On Wednesday, November 27, my group and I visited The New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault to volunteer, learn more about the organization and ask them questions. We spoke with a woman named Kira Laffe who educated us on my group’s topic (sexual violence), their mission and how they take action. She explained how the organization serves as a clearinghouse for sexual assault victims, works on policy with The New York City Council and educates the public about sexual assault. We spoke about and analyzed the main issue of how rape can erupt, who is the perpetrator, and why perpetrators might cause sexual harm. Kira stated, “we live in a society where we don’t candidly talk about sexuality.” We learned how the perpetrator is most often times people we know, which makes it very challenging to speak about. I found it very interesting when she explained how she believed the root cause for sexual violence is that many people often think sexual violence is about sex, it’s not; it is about power and control. She believes that injustices like this exist because of unequal distribution of power; and systems like this exist to keep those on the bottom stay on the bottom, and those on the top to stay on the top. People on top tend to be white. She explained, “People don’t recognize whiteness as a race, which means there is power in whites.” Lesbians, Hispanics, colored people have labels and are thus turned into minorities or also known as ‘the other people’. People who have less power have a greater risk of being victimized, especially if someone identifies ones worth as being less it can provoke them to hurt the ‘minority’. However, we learned that most people who did this are just like us; most often they are male between the ages of 11 to 19 who commit rape. Somebody must have probably caused harm against the perpetrator, as violence is a learned behavior, based on how the people around us treat each other. After speaking with Kira for a while, we began to scan and organize the organizations library of books regarding sexuality, sexual assault and rape. After attending this fieldwork, I noticed that I would really like to focus on the root cause for how rape can be provoked and how it can occur in my Social Justice Presentation.