to hold accountable? what does that mean?

excerpts from the revolution starts at home, edited by ching-in chen, jai dulani & leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha

“what we call 'community accountability' (some call it transformative justice, others call it as many names as there are people) has existed for as long as we hold collective memory. A simple definition of community accountability: any strategy to address violence, abuse or harm that creates safety, justice, reparations, and healing, without relying on police, prisons, childhood protective services, or any other state systems. Instead of police and prisons, community accountability strategies depend on something both potentially more accessible and more complicated: the communities surrounding the person who was harmed and the person who caused harm.”

“since this person was surrounded by enablers, it is easy to imagine how they would not move to a place of truly looking within and understanding male-bodied privilege, consent, and healthy relationships. . . admittedly, I see the appeal of shaming and community call-outs. But ultimately, I think this helps stunt the perpetrator's growth process, creating a false sense of relief for the person (and community) wronged. Accountability could mean so many different things. . . as in organizing, I believe in the escalation model as part of an accountability process. Using the escalation model involves finding people who can commit to working with both parties to heal while creating and maintaining realistic boundaries. Escalation becomes necessary when perpetrators refuse to engage in the process, maintain agreements or change their behavior.”- bran fenner

“too often we remain silent as a community when confronted by cycles of abuse, allowing violence to fester like a wound on someone's forehead. We all see but try not to look. Why?! What are we afraid of? Is it the significant amount of work it takes to create a long term vision for alternatives to policing, the complications of organizational impacts? I am tired of our seeing a community member abuse their partner without response – or with an inadequate one, where we have one meeting, take great notes, and subsequently drop the ball.” -bran fenner

“for the community to hold somebody accountable they have to actually think that what happened was wrong. So therefore you can't rely on a romanticized notion of community or even assume that community actually exists. For a community-based response to be effective requires a political organizing component to it that actually creates communities that offer accountability.” -andrea smith

“this watershed document ['community-accountability working document: principles/concerns/strategies/models'] frankly addressed many of the concerns and questions we were dreaming on- the importance of not forgetting to center survivor safety and needs while saying 'fuck the police'; the allure of, and problems with, public shaming of abusers as a tactic; and, perhaps most difficult of all, our real questions about whether community members who behaved in violent, manipulative ways could really ever transform, and ultimately end, those patterns.”

“their critiques of gender violence also failed to address the disturbing paradox of prevalent intimate violence within activist communities, and the degree of collusion, refusal, and/or incapacity to address this urgent issue. . . anyone can choose to abuse; anyone can be abused. As feminists of color, we knew that our stories were much more complex- that race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, immigration status, and more contributed to our choices and our relationships. . . we hoped that the specific truth of our stories would be enough, as famously prophesied by the poet muriel rukeyser, to split open the world.”

“if we are interested in building a movement that will not constantly be subverted by internal differences, then we must build from the inside out, not the other way around. Coming to terms with the suffering of others has never meant looking away from our own.” -cherrie moraga

*all quotes not attributed to someone are from the introduction, and are the writings of the editors.