While former president George H. W. Bush is cowering from sexual assault allegations recently raised against him—and as our current president completely fucking ignores a number of women who have accused him of trash, predatory behavior—forever VP of our hearts, Joe Biden, has joined forces with pop icon Lady Gaga to continue the very current fight against sexual assault and harassment.
In a video shared via Gaga's Facebook page Wednesday evening, the two sit side-by-side and talk about the "It's On Us" initiative, launched in September 2014 by the Obama administration.
"We want to make it clear: it's on us," Biden says. "It's on everyone to intervene to stop abuse when they see it, when they hear about it."
"I am a sexual assault survivor," Lady Gaga adds, "And I know the effects, the aftermath, the trauma—psychological, physical, mental. It can be terrifying waking up every day feeling unsafe in your own body."
In September of last year, Biden visited The Tonight Show and discussed sexual assault in real terms. "Any man who takes a drunk woman up the stairs at a fraternity house is a damn coward, man," he said. "There’s nothing manly about this. They should get knocked on their ass."
Last February, Gaga dedicated her Oscars performance to the initiative and helped the campaign bring in 10 times the amount of pledges it normally receives.
As Gaga mentions in the video, it's not just women who are sexually assaulted. Just this month, actors Terry Crews and James Van Der Beek came forward to reveal they had both been assaulted by powerful men in Hollywood, while the long-outspoken Corey Feldman announced Wednesday that he was launching a new campaign called "TRUTH." According to Feldman's Indiegogo page, the campaign aims to raise $10 million, in order to produce a documentary that will put a spotlight on the rampant, disgusting predation issues in the industry:
What I am proposing is a plan that can literally change the entertainment system as we know it. I believe that I can also bring down, potentially, a pedophile ring that I have been aware of since I was a child. Right off the bat, I can name six names, one of them who is still very powerful today. And a story that links all the way up to a studio. It connects pedophilia to one of the major studios.
Big ups to everybody who's been brave enough to speak out thus far. Let's keep this shit going.
