We Should Talk:
Yakima Valley Libraries to Host Community Conversation about Sexual Assault
and Presentation on Climate Change
Yakima, WA – Next week, Yakima Valley Libraries is hosting two events designed to inform, inspire and challenge patrons to engage in constructive conversation about topics that affect all of us.
Tuesday, April 9 at 5:30pm, the third meeting of Y/Our Story, YVL’s new book, film and current events discussion group meets at Yakima Central Library (102 N. Third St), for a community conversation and panel discussion on the topic of “Sexual Assault, Rape Culture and the Dynamics of Consent.”
In addition to an informal book and film discussion among attendees, the session will include a panel discussion with Debbie Brockman, program manager for ASPEN Victim Advocacy Services; Julia Davis, Yakima County deputy prosecuting attorney; and detective Michael Durbin, with the Yakima Police Department’s Special Assault Unit.
The panel discussion will touch on topics like defining and counteracting rape culture, manifestations of the #MeToo movement within the Yakima Valley, as well as helping attendees understand the dynamics of sexual assault, victim blaming and why sexual violence often goes unreported.
Following the discussion group, on Wednesday, April 10, author, journalist and former war reporter, Dahr Jamail, will speak at 6:30pm at Yakima Central Library, during the second event in YVL’s Authors Out Loud spring author series.
Jamail will talk about his book, “The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption,” which chronicles his globetrotting journey as he seeks to uncover the consequences to nature, and to humans, of the loss of ice.
Trekking from Alaska to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, via the Amazon rain forest, Jamail meets climate scientists and people whose families have lived, hunted and fished in the regions he visits for generations and begins to accept that Earth, most likely, is in a hospice situation.
“The End of Ice” features breathtaking photographs from Jamail’s journeys to the geographical frontline of this crisis, along with his first-hand chronicle of witnessing Earth’s melting ice caps, and a reverent appreciation for our fragile planet.
Both events are free and open to the public. For more information, please visit www.yvl.org/yourstory and www.yvl.org/authors.