(en) US, Black Rose Federation: CONFRONTING VIGILANTE
RESPONSES IN ACCOUNTABILITY WORK: THE NEED FOR ACCOUNTABILITY IN
EVERYTHING WE DO by Romina Akemi
This piece was originally published in Perspectives issue #28 by the Institute for
Anarchist Studies which is available for purchase from AK Press. ---- On June 7,th 2014
multiple organizations in the Los Angeles-area hosted an event called "Transformative
Justice: Our Movements and Our Struggle" at the Asian Americans Advancing Justice space in
downtown Los Angeles. The event sponsors included the LA Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW), Communities Organizing in Liberation (COiL), La Voz de l@s Trabajadores, and
included the efforts of multiple other individuals in Los Angeles and other cities.
Participants came from as far as Portland, Oregon and Minneapolis, sharing their own
experiences with accountability processes and transformative justice. The event was
ambitious because it was a daylong event, separated into multiple areas of discussion. Due
to the subject matter and the need for discussion, the organizers found it necessary to
set up an unusually long set of presentations and discussions. Close to one hundred
people participated in the event throughout the day. The majority of participants were
women of color, workers, and college students.
The Transformative Justice event was organized in response to a series of incidents of
both sexual assault and major disagreements in our organizing spaces about what to do with
perpetrators of assault. Those who came together and the organizers of this event
realized that the heart of the problem was that our organizing spaces never held serious
discussions about the subject. We were all aware of our opposition to patriarchy, sexual
assault, and gender violence, yet there was no commonality about how to support survivors
of assault and how movements should engage with perpetrators.
Many revolutionaries and activists found themselves conflicted since California is where
the prison industrial complex exploded and our political work has been impacted by
questions of prison abolition. How can we oppose the police and prisons and yet support
acts that parallel state violence? There were also assumptions being made that because we
are all part of social movement organizing that we share similar visions of how to
confront these issues. These disagreements led to long lasting fissures in our political
circles. This was not a development particular to Los Angeles, and there is a striking
similarity with political debates in other cities.
Below is the transcript of one presentation at this event. The purpose of the
presentation is to outline a series of harmful acts that a group of people in the Los
Angeles-area carried out in the name of survivors of assault, but were actually being done
on their own accord. In this case, vigilantism (or as another speaker at the event
referred to it, as militant allyship) is when a group of individuals take a cause and
carry out acts such as spreading disinformation, disrupting political meetings or events,
and threatening or enacting violence on other individuals. These acts are done in the
name of a moralistic cause, loosing sight of the needs of the survivor, and the
possibility of challenging a perpetrator's behavior.
You can read more about the event and collectively written document written by the
organizers here.
Thank you all for attending this event and taking part in this conversation. The title of
my talk explains what I plan to address. However, my talk is broken down into three areas:
my story, problems with vigilante responses, and what we have learned.
My Story
The best way to introduce a difficult topic is to specify why we--those who organized this
event--have decided to dedicate time and energy in putting this event together. I believe
that it is just as important to place this in both a collective and a personal narrative.
Some years ago I organized a short accountability process for a previous partner who
physically and sexually abused me. During that process, I discovered that most of my
female and male friends abandoned me. Some female friends stopped being my friend when I
returned to my abusive partner. Male friends wanted to avoid involvement and one thought
that my partner's jealousy towards him was my doing. In the end it was one female friend
who stood by me and without her, I am not sure what I would have done.
I offer this story not to gain credibility as a survivor, but to offer a little insight as
to what I learned from that experience. Most people (even my parents) were not prepared
and did not have the tools to help someone through such a difficult situation. But it is
important to educate each other, which is the only way we can offer useful support and
begin to combat gender violence and oppressive behavior. This former partner was
Ecuadorian of Black-Chinese-Basque background. I had seen him experience police harassment
and knew about his childhood trauma with physical abuse and bullying. For those reasons
when his physical abuse escalated I found myself unable to report him to the police.
Instead I ran out of our apartment and cried on the sidewalk. I cried because I knew too
well that reporting him would not help my situation or alter his behavior. I moved out and
convinced him to attend anger management and therapy. I followed up with him for many
months. At a certain point I decided to move on and cut off all communication with him. My
process was not his process, but it did give me some piece of mind in being involved
during that period.
Problems with Vigilante Responses
Over the course of the last year and a half, I was forcefully placed in a whirlwind
situation based on how to interpret an accountability process that began some years ago.
This is in relation to a series of events that affected multiple communities across the
US. During that time, I observed the destruction of various communities, friendships, and
political collaborations primarily due to the politics of militant allyship and
unaccountable behavior. Another factor that allowed such destructive behavior to develop
into a powerful force--even if it was mainly coming from five people via the internet--is
that our own movement organizations have not taken the time to discuss, understand, and
create measures for addressing gender violence, racist violence, and other forms of
oppressive behavior in our social movements.
Vigilante Responses to Accountability
For revolutionaries it is impossible for us to say that we outright oppose vigilante
responses. In a similar way, we also do not state opposition to property destruction. But
both forms of actions have to be looked at critically, depending on the circumstances and
taking into account who will be affected. There is danger in absolutist interpretations
that forget that the means to our ends do matter.
While I am not a pacifist, I am cautious about vigilante responses that have developed in
our social movement spaces. Overall, vigilantism replicates aspects of state violence that
does not take into account the complex spectrum of oppression, constructing strong
binaries and the use of violence to force someone to comply to behave or not behave a
certain way. Vigilantism has a complicated history in the United States. There is a long
and violent history of white supremacist actions against people of color that includes
lynching, destruction of property, and forceful removal from lands. At the same time, some
people who have experienced state and systemic violence have responded with acts of
self-defense and revenge. However, it is a mistake to glorify or romanticize such actions,
since most are rooted in a desire to protect oneself or loved ones, not because such
actions are an answer to every form of oppressive act. We know very well that when the
state or--as in the case of the US--white supremacist gangs that are supported by the
state are viewed as a necessity to protect the social order, it is only those of us who
resist who are deemed violent. But what happens when acts or the promotion of acts of
violence within our own social movements begin to appear? Is it the same? Why does it occur?
Some forms of vigilantism in relation to survivor autonomy are rooted in feelings of
disempowerment due to failures by our movement to confront oppressive behavior. Lack of
organizational engagement in confronting gender violence, racism, classism, abelism, etc.
creates a sense that your fellow comrades do not care. In most cases, individuals do not
know what to do and lack the tools to deal with such matters in a useful, productive, and
supportive way. The more these questions are discussed, processes are developed, more
individuals in our social movements will feel equipped to offer support and react more
effectively, giving vigilantism less space to develop as a de facto reaction.
Do You Know of a Positive Accountability Process?
Many individuals who have participated in multiple accountability processes have
encountered at least one positive example. Positive outcomes are rarely discussed. Because
of the many failed attempts at accountability some conclude that it is a waste of
political energy. Others believe that labeling accountability processes an absolute waste
of time is a betrayal of our principals as anarchists.
What are some typical negative experiences with accountability processes? The perpetrator
refuses to partake in an accountability process, the perpetrator's reputation disproves
the assault, survivor is silenced, survivor's credibility is questioned, organizational
cover-up to protect the group's reputation. The reason I mention these negative
experiences with accountability will allow me to frame some of the problems that developed
in Los Angeles. I understand why a group of people promoted vigilantism and determined
accountability a failure. However, I don't understand or support their desire to destroy
the lives and political reputation of everyone who expressed political disagreement with them.
What we saw develop in the Los Angeles area was a self-declared militant ally group
centered around a group of friends who were graduate students at UCLA and UC Irvine. The
initial reason why individuals from this group formed the Cassandra Solanas Collective was
to support someone they all knew in the area. The case revolved around Seth Miller from
the Progessive Labor Party (PLP), in which he and his organization refused to comply with
an accountability process and the demands of the survivor. However, as little advancement
was made on that front the group quickly took on a series of other cases. Many of those
cases were related to individuals not in the area and they were not necessarily the prime
support team for the survivor/s. This is when the Cassandra Solanas Collective shifted
from a survivor-centered collective to a group-centered project with shared political beliefs.
These shared beliefs were so strong that it meant that survivors had to either agree with
them or they would act only on their behalf in connection with their views. Since the
Cassandra Solanas Project functioned on a common vision based on how to confront
perpetrators, it was the group ideology and presentation that became key. Anyone outside
their friendship group or anyone who expressed disagreement with their approach was deemed
a "rape apologist" and "supporter of patriarchy." Since their focus became the
perpetrator, it was automatically assumed that support for the survivor was based on what
was to be done to the perpetrator. In fact, these are two distinct processes. Furthermore,
as the Cassandra Solanas Project began to enforce their political views and demands
through the use of intimidation, the needs of the survivor/s was forgotten and/or ignored.
This highlights their lack of accountability for their own actions, which obfuscated any
pushback with accusations of rape apologism.
Why Did this Happen?
There are three issues that I wish to discuss that underline some of the problems that
developed from this particular experience. Those areas are: survivor-centered vs.
perpetrator-centered actions, the repetition of group-developed narratives, and political
difference dealt with through intimidation.
When offering a survivor support in which accountability of some form is being planned, it
is necessary to begin by asking a lot of questions to better understand the range of needs
the survivor might need and what those in the supportive role feel comfortable or able to
do. This ultimately means being a good listener before action is taken or information is
disseminated. Some key questions are: What can I/we do to support the survivor? Are their
immediate needs--including their safety--being addressed? Other questions include: what
does this process seek to do? What are the individual and group boundaries? How to uphold
survivor agency? This might include the pace of activity and the dissemination of information.
In the perpetrator-centered process certain problematic behavior arose. First, there was a
"with us or against us" point of view. This meant that if you expressed disagreement,
including not feeling comfortable participating in some aspect of what was being done, the
person would automatically be labeled a "rape apologist."
Second, the Cassandra Project wanted all spaces to be perpetrator-free. However, this did
not include asking spaces, organizations, or unions to create better processes to confront
oppressive behavior. Instead, demands were placed to exclude someone that had been through
an accountability process in the past. They also began to replicate state narratives of
"stranger danger" and the need to quarantine offenders. This often means pushing them into
the most marginalized communities. In other words, keep "our" spaces/neighborhoods safe
and free of sexual deviants. Those of us who have done work around gender violence know
that most perpetrators are individuals close to the victim, not outside strangers.
The third problematic development was demands for information about an accountability
process and other related information. There are some survivors who do not want
information to be made public and some who do. The issue about how to proceed requires a
lot of discussion. Also, how a survivor's story is described requires a lot of input from
their part or else their narrative can easily be distorted. A survivor of abuse is already
dealing with feelings of disempowerment and for their supportive group to misrepresent
their wants can be a deep violation of trust.
The repetition of group-centered narrative might seem like a strange concept. But when the
political views of a group become central, they also construct narratives as a group and
because several individuals repeat them it can appear as truth. One example is directly
related with me. A few individuals within the Cassandra Solanas Project found out that
a[former] partner of mine had been through an accountability process some years ago. Based
on that information several of them concluded that this former partner must have been
abusing me. They never asked me directly whether this was true -- and it was not. Instead
they all confirmed with each other that this was true and began to contact acquaintances
of mine in other cities to tell them that. They also contacted those who participated in
my former partner's accountability process.
After so many individuals were contacted without my knowledge, by the time I figured out
what was happening many did not believe me. When I confronted one of the people spreading
this rumor about me, they spoke to another person in their group and began to tell people
that I had Stockholm Syndrome. They not only invalidated my agency but they also refused
any sort of accountability for their actions. In response, the Cassandra Solanas Project
began to spread the word that I was a "rape apologist" with the intention of further
isolating me from my political circles of support. Another aspect that gave the Cassandra
Solanas Project legitimacy was the many younger activists not experienced with
accountability processes or transformative justice. Being recently exposed to a series of
radical terms they often repeated things said that sounded militant, wanting to be on the
right side. It came out of a good place even if they contributed to harmful behavior.
The last aspect is the use of intimidation when political difference is expressed. I
already explained that when I stated that rumor that my former partner was abusing me was
not true the response was intimidation. There were other examples, involving those in the
Cassandra Solanas Project who opposed transformative justice claiming that it promoted the
idea of reformed rapists. There were others--including myself--who held strong political
disagreements with the Cassandraists, as we expressed support for transformative justice
as an important aspect of our anti-prison work.
In the end, the Cassandra Solanas Project remained unaccountable and negatively affected
many individuals in the surrounding community. Because of their lack of direct
accountability they were able to disengage at will, they had no sense of accountability to
the survivor/s they claimed to represent.
What We Learned?
I cannot offer an elaborate conclusion, since the question of accountability really does
depend on the particular situation and the individuals involved. But there are two
important developments that we have learned.
First is the importance of maintaining a survivor-centric, and not perpetrator-centric,
process.
Second--and one argument that this event is pushing for--is the need to build capacity.
We are encouraging all political spaces, including unions and organizations, to have
discussions about how their group plans to confront oppressive behavior. Does your
organization have a process? Has your union discussed what to do if a coworker does
something harmful to another coworker? How can various organizations that share social
movement spaces support each other in doing this work? While we all want to end gender and
racist violence, we might not all share the same means or even know what to do. Building
capacity is the beginning of the process of working on those means.
Romina Akemi is Chilean-American, raised between Los Angeles, California and Santiago,
Chile. For many years Romina worked as a garment worker and is currently a graduate
student studying Chilean labor history. She is a member of the LA Industrial Workers of
the World and the Black Rose Anarchist Federation.
Event document: https://transformativejusticela.wordpress.com
http://www.blackrosefed.org/confronting-vigilante-responses-in-accountability-work-the-need-for-accountability-in-everything-we-do/
