“I didn’t say that to many people in my life,” she said.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., revealed on Monday night that she is a survivor of sexual assault while recounting her experiences during last month’s US Capitol insurrection.
“I am a survivor of sexual assault,” said Ocasio-Cortez, his voice shaking with emotion. “And I haven’t told that to many people in my life. But when we go through trauma, the trauma forms in each other.”
In a 90-minute video streamed live on Instagram that has since generated over 1 million views, the 31-year-old Congresswoman recalled that she feared for her life as she and others were forced to take shelter when a violent crowd broke into the Capitol building in Washington, DC, on January 6. At one point, when she was hiding in the bathroom of her office, she said that someone knocked on the door and entered the room, shouting over and over, “Where is she?”
“This was the moment when I thought it was over,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “I mean, I thought I was going to die.”
“I felt that if this was the journey my life was taking, I felt that things were going to be okay and that, you know, I had fulfilled my purpose,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes.
She finally realized that the man was a Capitol cop who, she said, looked at her “with a tremendous amount of anger and hostility.”
Ocasio-Cortez said she feared for her life again later that day, when she was barred from Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif.
“The weird thing about times like these is that you lose track of time,” she said. “We feel completely insecure.”
The January 6 events came after President Donald Trump and his allies held a rally earlier that day in Washington, DC, asking Congress not to certify the results of the November presidential election, in which Trump lost to the Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Trump promised to “never give in” and asked his supporters “to fight” while he continued to make unfounded allegations of electoral fraud.
Crowds of people followed the steps of the Capitol, pushing barricades, police in riot gear and other security measures that were put in place in anticipation of the protest. An angry mob stormed the Capitol building, forcing a blockade with members of Congress and their staff holed up inside. It took hours for the police to clean the building and establish a perimeter around the area. Five people, including a police officer, died during the violence.
Ocasio-Cortez said those who argue that it is time to move on from what happened that day are using “the same tactics as abusers”.
“They are trying to tell us to forget what happened. They are trying to tell us that it was no big deal,” she said. “They are trying to tell us to move on without any responsibility, without telling the truth or without really facing the extreme damage, physical damage, loss of life and trauma that has been inflicted not just on me as a person, not just on other people as individuals, but in all of us as a collective and in many other people. We cannot move forward without responsibility. We cannot heal without responsibility. And so, all these people who are telling us to move forward are doing this on their own. convenience. “
These are the same tactics, she said, “from that man who touched you inappropriately at work, telling you to move on.”
“Are they going to believe you?” she continued. “Or the adult who, you know, got hurt when you were a kid and you grew up and you confronted them about it, and they try to tell you that what happened never happened.”
Ocasio-Cortez said that holding those responsible for what happened on January 6 “is not about the difference in political opinion” or “getting revenge”.
“It’s just, like, basic humanity,” she said. “We are not safe with people in positions of power who are willing to put other people’s lives at risk if they think it will give them a political edge.”
She called Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Josh Hawley, R-Miss., Who joined Trump to challenge Biden’s baseless victories in some states.
“We knew that violence was expected,” she added. “We knew that the violence was based on someone telling the lie – the big lie – about our elections.”