Speeches

Speech for LACAAW’s 34th Humanitarian Awards Benefit

October 21, 2005 at the Beverly Hills Hotel, by Patti Giggans

This is my 20th annual LACAAW Awards benefit. That’s 20 years of chicken dinners — but we offer vegan choices now!

Each of tonight’s honorees brings courage to their work in the world. Whether its in the business sphere stretching the usual corporate mission like Southern Living at Home and Verizon Wireless; or challenging the status quo of DNA back-logs in rape investigations like LA City councilmember Jack Weiss; or taking on gender-based violence in sports and military culture like Jackson Katz; or volunteering considerable amounts of time and energy to raise awareness and funds to help end violence against women and children like Jehan Agrama or combining celebrity and bravery to speak out and speak up for survivors like Calista Flockhart. And it also takes courage for young people — to tell their stories and share the truth about their lives especially with adults as we have experienced tonight with the Sorting It Out digital stories.

It’s a good thing that we have these role models among us.
The times we live in demand courage from all of us.

Some people are waiting for another Martin Luther King or an Abraham Lincoln, a Harriet Tubman or a Gandhi or that special somebody to show up. What if there isn’t anybody.
This is our time. What if it’s up to us?

Consider this, an almost unthinkable scenario: A world without violence. Where no child is abused, no wife battered, no friend raped. A world without terror, without threats, without wounds from intentional actions.

Where the strong provide for the vulnerable, where the vulnerable become empowered, where every kind of family is safe and secure, and girls and boys and women and men have a fair and equal chance at the pursuit of happiness in a tolerant and talented society.

A world without violence. Peace.
We can’t even imagine it. — The very thought eludes our grasp.

Why is that?
Is it our cynicism, a failure of our imagination, burn-out-disappointment seeing too much reality, gang killings, stalking, rapes, battering, child abuse, too many wars, or is it fear of failure, that we may not be able to be successful in achieving violence free-relationships, peaceful families and empowered communities — are we so afraid to even dare to imagine it and thus unable to even dream it?

I don’t have the answer.

But I know that Vision is the ability to see the Invisible.

To see beyond the violence and yet to place our selves in front of it — so we can take compassionate action and create peace — that’s my definition of courage.

We are surrounded by violence everyday. We see it, feel it witness it or read and hear about it. Of course there’s also the heartbreaking violence of nature — hurricanes and earthquakes — but I am talking about intentional violence. The capacity for violence is within us. Just as the capacity for peace is within us. As humans we are perched on the precipice of violence almost every moment — we have that capability — including all of us each of us in this room — our reptilian brains could at any moment defend us against a real or perceived threat. There is an alligator in all of us.

Each moment that we refrain from hurting another being by our speech, gesture, glance or deeds — we are exercising courage. Often, thank goodness, we are successful and in those quietly courageous moments — we are making peace.

I have been thinking a lot about what peace is since I was awarded The California Peace Prize from The California Wellness Foundation last December for my work at LACAAW. After all I am not an OM kind of person. To have received this honor — is a very big deal, as you can well imagine — a second-generation girl from New York’s little Italy on Long Island. And a very big deal for LACAAW too — we’re not a very OM kind of organization.

My favorite definition of peace: PEACE “it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, conflict, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still BE CALM IN YOUR HEART.” I got this definition off a magnet that’s on my refrigerator.

VIOLENCE PREVENTION and PEACEMAKING is very messy, often uncomfortable, sometimes confrontational. Violence prevention is not peaceful work but it is the working toward peace. Advocating for social justice, equality, empowerment, institutional and attitudinal change, has brought many arguments, conflicts, unease — it has given me a lot of agitta — Italian for heartburn — And I know that I have given agitta back. The peace I feel in my heart comes from knowing that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. Violence prevention is my theme. At the heart of what LACAAW does everyday is a calm also, that comes with the confidence that we will never give up on the struggle for violence prevention, healing and peace.

Next year we’ll be 35 years old — big birthday — and the agency’s board and staff have been taking a deep look at who we have become and who we want to be. Kind of like a mid-life crisis — but without the crisis. Started by those then young but wise feminists in the 70’s,the agency has grown and changed from its earliest beginnings. We’ve changed most by being inclusive — by adding, not subtracting. We started with a focus on rape, then offered self-defense, then when women then called the hotline in tears and anger about the violence in their marriages, we began domestic violence programming, then families called about child sexual abuse and molestation, we started Kids Self-Defense & Safety, when groups of people and entire communities seemed left out, we started programs for the underserved including Latina Services and our Deaf and Disabled Program. To combat teen dating violence we began In Touch With Teens and invited youth to become actively involved — they started STOP, Students Together Organizing Peace, violence prevention clubs on school campuses, We came to understood what a waste it was to have men standing on the sidelines — looking in but left out — so we made room; we began inviting men into our organization as staff and volunteers, as allies and co-leaders in our vision of a world with less violence.

Over the years LACAAW has practiced one of the most important kinds of courage–the courage to change. After all, we are an organization of social change makers. We are about to embark on a very big change. Something I am very excited to tell you about. Our board of directors is leading a strategic planning process that will result in a renaming and a rebranding of the organization.

At this developmental stage of the agency’s life The Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women is interested in articulating not so much what we are against but what we are for! Our current name, as attached as we are to it — heck, I built a career with the name LACAAW — does not define who we are or express our larger vision. We’ve surpassed those early boundaries by building upon the original foundation. This agency has been transformed into a community collaborator and a statewide leader with a growing national presence. We have the most amazing staff — dedicated, knowledgeable — they work for more than a paycheck, Our volunteers do more than contribute their free time — they servants for this community. Our board of directors — volunteers and donors, everyone — bring a wealth of experience to their stewardship of today’s LACAAW and will do so for the LACAAW of tomorrow. They will skillfully shepherd us into this next iteration of organizational development and leadership. With your continued involvement and support — LACAAW by its new name and new look will continue to be the agency that the community has come to depend on. We will continue to respond and evolve. So stay tuned. You’ll hear all about it. News at 11:00.

And please remember the vision thing. Dare to make the invisible visible. Healthy relationships, peaceful families, empowered communities deserve the best of our imagination, and our never-ending commitment to make it happen. It is up to us. Our motto is and will continue to be that Violence is Preventable. Our mission to eliminate sexual and domestic violence will not diminish and our vision will deepen. A world without violence — also known as PEACE.

Thank you!