A new video from CollegeHumor and It's On Us, the White House's campaign to prevent campus sexual assault, opens on five buddies (Steve Berg, Jake Johnson, Lamorne Morris, Rob Riggle, and David Walton) drinking beer and watching sports — normal enough. The scene quickly takes a turn for the dramatic when Rob Riggle heads into the next room for another beer and finds a live bear. "Dude, there's a bear in your other room here!" Riggle exclaims. "Oh, that's just a big, angry, hungry bear; just pretend it's not there," presumptive host Jake Johnson replies. "I don't think it's going anywhere, but I don't know what to do about it, so I just ignore it," he continues.
Johnson goes on to explain to his friends that it's not such a big deal: The bear attacks one in five people, so probably only one of them will die! Of course Johnson's reaction is absurd — as is, the video points out, a bystander attitude toward the one in five women who will experience campus sexual assault by the time she graduates college.
Even if you're not getting eaten by the bear in this analogy, maybe you're throwing up your hands or looking the other way. Combating rape culture doesn't only mean not raping; as It's On Us describes in its pledge, we need to recognize that non-consensual sexual activity is sexual assault — and we need to intervene when consent hasn't or can't be given. Watch the above video for a reminder that just because you're unsure what to do about violence in your environment, that doesn't mean you can ignore it.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT