Lil Summin'

so [TW: abuse, rape, rape culture]

missvoltairine:

“…And on the one hand, I really want to believe in transformative justice. I want to believe in it so desperately. As a concept, it is vital.

But. But but but.

I have so many problems with how it’s often written about and gone about in radical/social justice/activist communities. This sense that “we are all survivors, we are all perpetrators”, like the line between “survivor” and “perpetrator” is meaningless, like the needs of perpetrators deserve just as much validation as the needs of survivors.

It is important to understand that “survivor” and “perpetrator” are not mutually exclusive categories, yes.

But when I open up a book written by ostensibly radical, pro-feminist, pro-queer, survivor-posi people (in preparation for writing this post, in fact) and there’s an article about how we shouldn’t use terms like “perpetrator” and “rapist” because those are “shaming” and will “discourage people from coming forward and being accountable” and how “we use the term ‘perpetuator’ instead because it can encompass a wider array of behaviors and it doesn’t carry the same negative stigma”

and it’s like

what the fuck is wrong with stigmatizing rapists[/abusers]??

When did it become not okay to “shame” someone for raping someone else, when did we start sacrificing language that is accessible to survivors for the comfort of perpetrators?

It’s a small part of a much larger problem that I have with a lot of talk about abuse in progressive/radical communities, which ultimately boils down to this:

I feel like the left has just as much of a problem of admitting that our communities facilitate, house, and enable abuse and abusers as other less progressive communities do. We are often just as shitty to survivors and we are not immune from perpetuating rape culture. But because we are progressives, we are prone to this daaaaangerous fucking assumption that our progressiveness precludes us from all of that.

That rape and abuse are things that happen in less progressive communities.

That only neo-cons and only straight, white, wealthy, cisgender men can commit rape and abuse.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been talking about the anti-rape work I do to anarchist/radical dudes, and they go, “Oh yeah, rape culture, that’s bad, sexual violence totally IS epidemic, but all the survivors I know were assaulted before they came to this community/by someone outside of this community, so I just think that we don’t have that problem here!” (One time I had to leave to go throw up after being told that.)

And that IF someone in our community does commit abuse, well, they’re not a REAL predator. We have a responsibility to rehabilitate them. They’re not like those other, irredeemable, nasty, “”“”“outsider”“”“” rapists/abusers

(who are off raping and abusing other outsiders so who cares anyway)

OUR RAPISTS AND ABUSERS ARE DIFFERENT! Deep down, they’re good people, we just know it! They only do those things because they’ve been conditioned to by society, and of course we can break that conditioning if we just have enough meetings where we all sit in a circle and talk about our feelings.

Except, I’ve seen nothing to convince me that our rapists and abusers really are that different from any rapist and/or abuser who DOESN’T ID as a “feminist” or an “anarchist” or whatever.

And I get so disheartened and upset because I don’t know what to do about this.

I don’t know what the solution is.

I see abusers continue to manipulate and abuse people while saying that it’s not their fault, they question themselves so much, they’re trying so hard, it’s just their mental illness/addiction/fucked up childhood/etc, and people keep enabling them with “transformative justice” processes that don’t do shit.

And trying to hold people accountable for their messed up shit is hard enough without them using social justice buzzwords and rhetoric to make anyone trying to hold them accountable look like an ~oppressor~ who is trying to ~police~ their place in the community.

Basically: I think community accountability and transformative justice can work, but we all need to stop being so fucking touchy-feely about it. Justice and accountability are NOT processes where everyone gets to go away feeling warm and fuzzy. They’re hard, because they’re most necessary when shit is already heartbreakingly, gut-wrenchingly, life-changingly, soul-crushingly fucked up. 

You can’t consense your way outta that, sometimes you’ve gotta fight through it to get what’s needed.

Why do people not get this?”

Bold/emphasis is mine.