by Jeff Giles with Katharine Chubbuck [ . . . ] So many letters poured in from fellow survivors - so many women and girls streamed backstage to tell their stories - that Amos co-founded the Rape and Incest National Helpline. [ . . . ] > i discovered that tori was only a suporrter and that one man was the > founder. Well, AJ, if you have evidence to back that up I'm sure I'm not the only one here who will be interested to see it. I remember when this was happening at the time, and although I'm not one to believe everything I read even in responsible publications, that's an awful lot of citations to all be wrong about their facts. I'll take your silence as a retraction. I don't recall having ever seen Tori try to take total credit for RAINN, as it surely was a collaborative effort. Also, I have the impression she doesn't want people thinking of RAINN being synonymous with her; partly because more people than already do would think of her as the poster girl for rape and that she was exploiting that for a career advantage, and also, so as not to steal the spotlight away from all the other people who work hard at RAINN on an ongoing basis and from the many other celebrities who also do good work with RAINN. If you got a full-time job working for a non-profit organization or did a lot of volunteer work for one, and some celebrity allowed themself to be seen as the main person in connection with it while not working hard at it for long hours every week as you did--even if they were behind the founding of the organization--you would soon start feeling resentment, I'm sure. And quite rightly. Tori's more sensitive than to let this happen. And her claiming all the credit for starting RAINN simply isn't accurate. On CNN late last week on the program "Anderson Cooper 360" RAINN was cited as the source for a statistic; the percentage of rapes in 2001 that were reported to the police, I think it was. I was pleasantly surprised to have seen that. I notice the news media often cites FBI statistics or something instead. Good deal. Be seeing you, Richard Handal, H.G. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 06:21:08 -0800 (PST) From: e m Subject: Re: RAINN confusion I think Richard, as usual, has a good idea of why Tori is not credited as much as she was in RAINN inception and also during the RAINN benefit concert days. I recall the days back in 1994, when tori was bringing RAINN up in interviews all the time, and how she got inspired to do something...I recall her talking about how she didn't want to take advantage of PR image to do charity work, but she felt that she had an obligation on this issue of rape since she opened up the door in Me and a Gun to people's emotions and pain, and that she had to do something more to help... My feeling when noticing a while back that she wasn't being credited was exactly what Richard said, that she is trying to A) distance her image away from one of a victim of rape, and focus on her as a musician, so as not to appear to be just the girl who got raped, as i have heard many people refer to her as, or to appear to be taking advantage of it to help her career, and B) to not take away the credit from those in the front lines, doing all the hands on work to keep RAINN up and running.... there can be no other reason in my mind... just my two drachmas worth! - -ellen ------------------------------ End of precious-things-digest V9 #29 ************************************