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becuzitisbitter · 4 years

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All Cops Are Bad

The last of the essays i will be posting that I wrote for school, this one is an attempt at an approachable ACAB argument (my professor said that she was persuaded, at least)

There is an old slogan with roots at least as far back as the 1920’s and is yet becoming more and more popular across the globe today: “All coppers are bastards.” Of course, most people just say “cops” these days. The extensive history of the slogan might even make one stop to wonder why the police have been the object of such long-standing antagonism, if one isn’t the sort to grasp the slogan’s truth intuitively. The reality is that all cops really are bastards, not in a literal sense, of course, but in the derogatory usage which communicates despicability. The goal of this essay is to convince the reader that the police are bad and that policing should be done away with entirely. After all, the police present themselves as the vanguard of the state’s repressive urges and as the guarantors of an order defined by deprivation and violence.

Olivia B. Waxman, writing for Time Magazine, points to economic forces as dictating the development of the means and aims utilized by policing institutions in the U.S. She writes that businesses had already been hiring private security to protect the transport and storage of their property, and that, “These merchants came up with a way to save money by transferring to the cost of maintaining a police force to citizens by arguing that it was for the “collective good.” (Waxman) In other words, America’s first publicly funded police force was simply picking up after the work of private businesses to protect their own property, but with the cost foisted upon those who were being kept out. She continues this economic argument as she traces the lineage of the modern police force back to its forerunners in the Southern runaway slave patrols. She writes, “the economics that drove the creation of police forces were centered not on the protection of shipping interests but on the preservation of the slavery system”. Thus, the primary policing institutions in the South were the slave patrols, the first of which was formally established in 1704. (Waxman)

The police developed historically to enforce property rights rather than to ensure the wellbeing of the populace. If it is understood that white supremacy encodes human skin with either privilege or dispossession, it should be understood that, as Mariame Kaba writes in an opinion piece published by the New York Times, “when you see a police officer pressing his knee into a black man’s neck until he dies, that’s the logical result of policing in America. When a police officer brutalizes a black person, he is doing what he sees as his job.” (Kaba) Kaba is an organizer against criminalization and a self-described police abolitionist because she believes that “a ‘safe’ world is not one in which the police keep black and other marginalized people in check through threats of arrest, incarceration, violence and death.” The police, then, are not focused on creating a safe world. They are interested in preserving the world as it is, which demands a tacit defense of misogynistic and white supremacist institutions.

Regardless of personal attitudes or goals, the undeniable outcome of two hundred years of policing in America has been an uninterrupted avalanche of mostly arbitrary violence aimed at preserving the rule of law, that is, the sanctity of private property. In just the last year, the discourse about the role and place of police in our society has exploded with new questions and new ideas. What makes this conversation so powerful is that the police are considered so essential to the functioning of the modern world that the abolitionist movement must necessarily carry indictments on many other institutions and ways of relating that are bound-up with policing.

Of course, many readers will be quick to react defensively. Most disagreements with the argument presented here will take one of two forms: the claim that the argument over-generalizes police, and the claim that the police fill such an essential role that society couldn’t hope to provide an acceptable standard of life in their absence. Both will be addressed below.

The former argument comes in many varieties. One might even say, “It is unfair to judge such a large group by the actions of a few bad apples,” without being aware that they were reversing the meaning of the idiom they are attempting to make use of, which actually originated as “A rotten apple quickly infects its neighbor,” according to Ben Zimmer, who is a linguist and language columnist for The Wall Street Journal. (Cunningham) Regardless of the backwardness of this idiom, many would maintain that it is wrong to generalize police or stereotype their actions based on our perceptions of a few bad actors. Some police may abuse their power, or harbor prejudice, many readers would contend, but most police officers are decent people doing their best under difficult conditions. The truth, however, is that literally all cops bring about harm simply by doing the jobs that they signed up for. To go a step further, even if every police officer were to act in good faith, the task of maintaining a status quo defined by inequality would still force officers into the position of beating the cold, poor, and hungry back from the resources they need to live comfortably. This world of deprivation is not worth defending, and yet every cop has signed up to defend it. Some readers might still say that to pain the police with such a broad brush, is to commit an act of prejudice on par with the attitudes the police are criticized for, but they are grasping at straws. No one becomes a police officer by accident. By switching careers, they could avoid such judgement entirely. One wonders if they would feel the same about criticizing other groups which are entirely opt-in, such as MS-13 or the Taliban.

Could there ever be such a thing as a good cop? No. Here is one example that I think demonstrates a larger principle: even if a given police officer is a dedicated and educated anti-racist, the logistical deployment of police departments across the US places more officers in poor neighborhoods and communities of color than in wealthy or majority-white areas. This means that even the most kind-hearted police would be more likely to detain or arrest poor people and people of color than affluent whites. This is only one facet of a fundamentally unjust system. The development of police departments as racist and anti-working-class institutions across History means that they are structurally and institutionally racist and anti-working-class in the here and now. Police departments continue to defy reform because the problem is intentionally encoded into their purpose. They must be done away with entirely.

When a protestor or graffiti artist echoes the old slogan that, “All cops are bastards,” it is an expression of a tautology. Like the phrase “All triangles have three sides,” the slogan contains its own truth. All triangles have three sides because it is part of the definition of triangles to have three sides. We can’t even conceive of a triangle with four sides because by having four sides, it would cease to be a triangle. Despicability is written into the definition of policing because the aims of policing are themselves despicable. Any cop that ceased to work toward the aims of policing would cease to be deplorable, maybe, but he would also cease to be a cop as surely as a triangle with four sides would cease to be a triangle.

The second primary counter argument to criticism of the police is that the police are a necessary evil, essential to protecting us from a rousseauian war of all against all. This assumption that humanity could not get by without police seems silly, after all, the police are only a modern institution, hardly a blip in humanity’s story. It has already been shown that the police were not created to protect the average person from harm, but to protect private property rights. In any case, a counter argument from consequences is not the same as a refutation. One need not know the correct answer to a problem to recognize a wrong one. When asked, “What would you do with the psycho serial killers?” one should be unabashedly honest about not knowing the answer because there is no one answer. The answer to each problem can only be located in the context in which the problem occurs. This reflex to reach for a one-size-fits-all answer for all of life’s problems, along with its concomitant desire to preserve the tedious “peace” of the status quo, do a lot to explain the psychology of pro-police arguments.

Neither the means nor ends of policing are acceptable. The forces that shape and control our world, be they corporate or political, tower over us such that we only ever meet with their basest appendages. The police are their piggy-toes, pun-intended. Admittedly, the arguments presented here will be significantly weaker in the mind of anyone who really feels good about the state of the world which police maintain, however little is likely to be gained in dialogue with someone who could maintain a positive view of concentration camps, needless and ceaseless killings, the continuation of slave labor in the prison system, mass food-insecurity, etc.

It is incumbent upon each of us to improve the world around us. The police are an impediment to a better, safer, freer world. They are antithetical to equity, autonomy, and community; that is why all who fight too hard for a better life eventually find themselves faced with the police, one way or another. Nevertheless, while so much hangs in the balance, we can’t let the bastards get us down.

Works Cited

Olivia B. Waxman. “How the U.S. Got Its Police Force” Time Magazine, https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/ Published: 5/18/2017, Date of Access: 12/2/2020

Mariame Kaba. “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html Published: 6/12/2020, Date of Access: 12/2/2020

Malorie Cunningham. “'A few bad apples': Phrase describing rotten police officers used to have different meaning”

https://abcnews.go.com/US/bad-apples-phrase-describing-rotten-police-officers-meaning/story?id=71201096 Published: 6/14/2020, Date of Access: 12/2/2020

#school #homework #essay

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jvbloggin · 6 years

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Reflection: Respectability Activism

I want to apologize in advance because I probably won’t address the BALTEC readings. I found myself having so many questions about the Bomer article, and I don’t want to just have it as an afterthought. So I’m just gonna dive right in!

First: I noticed several contradictions between the objectives of writing for social change and the way it was implemented in the classroom. For example, at one point the author posed the question

Could you support a project that others have already begun rather than start a new one?

and later, stated this argument:

Everyone concerned about an issue does not have to found his own organization; the crux of social action is many people joining in a shared endeavor. We are not trying to create mavericks.

I wholeheartedly agreed with these statements, and found them to align with the discussions we were having in class today about grassroots organizing and the importance of mobilizing together as a community. The idea that social change happens when individuals come together and each play their own role in taking action seems to be what this author was arguing for.

However, I noticed that few of the student groups were actually encouraged to seek out community organizations. Even though they were taught to mobilize together around an issue, they were still encouraged to appeal to one specific figure. There’s something about encouraging the oppressed to appeal directly to their oppressors that makes me feel uncomfortable. There’s some tension in that practice that I believe even the students themselves felt. In the example where the students mobilized to send a letter to the New York mayor in protest of the murder of an unarmed Black man, they clearly expressed strong emotions of anger and disbelief, yet the teacher forced them to edit it out of their drafts until they had a final version that was more contained, less attacky (I know that’s not a word, sorry). It became a practice of negotiating their own humanity. That, to me, is not empowerment. I don’t want to be overly pessimistic, but I don’t see the use in asking children to appeal to known bigots/racists to stop attacking their communities. Perhaps an alternative practice could be reaching out to community organizers, or reaching out to the affected directly. Social change does not always start from the top down; prison abolitionists lobby against harmful bills while simultaneously materially supporting those who are imprisoned, and those affected by the imprisonment of their loved ones. What if we asked students to directly consider the affected as well?

Sort of related to that is the constant tone-policing and respectability politics that I saw throughout the article. The teacher would say things like “Well no one will listen to you if you use that tone/word/argument.” Students were encouraged to throw away ideas that were “too personal” (but the political is personal and the personal is political!) There was a push to provide “facts”, as though lived experience did not count. There was this idea that there was a “right” way to protest and a “wrong way”. Even the students became frustrated at this contradiction; when discussing Min’s article, a student pointed out that activists in the Montgomery bus boycott didn’t politely suggest that people stop riding the bus. They demanded it. Yet when Min tried to make demands (something as simple as returning a game to them), she was forced to go through several iterations of her letter before ultimately being rejected because they were worried it would offend the producers of the newspaper. I can only imagine how that may have made her feel, and how it could have in fact turned her off of activism. I realize that my politics are kind of more on the radical spectrum of things, and you can’t exactly tell your children to go out and start a revolution, but I worry that doing things such as correcting their tone, telling them to edit out/contain their frustration, may actually suppress their voice and discourage them more than it empowers them.

Additionally, I noticed a lot of uncritical/reactionary politics going unquestioned. For example, there was a group of students that advocated for more police in poorer neighborhoods. It made sense to them: police are there to protect and serve, and poorer neighborhoods deserve as much police as richer neighborhoods! But at what point do we step in and say “actually....the thing you think is the solution is a worse solution”. You don’t want to tell the children what to think, but you also don’t want to push them further and further along until they come to the conclusion you think is right (even if it is right). How do you negotiate this? How do you keep your politics at bay while making sure the students don’t fall into the trap of uncritically reproducing the violences they seek to eradicate? These are the questions that haunt me...

#teaching activism #reflection

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ara-la · 6 years

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Comrade Malik on Juneteenth

WHY I AM CALLING FOR AN INTERNATIONAL DAY OF ACTION ON JUNETEENTH!

Keith ‘Malik’ Washington

“The plantation system in the American South no longer exists in its earlier historical form. The wage system of the North clearly established its hegemonic position over its competitor after the Civil War. However, the fundamental issue the abolitionists raised—the matter of slavery and slave society—was not only never resolved, but has been normalized, legalized, and expanded. We see that the most egregious institutions of the 18th century are replicated in the 21st century in remarkably similar forms with similar effects.”

--excerpt from the Black Struggle on page 6 of the booklet: Burn Down the American Plantation, published by the: Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement

Peace and blessings sisters and brothers! I read a quote the other day by an anonymous author and I’d like to share it with you: “Not everyone will understand your journey. That’s okay. You’re here to live your life, not to make everyone understand.” Nevertheless, as we organize for our Juneteenth rallies, protests, celebrations, and direct actions I want to make all of you understand “Why” I have made this “call to action”.

In Texas, at he very end of the MAAFA (Black Holocaust) slave owners didn’t want to release their slaves! It was to profitable. In fact, many slave owners had erected elaborate obstacles which kept the news of “emancipation” from reaching the ears of slaves in Texas. Many of our ancestors just kept toiling away in the fields because “Massa” wouldn’t tell them they were free!

I see the similarities between what happened then as compared to what is happening now! Not just in Texas but all over the world, humyn beings are being exploited and abused by capitalist and imperialist systems of government. Since I am trapped in Texas prisons, I am most familiar with their sophisticated form of exploitation.

Texas government created a “shell company” known as T.C.I, also known as Texas Correctional Industries. The business model is successful and grosses approximately $89 million a year! Its labor force is made up of prisoners who work in numerous factories throughout the state in prisons that are operated and supervised by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (sic!). Prisoners are paid nothing!

The Texas government has assembled a Board to supervise the day to day operations of the prison agency (T.D.C.J.) and the lucrative business model (T.C.I.). The Board is hand-picked by the Governor. The current Chairman of the Board is a black man and a highly accomplished Uncle Tom boot licker named Dale Wainwright. The rest of the Board is made up of individuals who all have close ties to capitalist businesses. What I want you to know is that the Texas Board of Criminal Justice has the power and authority to create rules and policies that would open the door to wages being paid to prisoners who toil in these factories. But why do that? Slavery is good! REMEMBER SISTERS AND BROTHER’S “POWER CONCEDES NOTHING WITHOUT A DEMAND!”.

So, I will tell you that one of the reasons I am calling for an international day of protest is to address the reality of slave labor. Slave labor is not something unique to Texas, although many of us feel as if Texas has perfected the “slave model”. We see similar programs of oppression in Alabama, Florida, and even California, as we watch prisoners fight wild fires for next to nothing. They are risking their lives to save lives and property of people who don’t care enough about them to pay them a reasonable wage for their work and sacrifice!!! STOP FIGHTING FIRES FOR PENNIES!! YOUR LIFE MATTERS!!!!

However, the call for Juneteenth Protests, Rallies, and Direct Actions is much bigger than just the prison abolition issue. And don’t you dare to speak out against the establishment “boy” or “girlie” or we will criminalize you, silence your voice, and if need be, assassinate you!” For those in the “movement” they know I am not lying—case in point, Colin Kaepernick!

Colin silently made a stand for Black Lives, by taking a knee, and then a group of white supremacists led by the President of the United States decided it would conspire to “black-ball” Colin and keep him from earning a living! I ask that you don’t try to divorce the motivating factor of anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism from our Juneteenth message. A bigoted group of NFL owners has formed a billionaire’s good old boys club in order to intimidate black NFL players and to send a not so silent message: “Keep your mouth shut ‘boy’ sand just do what I’m paying you to do, you filthy ‘sons of bitches’. You want to know why I’m calling for Juneteenth protests? Well, I’m going to tell you! Although, some may not like what they hear.

I’m calling for Juneteenth protests, in order, to address the absolute failure of the U.S. government to address the plight of the “dreamers”. How can we not create a realistic pathway to citizenship for these humyn beings? But, then I take a hard look at Donald Trump and his U.S. Attorney General Jeff Beauregard Sessions and I see the cloak of the Ku Klux Klan and the burning cross on our lawn! Yes! I will tell you why I’m calling for Juneteenth protests! I’m standing in solidarity with every Latina and Latino who is having their families torn apart by this racist and discriminatory immigration policy!

There is implicit bias and prejudice in the court system and it is not just here in Amerika. Courts and judges as well as the police and prisoners all over the world have engaged in a conspiracy to TARGET people of color! I’ve specifically looked at the Ministry of Prisons, in the United Kingdom. These prisons are beginning to overflow with Pakistanis, Africans, and poor English and Irish beings!!

In Amerika, we are all too familiar with the track records of the police. And then in Parkland, Florida we see something which bolsters the argument that the police are only interested in protecting the lives and property of the rich or capitalist elite. But when the lives of ‘common folk’ are at risk they stand idly by like cowards while children are slaughtered like sheep! So, the question presents itself: “Who do the police really ‘protect and serve’??

So, yes!! Juneteenth protests are about shedding a discerning light on the corrupt and racist courts and police agencies in Ameika and beyond!

And what of the environment? Our planet? Clean air? Clean water? If free citizens fight for clean and safe drinking water supplies and still don’t receive it! How do you think prisoners fair when facing a system, which refuses to even acknowledge them? If it wasn’t for the campaign, which seeks to Fight Toxic Prisons, I don’t think the Environmental Protection Agency would have even considered its new implementation of the EJ Screen as a tool to examine the impact that environmental hazards have on imprisoned populations.

Things are absolutely crazy in Texas. In 2015, Professor Victor Wallis and I collaborated, in order to craft an Ombudsman Complaint. This complaint addresses the presence of high levels of arsenic in the water supply, at the Pack I Unit located in Navasota, Texas. I can tell you that the prison agency T.D.C.J. along with maintenance personnel on the Unit, with employees from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) all conspired to lie and say that “there are no traces of arsenic in the Pack I water supply.” In June 2016 a federal judge named Keith P. Ellison issued a finding that the water at the Pack I Unit contained 2- 41/2 times the allowed amount of Arsenic! And now I release to the public the actual response from the TDCJ Ombudsman office, where you can clearly see a conspiracy exists to violate the Humyn and Civil Rights of Texas prisoners by fabricating lies about conditions inside slave kamps and gulags!

You want to know why I’m calling for Juneteenth protests? I’ll tell you why! It is to recognize the struggles of my sisters and brothers at Standing Rock and to highlight the inadequacy of a government, which has still not fixed the problem in Flint, Michigan and to protest the impotent and lack-luster response to the humyn beings in Texas, who lost everything during Hurricane Harvey!

(FEMA) is a corrupt and failed agency, who was more interested in hunting down undocumented workers than meetings the needs of the communities who really needed help and who still need help to recover from unprecedented natural disaster!

There will be no utopian anarchist or socialist society without a planet to live on! Juneteenth is about saving our planet! Don’t say I didn’t articulate my point!

And what about the abuse of wimmin? What about the demonization of the LGBTQ community? I’m not shutting up! Wimmin don’t need a man to protect them! That is not why I’m speaking out! But what happens when the system of checks and balances is so broken that when a womyn does scream “No!” or cries “Foul!” that the courts, the police, the media, which have a strong undercurrent of patriarchy and misogynistic tendencies ignores their voice of protest?

And what happens when the President of the United States is the leader of a movement, which seeks to silence our voices? His mantra: “Profits by any means and shut all dissenting voices down!” Mr. President you think we all stupid, don’t you? Hope Hicks goes in front of the Russia Probe Committee and tells the truth that she has lied to protect you! And then you conveniently force her out and have your press officer say her leaving had nothing to do with her testimony! We aren’t as stupid as you think!

You want to know why I’m calling for Juneteenth protests? It is a beginning of our organizing and actions to finally confront this filthy, rotting carcass of a system you call capitalism! I don’t have the influence to get everyone to get on board and act on Juneteenth, but don’t say I didn’t tell the world what this is about. Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, the genocide of the Palestinian people and the humyn rights disaster of the Rohingya Muslims who suffer in refugee camps in Bangladesh. This is a call to action to all socialists, communists, anarchists, freedom fighters to include Antifa, blac bloc, and all progressive and revolutionary New Afrikans! United we stand divided we fall! Fascists must be defeated!

Dare to struggle, dare to win, all power to the people!

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ellenlucasonlinedatingblog · 7 years

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A Sex Positive and Transformative Justice Approach to #MeToo

Raechel Anne Jolie

Ready to take #MeToo to the next level?

This essay includes descriptions of sexual violence.

I thought this was going to be an essay about my first and most traumatic #MeToo story. The story of the time when I was 12, and held down on a bed by my mom’s then-boyfriend who told me he’d love to go down on me. It was going to be an essay about my fear and panic and how I didn’t even know what that phrase meant. It was going to be an essay about how heavy his body was on top of mine, how he felt like a plank of concrete, and how I could barely breathe through my weeping and begging for him to leave. It was going to be an essay about how he smelled like Listerine and gasoline and how the scent of each of them, to this day, fills my stomach with knots and bile.

But I realized that I don’t want to tell you more about that, nor the countless experiences I would have after of men touching me without permission, standing too close as a means of intimidation, commenting on my clothes or my body, fucking me even after I said no, (and so on).

I don’t want to talk about those things, because I hope by now you know that if you see a woman, you are, more often than not, also seeing a living history of those kinds of stories of abuse, assault, and terror. Too many people (women, trans and non-binary folks disproportionately) have borne the brunt of so much sexual and sexualized violence, that it has become part of our skin. It is why, I surmise, that when, in the yoga classes I teach, I press into the hips of women in half-pigeon pose, they tremble beneath my palms. We carry trauma in little pockets tucked awkwardly and persistently between our muscle and bones. We are all sewn up with these memories, clinging and wrestling below our surfaces. We know they are there. And now, finally, most others who have not experienced this personally (largely men) seem to be acknowledging this too.

So that’s not what this essay is going to be about. This is, instead, a story of the other times. The times when sex went right, when consent was enthusiastic, and also the times when it was somewhere in the middle. And I want to talk about these good times and these confusing times because I am a sex-positive prison abolitionist, and believe that putting transformative justice theory into action most commonly emerges in the most challenging, triggering, and seemingly egregious situations. And although it seems like perhaps there is an exhilarating shift in the tide — as men are finally being called out and women are finally being believed — I am not sure that this will ultimately eradicate rape culture either. But I do think putting these two frameworks — sex-positivity and transformative justice — in conversation with these abuses may provide us new and effective avenues for change.

In their edited collection, Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power & A World Without Rape, Jessica Valenti and Jaclyn Friedman argue that “no means no” as an anti-rape framework leaves little room for a culture to value sexual pleasure. They write that they want to explore “how creating a culture that values genuine female sexual pleasure can help stop rape, and how the cultures and systems that support rape in the United States rob us of our right to sexual power.”1 This book was an early lesson in my development as a sex-positive feminist, and I think the concept of “yes means yes” is worth revisiting, especially in this current moment.

I am not trying to argue that we shouldn’t tell these stories of harm, or that we shouldn’t hold men accountable. The recent call-outs and testimonies as one very important tool in addressing toxic masculinity.

But what would it look like if we also combatted the behavior of sexually abusive perpetrators with stories of men (and other genders) who do it right?

As one of my sex-positive, transformative justice heroes, adrienne maree brown, recently wrote: “It is humbling to realize that the majority of us are trying to reach pleasure through the complex trauma of transgression. In the onslaught of unveiling, I thought it would be useful to take a step back and address something crucial: the pleasure of consent.”

So what if, instead of sharing the story of when I was 12, I told you the story of how when I was 16, the 20-year-old barista who made out with me after punk shows told me he wanted to be respectful of my boundaries and when we started to have intercourse one night, he paused and asked if it was okay, and when I said I wasn’t sure, he stopped without protest? What if, instead, I told you about how when I did eventually start having sex with a different boyfriend that it was tender and protected and discussed at length in advance? What if I told you about how the first time I explored dominant/submissive dynamics, that my partner went slow and checked in all the time, and would back off in response to my body’s signals, even when I verbally (and unconvincingly) said it was okay to keep going?

Or what if we talked about the incredible heat of consensual foreplay; of hands on hard dicks, and fingers in wet cunts, and tongues desperate for mouths? What if we talked about explosive orgasms, and the silly and joyful pleasure of sexting? (What if we asked why these kinds of sentences are more often censored than sentences about sexual harm?)

And what if we also talked about the times that were neither entirely consensual but also not entirely abusive? Like the time, with a person I met at a party, when I was drunk and so was he and that although he fucked me and I barely remember it, it didn’t feel traumatic and I don’t consider it rape. (Which is not to say others wouldn’t be traumatized by it, or consider it rape, which would also be true, and which is why this is all very complicated.) Or like the time I was in a toxic relationship and my queer partner and I, at different times, pressured each other for sex, and how often we’d feel upset or confused after, and how we talked through those moments and cried and went to therapy and did the hard work of rebuilding trust in our intimacy. What if we talked about how I didn’t want to publicly shame and call-out any of the people from these in-between scenarios, but instead wanted to think through mutual complicity, and solutions on how to heal to do better moving forward?

This is where transformative justice comes in. According to the organization Generation FIVE, transformative justice “responds to the lack of — and the critical need for — a liberatory approach to violence. A liberatory approach seeks safety and accountability without relying on alienation, punishment, or State or systemic violence, including incarceration and policing.”

In the most simple terms, transformative justice acknowledges that “hurt people hurt people,” and that the causes of harm are largely structural rather than individual. Further, given that the State is the cause of so much of the cultural conditioning of harmful behavior, we should not rely on it to solve problems. Which is to say: throwing our rapists in prison does not stop rape, but it does further entrench a reliance on the prison industrial complex and the State more generally. Given that one of the biggest root causes of sexual violence is toxic masculinity, we ought to address the culture that breeds it, instead of excommunicating and disowning individuals who are products of it. And that we especially ought not try to address toxic masculinity through an industrial punishment system that is seeping with it.

That said: transformative justice does not shirk individuals of responsibility and accountability. And although there will be instances when transformation may be near impossible, it doesn’t mean we should dismiss accountability and healing work as a desperately needed tool in our fight to end rape culture.

In a discussion with transformative justice activists Miriame Kaba and Shira Hassan, Kaba states:

We have to complicate this conversation around sexual violence and see all the different ways that it is used as a form of social control across-the-board, with many different people from all different genders and all different races and all different social locations. If we understand the problem in that way, we have a better shot at actually uprooting all of the conditions that lead to this, and addressing all of the ways in which sexual violence reinforces other forms of violence. Our work over a couple of decades now has been devoted to complicating these narratives that are too easy, these really simple narratives around a perfect victim who is assaulted by an evil monster and that is the end of the story. The “Kill all rapists” conversation, which just kind of flattens what sexual violence really is, that doesn’t take into consideration the spectrum of sexual violence, therefore minimizing certain people’s experiences and making others more valid.

I echo Kaba and Hassan in this call for nuance, and am wondering what it might look like for the feminist movement to embrace complexity when thinking about sexual violence. And this is especially important for feminists who claim to be invested in fighting the carceral State—in other words, the way the prison system operates as a tool of governing. Can we actually be anti-prison activists who believe in the redemption of the abstract masses behind bars, and simultaneously call for the public disownment of perpetrators in our activist communities and families? This is the hardest work of all, especially when perpetrators are rich and powerful. But it might be necessary work, if we are truly committed to an end to sexual violence, to consider that people like Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and Louis C.K. are actually human beings who are not only capable of doing better, but might even deserve some compassion. (I know, I know... it’s not easy; but being compassionate toward perpetrators as victims of patriarchy does not diminish compassion for victims. Compassion is not a finite resource.)

And showing compassion to abusers does not mean protecting them from consequences, or from confronting the harm they have caused. In fact, in affirming the humanity of perpetrators, we recognize, as Maggie Block recently wrote, that:

Rapists can be our children, our siblings, and our parents, rapists can be our good friends, or our partners, or a member of our church community. Because we live in rape culture, there are lots of people who think their actions are totally normal and acceptable, even when they commit sexual assault and rape. And we as their community members need to not only teach them better, but we need to hold them accountable. If someone we love, someone who shows us their best self, someone who we know to be a very good person is accused of rape, we must believe the accuser. Just because we love someone does not make them incapable of rape, and if we spend all our time fighting for them, all our passion worrying about how hard it is for the perpetrator- we make it harder for survivors, we further engrain rape culture, and we do nothing to help the perpetrators we love to be better people.

Transformative justice makes space for holding these multiple truths. That perpetrators can be good people who do bad things. That we should believe victims no matter what, and also that we shouldn’t silence abusers, so that we can begin to engage with what they did and didn’t understand about their behavior. That while traumatizing an abuser through public shaming is not aiding in healing the cause of harm, it is also not a victim’s job to do the healing. These sometimes conflicting truths and gray areas are not easy to grapple with, but to address a complex issue, we must respond with complex solutions.

So, I want us to think beyond public shaming and expulsion. I want us to think beyond the tools provided to us by the carceral State, and I want us to refuse to be content to only hear about women in relationship to sex when they are victims of harmful iterations of it.

Justice for women and other genders who are victims of sexual abuse should include a centering of their right to pleasure. I want a form of justice that not only teaches men (and other genders) how to not rape, but also teaches men how to make women (and other genders) feel safe and turned on and feel good. Justice means accountability and transformation, but also visions for a better world. And my better world is grounded in excitement about sex, not a fear of it.

A sex-positive transformative justice approach to fighting rape culture also includes centering the disproportionate impact of sexual violence on marginalized people, and how more harm towards trans and cis women of color means less pleasure for them as well. And how it’s a problem not just because of violence, but also because of a lack of good sex. For example, what impact might it have if more people who had sex with trans people talked about how good it is? (Hi! It’s really good!) What if we heard those stories, instead of only stories about trans people as victims of violence because their perpetrator could not bear their attractions?

In her book of essays, former sex worker feminist and economic justice activist Amber Hollibaugh writes:

We should be attempting to create a viable sexual future and a movement powerful enough to defend us simultaneously against sexual abuse. We must demand that our pleasure and need for sexual exploration not be pitted against our need for safety. Feminism is a liberation movement: it needs to fight with that recognition at its center. We cannot build a movement that silences women or attempts to fight sexual abuse isolated from every other aspect of our oppression...Feminism must be an angry, uncompromising movement that is just as insistent about our right to fuck, our right to the beauty of our individual...desires, as it is concerned with the images and structures that distort it.2

Indeed. In the end, our fight against rape culture is a fight for freedom. Freedom from fear, freedom from violence, freedom from coercion. But also freedom to flirt and be flirted with, fuck and be fucked, come and be part of others' coming, safely, consensually, and pleasurably.

This essay originally appeared on Raechel Anne Jolie’s blog, and has been adapted and reprinted with permission.

*** [1] In Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power & A World Without Rape, p. 3. (Return) [2] From My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home, p. 103. (Return)

Raechel Anne Jolie is an educator, writer, podcaster, and activist. She holds a PhD In Communication/Media Studies with a minor in Feminist & Critical Sexuality Studies from the University of Minnesota. You can find more of her writing on her website and hear her on her podcast, Feminist Killjoys, PhD. You can also follow her on Twitter and Instagram. She currently resides in Massachusetts with her partner, perfect witch-cat, and adorable dachshund.

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anti-stupidity-pro-ratties · 7 years

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So, the video in the link is some special kind of hell. Or maybe idiocy. I'm not even sure. I came across this video in the FB feed of an old LGBT activist acquaintance of mine and the lack of common sense in this is so staggering that it fully and completely exhausts me. For those of you who don't want to watch the video, allow me to transcribe it and pick it apart because it's...it's some kind of special. I mean really this....this is...I don't know precisely what this is. "I think when people hear that we're anti-police they think it's going to be chaos. The new abolitionist movement is...it's about transformative justice. Non-prison, non-police based strategies for dealing with violence and crisis in our communities." Right, okay...not for the 'anti-police' thing but community strategies to try and target certain issues in the community have been one of those things that have worked in certain areas. In fact, many police are actually trained in community outreach programs already...but things like neighborhood watch and things like that have certainly done their part. You're not doing bad so far. "Who hasn't had a bad day? Who hasn't felt depressed or anxious? The question is, should anybody deserve to die because of it." Okay, no one deserves to die because of a bad day, or depression, or anxiety. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about crime, often violent crime. What's that line I see on here? "Cool motive, still murder"? People don't rape because they 'had a bad day'. A person may kill someone because they're depressed but guess what? Still murder. I can get behind communities coming together to help tackle crime but lets be clear, not all crime is the result of someone 'having a bad day'. And yes, many police are poorly trained on dealing with mental illness. This is something that should be addressed. But abolishing the police entirely because of this is a massive case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. "The police's sole responsibility isn't he manufacture of criminals." No, no of course. Without police, serial murderers wouldn't exist right? Serial rapists would just dissipate into thin air. People would no longer drive drunk, gangs would no longer kill each other, white collar criminals would no longer break laws.....because literally the only things that makes a person a criminal is the police. Not their own actions, or the law, or anything like that. *note sarcasm* "So here you have for-profit prisons. When you creat space, you create demand. That means that bodies have to fill those prisons. and we have seen that it's largely transgender people. It's black people. It's Native people. It's Latinx people." For-profit prisons have been a problem. There have been several cases of collusion between corrupt judges and for profit prisons (there was one, I believe, in Louisiana a few years ago). But for ever Louisiana prison example there are examples like Colorado. They made marijuana legal and now, I believe, they're having to shut down prisons because there aren't enough people to fill that. Kind of shoots the whole 'bodies to fill those prisons' idea in the foot huh? http://www.denverpost.com/2013/01/26/fewer-inmates-means-colorado-may-close-more-prisons/ Also, why this is more a federal case then local police, at least one level of police (the federal kind) are working on closing for profit prisons. So, once again, not quite on the nose with that https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/18/justice-department-says-it-will-end-use-of-private-prisons/ As for the demographics of those IN prison.....at least with race, it's both right and wrong: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp According to the federal bureau of prisons, the majority race of those incarcerated is white (58.7% as of 2/2017. This may include Latino people, not entirely sure.) followed by African American (37.7%). Now, white people are roughly on target because they make up about 60% of the population. So 58% is pretty close. But African American's make up about 13% of the population. So while more white people are incarcerated then black people (which is where you're sort of wrong) they are over represented (which is where you're sort of right). Proving that is because of racism, however, is a difficult thing. I'm not exactly sure why they include trans individuals here. Not because trans people don't deserve good treatment by the police and prisons but because I can't find a statistic showing their representation in prisons. I don't think the BOP or DOJ track that in perpetrators... Also, can we stop using latinx. I'm fairly sure there are quite a few Spanish speakers around the world that would appreciate non-Spanish/Hispanic speaking people not butchering their language for them. "When you have that demand then you also have to create incentives. That trickles down to police who also now have the incentive of creating criminals." Yes, so many incentives. Separating people during issues of domestic violence has so many incentives. Trying to catch a child murderer, seeing the pictures of the children they couldn't save, so many incentives. So many incentives to walking into situations where they could be shot. So many incentives watching friends, colleagues, and partners die in the line of duty. That (on average) $54,000 a year is just the best incentive for all of these things. "It's not about justice anymore. It's about profit." For fines? Maybe. Fines are a bitch and I think we've kind of gone over board on that. That is likely more for profit (which is why people joke about not speeding towards the end of the month. Quotas and all). But police don't write the laws, they don't even necessarily like all of them, but it's their job to enforce them. You don't like the punishment? Don't like where the fine money goes? Don't like where Prison money goes? Vote in people to make better laws. Vote in people who fund public prisons instead of private prisons. Don't blame the cops for doing their jobs because they have shit all to do with what government officials decide to do with prisons. "I think we start with the demilitarization of the police. Police don't need assault weapons to protect people." Yes and no. Given the true violence of certain drug cartels (seriously, look at Mexico, they are freaking frightening), given the violence of certain gangs, the idea of having specialized forces with specialized tactile training for truly dangerous situations is not a bad idea. That's what SWAT was supposed to be for. Now, we have gone overboard. Police militarization has been a huge problem and a lot of CRJ people will agree with that. Police are getting things (weapons and gear) that they are not properly trained to use and they are using them rather liberally. In some cases the uses make sense, in others they didn't (Ferguson, oddly enough, was an example of police militarization gone a bit off the bend. Not all of their use of force was unwarranted but some of it was....somewhat overkill.). I agree with lessening police militarization but that's a LONG way off from getting rid of police lock, stock, and barrel. "the second thing that we can do is really look at police budgets and create models and economies for that divestment from the institution of policing and the reinvestment in community models." Uh huh....investment in communities is good but...ahem.... http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/us/after-deep-police-cuts-sacramento-sees-rise-in-crime.html So, in 2012, Sacramento cut their police force by a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Cut most of their tasks forces, cut patrols just...just gutted it and... "In 2011, Chief Braziel said, the cuts, in his opinion, went past the tipping point. While homicides have remained steady, shootings — a more reliable indicator of gun violence — are up 48 percent this year. Rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries and vehicle thefts have also increased, though in smaller increments. Complicating matters, the cutbacks have coincided with a flow of convicted offenders back into the city as California, heeding a Supreme Court ruling, has reduced its prison population. Once released, former inmates have less supervision — the county’s probation department also suffered cuts." So, cutting back the police force did not create warm fuzzies that made criminals not do crime. In fact, lack of a police presence seems to have made things generally worse for Sacramento. I wonder what would happen with no police, no prisons, no parole, no nothing except for community members with no real authority 'reinvesting in the community'. Now don't get me wrong, there ARE community measures that have helped to lessen gang violence. And they are good programs. But they take time and they are far from 100%. What are you going to do with criminals that don't take to this softer approach? People will always commit crimes, there will always be people that kill, and rape, and steal, and hurt because the benefits out way the consequences. And unless you have real consequences...or barring that, ways of containing people who just don't give a shit, then community reinvestment will never been enough to cut out the police entirely. "That means taking money out of police budgets and slowly phasing out police because we don't actually need them in our communities. They don't keep people safe." Really? They don't keep people safe? You can't think of one https://www.policeone.com/police-heroes/articles/120351-Fla-officer-takes-10-rounds-to-save-children-her-own-life/ Single https://www.policeone.com/police-heroes/articles/120351-Fla-officer-takes-10-rounds-to-save-children-her-own-life/ Time? http://people.com/celebrity/cops-save-woman-trapped-in-sinking-car-smash-window-with-rock/ THat's just three singular instances that popped up on the first page of google. There are so, so many more. But when police saved BLM protestors, putting their own lives at risk (And costing five officers lives), when someone opened fire you have absolutely no right to say anything. "You know, when you're looking at it from the lens of race in this country, it's absolutely easier to manufacture criminals around that. When people skin becomes weaponized, particularly black skin, a book becomes a gun, a cell phone becomes a gun, a bag of skittles becomes a gun." And when looking through the lens of race, it is also easier to think of extreme propositions because you're world view will not allow you to see beyond it. But go on. "We don't have some personal war with individual police officers." You just think they don't keep people save, they make criminals, and they're in it for profit. Can't imagine how individual cops could possibly be offended and upset by that. "What we do have is a deep concern and a fight against the institution of policing." Concern about it? Sure. Fight against it? That just speaks to me that you have the first idea about criminal justice, law, or any of it just that you can only see it through you own lens of race (to use your term.) "Undocumented communities know that they can't call the police in the even that crisis happens." Look, I'm all for making the path easier to get into this country. Not everyone who follows me agree with that but my family came over as poor immigrants with very little to offer the country; I can't blame others for wanting to. And the expense and abject difficulty to do it now is...well, lets put it this way, I don't think most Americans could become citizens the way things are now. That being said, undocumented communities are here ILLEGALLY. And police have to enforce the law. If you want to deal with the problem of immigration? Awesome. Start electing lawmakers who want to fix the process. don't blame cops who have about as much power in what becomes law as a cashier has about store policy. "A lot of black communities know that too." Uh huh, and we're just going to ignore what can happen to 'snitches' in the more crime ridden areas of the country? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12419650 Can't imagine THAT has anything to do with why some communities (not just black communities, mind you) don't talk to police? "And so entire mosques, churches, communities--they have agreements where they won't call the police, should something happen. And in its place, we've seen such a wonderful and diverse response when it comes to intervention in our communities. We've seen people rise up with trainings around mental health crisis, intimate partner violence crisis. We've seen rapid response-justice teams and I think that's what we need to be building." If you suffer a serious violent crime (rape, armed robbery, murder, arson, assault) and don't call the cops to get the perpetrator of the street you are a moron. I'm sorry, but some people cannot be talked into behaving themselves. They are dangerous to others and not having them taken out of that situation puts people at risk. It's great that you're seeing benefits in their communities. Community programs can be excellent tools, there is no doubt about that, but that does not mean police will suddenly not be needed. "Revolution isn't just about the ending of something. It's the beginning of something new." New does not always mean good. And sometimes revolution just shits on everyone.

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cover2covermom · 8 years

Text

Goodbye January, and hello February!

Not to brag, but I slayed my January TBR . Not only that, but I finished off my TBR and read 6 more books to top things off. Ok, maybe I am bragging a little bit. I cannot believe that I was able to read 11 books in January! I was also very happy with the variety of the books I read, 5 of which being #DiverseBooks. Definitely one of my better reading months to date. I would like to thank two viruses and a sinus infection for my successful reading month. Actually, not really. I am glad that hell is over with.

Let’s take a look at what I had going on in January…

What I read in January:

*Titles link to Goodreads

» Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Summary of feelings: I can definitely see why this is such a beloved book. Like many of the popular YA series we’ve seen emerge (Think the Twilight series, Hunger Games, Divergent, etc), I think this book will appeal to so many different types of readers. I really enjoyed this cast of characters and the thrilling heist plot. The first half of the book was on the slower side, but once the group reached the prison the story really took off! I had a few tiny issues with the book, but nothing that hindered my enjoyment. I will definitely be continuing on with the series.

» 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad

Summary of feelings: While there were brief glimpses of hope for this book, ultimately this was a flop for me. There were many times I was confused about what was going on. There were a few moments where I mouthed “What the f***?”. I will say this, if you have never struggled with your weight, this book will not appeal to you at all. Like the main character Elizabeth (Beth, Liz, Lizzie…) I was very overweight at one point in my life, then lost a substantial amount of weight. The transition was not as smooth and flawless as I thought it would be. There were many times I could relate to Elizabeth, which is why I picked this one up in the first place, but this book just didn’t feel coherent in any way.

» The Smell of Other People’s Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

Summary of feelings: After seeing the gorgeous cover and the odd title, I knew I had to pick this one up. What a beautiful little book set in 1970s Alaska. There is a lot going on here in only 240 pages. While I appreciate quick reads, I think the author could have gone more in depth here and even added another 100 pages to this book. Even tough I wanted more, what I did get was good!

» Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

Summary of feelings: While the last 25-30% of this book came up a little short, the first 70% of this book was a wild ride! It honestly felt like a psychological thriller. I cannot believe this actually happened to someone.

» Miller’s Valley by Anna Quindlen

Summary of feelings: This one came up a bit short for me. Actually, I was all set to give it 2 stars, but that ending was on point! There was so much potential here! This book had all the elements that I usually enjoy in a book: family secrets, coming of age theme, small town drama, etc etc. but it just didn’t work for me. I think this had a lot to do with the author’s timeline. Generally, I enjoy when an author jumps around from present to past and back again, but I had a hard time following where we were in time. I was often confused while reading until I would realize that I was actually reading a flashback.

» Stella by Starlight by Sharon M. Draper

Summary of feelings: A fantastic middle grade book! I think this would be an excellent book to show children what life was like in the 1930s, in particular the racial injustices that occurred in the segregated South. I think the author did a fantastic job taking such a hard topic and writing it for a younger audience that still portrays the racial tension of the times, but still keeping it appropriate for a middle grade audience.

» The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Summary of feelings: I went into this book completely blind. I didn’t read any reviews and didn’t even read the synopsis. Until I read the author’s note at the end, I had no idea that this book was based off a real set of sisters: Sarah and Angelina Grimké. The Grimké sisters were active abolitionists starting in the late 1830s until slavery was abolished in 1865. They were also women’s rights activists until their deaths in 1870s. HOW DID I NOT KNOW WHO THESE WOMEN WERE? Oh, that’s right. They were important WOMEN in history, that’s why. Despite the slow start to this book, I really enjoyed learning about the Grimké sisters. I also like how Kidd wove a slave narrative along their story as well. I think Sarah Grimké would have been proud of this fictional account of her life. I read this for my book club’s January selection, and it made for a fantastic discussion.

» Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Summary of feelings: Hidden Figures is the historical account of the impact that women of color had in the field of aviation. I learned so much from this book. The women in this book boggle my mind. I felt so empowered and inspired by these women. I will warn you that this is very much a non-fiction book that reads like a history book. It tends to throw lots of information and names your way in quick succession, which felt a little tedious at times.

» In Light of What We See by Sarah Painter

Summary of feelings: The two separate storylines did not particularly work well together, making this book feel jumbled. There was really no connection between them except an insignificant one. I also strongly disliked the main character Mina. She did get better as the book progressed, but my aversion to her in the beginning made it really hard for me to want to pick this book up. There were a few things I did enjoy about the book, but overall this was not my cup of tea.

» Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

Summary of feelings: I had never read a Margaret Atwood book before this one. I went into this one not knowing what to expect. I heard it was a retelling of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, but that it was set in a prison? This definitely peaked my interest. I am embarrassed to say that I’ve only read a few of Shakespeare’s plays, and The Tempest is not one of them. I did read a summary of the play before reading Hag-Seed, which was definitely a smart move. I for one thought this book was very clever, HOWEVER I don’t necessarily think this book is going to be for everyone. Fans of Shakespeare and theatre should definitely give this one a go.

» Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai

Summary of feelings: This is classified as a middle-grade book, but I almost want to say it would be better for a younger YA audience… The main character, Mai, is a 12-year-old but she felt older to me. Anyways! Mai takes a trip with her grandmother to Vietnam to find out once and for all what happened to her grandfather during the Vietnam War. This is a wonderful book full of Vietnamese culture and customs. If you know me, then you know I love learning about different cultures. I listened to this via audiobook, which I think was very helpful since there is a lot of Vietnamese words and the correct way to pronounce these words throughout the book. Mai goes through tremendous growth through this book, which was great to see since I was not a fan of her in the beginning.

January Book Reviews:

Book Review: The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

Kids’ Corner: Buy, Borrow, or Pass – Picture Book Reviews (January 2017)

Kids’ Corner: Diverse Children’s Picture Books in Review (January 2017)