When Community Accountability Falls Short: Interrupting Gendered Violence in Community
Trigger Warning: Mention of Sexual Assault
Honesty moment: this is where it all started for me. [Although, I am curious because the first case on record dates back to 2009 – but this dude assaulted me while I was unconscious during an ovarian cyst removal in the summer of 2007 – mere weeks after I graduated from UCLA. I wonder if it's too late to sue him for the ‘Heaps’ of student loan debt I acquired from the two grad school programs I subsequently dropped out of?]
Deep breaths, y’all – let’s normalize humor as a liberation strategy. [By the way, does anybody know the Gen Alpha equivalent to the woo-sah? Asking for a boy mom/autism mama]. At any rate, this made me want to watch that one scene from The Mask, which is eerily resonant for the topic at hand. [Apparently, Jim Carrey’s artistry is pretty relevant for my healing journey – The Truman Show, anyone?].
Hello, you. Your call is important to us. If you are a Nice Guy, please press # to be transferred to the #NotAllMen emergency hotline. All growers, press “1” to break out of the Man Box. All show[her]s, press “2” to accompany us on the long walk home. When you’re ready to break cycles of the intergenerational variety, press “3.”
Hey organizers, allies, and advocates: y’all know that we can’t address State violence without tending to interpersonal violence too, right? [Remember: the large is a reflection of the small - let’s not be mimicking the same shit we’re trying to dismantle].
No matter where you land on the reform-transform-abolish spectrum as it relates to addressing the State’s vehicles of policing and family separation, I think we can all agree that surveilling and criminalizing [overwhelmingly Black] girls, women, and mamas for surviving is deplorable, despicable work. And even with ICE’s shoulda-coulda-woulda’s, when it comes to the intersection of immigration detention and gendered violence, it's a lose-lose situation.
At the same time, the constant complexity and tension of liberation work is figuring out what to do with the current reality while we build towards a free world. For example, when domestic violence occurs, to what extent are community-based alternatives to involving law enforcement actually available to folks? What are the policy solutions to limit the negative impact of the systems that institutionalize violence and harm? But most importantly: when are we going to talk about how community accountability falls short as a safe alternative?
Audre said there is no liberation without community. Audre also said that your silence won’t protect you. Community is the antidote to gendered violence that can occur in silence, especially when that violence is murky or hard to see. To create a beloved community that interrupts silence, start by listening. Listen to the girls. Listen to the girls. Listen to our girls. Because if you don’t take anything else from my inner child and me – know that every awkward duckling eventually has a swan song to sing.
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