zara raven
@thezararaven
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mad queer mama, care worker, zinester, #8toAbolition cocreator. Philly Childcare Collective coordinator. Safer Movements Collective codirector. 🇩🇴🇵🇷🇱🇧♎
philadelphia, pa
Joined August 2009
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Pinned Tweet
what can it look like to heal from state + interpersonal violence? so excited to share I cocreated a research zine with
@theetracyrenee
,
@nourn_ny
, Wendy Howard (
@DefendWendy
), Liyah Birru, &
@KyPeterson5
+ art by
@arttherabee
, about how we heal.
READ:
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8 y/o is in a new school where’s she free to eat and go to the bathroom at any time she wants/needs, and it’s so wild to look back and think about on all the ways many of us were trained in traditional schools to ignore + silence our body’s signals about our needs
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I saw a post like “to those calling for a ceasefire please understand why your Jewish friends feel this is antisemitic” and….I don’t know what they’re talking about bc all my Jewish friends are in the streets w me day after day calling for a ceasefire & an end to the occupation
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update: she is no longer unopposed 😬
y’all, a woman is running unopposed for PTA president at my kid’s school & tweeting in support of kavanaugh today. some days this fight feels so massive.
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when someone offers you an opportunity to be accountable, it is an act of care. it is an acknowledgement of your humanity + your capacity to transform behaviors.
listen, learn, and say thank you.
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in other news: 7 y/o recently asked me if non-transgender men are called "bro-gender" since I referred to myself as "sis-gender" and it took me a good 10 minutes to understand what they meant and realize it was hilarious
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HALF of people murdered by police are people with disabilities.
people with disabilities are often seen as “unfit” parents by the foster system.
people with disabilities disproportionately experience state violence + in unique ways that are marginalized by our broader movement.
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Your
#LaborDay
reminder:
- Sex work is work.
- Emotional labor is work.
- Caregiving is work.
- Childcare is work.
Feminized forms of labor are frequently invisibilized & sometimes even criminalized. Happy Labor Day to mamas & hookers only!
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"The etymological meaning of 'radical' is 'root.' So, abolition allows us to get to the root of the problem. That is why it is the radical alternative. Abolition allows us to escape being trapped by the same framework over and over again."
— Angela Davis
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Hard pass on the
@MarshaMovie
. Another damning example of white men ripping off work by QTPOC. Love to Reina Gossett for speaking her truth.
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This morning
#IBelieveBiden
is trending, and it hurts.
And what hurts most about the response to Tara Reade is that it's exactly what happens in our communities: we all oppose sexual violence until the accused is a friend or someone we like, until it's inconvenient.
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61% of white women voted for Cruz over Beto. 76% of white women voted for Kemp over Abrams. 51% of white women voted for DeSantis over Gillum.
White women: What will you do to be accountable to women, trans, queer, and non binary people of color in your everyday lives?
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like whoa you can just pee when you have to pee! revolutionary!
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Heartbreaking. Bailey, a 17 year old Black trans young woman from Baltimore, is the 17th trans person to be killed in the US in 2019. Rest in power, Bailey.
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Abolition can’t wait. Building off the work of Black feminist theorists + abolitionist organizers, we're putting forward 8 actionable steps to move us closer to a world without prisons or police.
#8toAbolition
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my grandma died today
and as I went to unblock my mother’s number to call her, 6 y/o said “don’t you dare call her”
and then my sister called me to make sure I didn’t call
and I’m just sad that things have to be this way
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WAKE UP! we have a lot of work to do to accomplish everything rudy describes below 👇🏽
WAKE UP!
Black Lives Matter wants to destroy law enforcement, end bail, empty the prisons (including drug dealers as well as users), provide themselves with reparations, AND a full-time government income without the necessity of work.
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“15 year old prostitute” — so lemme get this straight, all teens in the sex trade are trafficking victims EXCEPT when they’re experiencing an abuse of power at the hands of police officers? ok.
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consistently, the legal system seeks to ensure that someone is punished. it’s not about safety or justice or accountability.
police had the nerve to say “the unborn baby is the only victim here.” The fetus is seen as more of a person & victim than the Black mom who was shot.
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the brooklyn housing court got evicted and i truly do love to see it
Wow so this morning the Brooklyn Housing Court woke up to its doors spray foamed and bike locked shut, and then this document was released in a telegram room. It looks like people are not tolerating evictions any more.
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a call for accountability isn’t about shaming, blaming, or punishing. it’s about building a path forward. we don’t have to villanize those who are being called to be accountable, and we also don’t have to dismiss the concerns of those calling for accountability.
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If you care about sex trafficking victims, ask yourself: What happens to kids after they're "rescued" from the sex trade? Are they back on the streets & still experiencing sexual violence? Are they put in jail? Are they sent back to abusive homes?
This part matters.
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Instead of asking "How do we change an institution that has already demonstrated that it can never fundamentally change?" Angela Davis reminds us to ask: "What are the contextual conditions that need to shift in order to ensure that we don't need to rely on these institutions?"
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many of us have done the work of imagining how to keep our communities safe without police. you may be surprised to learn that we’re not seeking cops by another name. we’re building up the capacity of *whole communities* to care for each other, interrupt harm, + create safety.
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“We need to be weapons of mass construction, weapons of mass love. It’s not enough just to change the system. We need to change ourselves.”
— Assata Shakur
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actually I started out as a sex worker and the skills transferred over well to: canvassing, phone banking, community organizing, grassroots fundraising, relationship building, and financial management. 💁🏽♀️
One day you will grow old and that OnlyFans money will dry up, you will regret not having any transferable skills for a career and when your Mercedes gets repoed and you can’t find a husband that entire pill bottle on your nightstand will look tempting
Nice house though
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The first thing I wanted to do after being raped was take a shower. And shower again & again & again to get the feeling of being violated off of me. With support from friends, I did attempt to report it, and I was told that there was no proof because I showered.
#WhyIDidntReport
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something i think a lot of people don't realize about the foster system is that siblings often get separated, too, when we need each other the most. for over a decade, i've held onto this letter that my little brother wrote to me when we were sent to separate foster homes.
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Imagine how much revolutionary, transformative change we could make if women + queer people of color werent simultaneously navigating harassment + violence from predatory cis het men in movement spaces ✨
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this is not the time to talk about how Joe Biden is a Good Guy TM who has done a lot for women (which is debatable, at best). this is the time to talk about how even the “Good Guys” cross boundaries, violate consent, cause harm & must be accountable.
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"You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world, and you have to do it all the time."
— Angela Davis
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lol i was sweeping trash on my street, and a man in a car goes "a man oughta be doing that!" so i said "you can take over!" he goes "here i come," parks his car, i hand him the broom and then when holding the broom he says, "oh i'm a little too high on the totem pole for this"
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like assata said, “nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”
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The vast majority of trafficking cases (81%) don’t involve sexual exploitation. In fact, most trafficking occurs in the agriculture industry.
Abolishing or criminalizing the industry won’t end trafficking. People need labor rights + basic resources to survive.
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6 y/o asked “who called the cops on Rosa Parks?” & the question sent us down a rabbit hole to an article where the arresting officer described Rosa Parks’ arrest as “a regular, routine arrest.”
what a reminder of the violence of everyday policing by state & nonstate actors
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colonial society has always pathologized behaviors that seek to disrupt the status quo
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the most heartwarming thing to me has been seeing people share that they were supporting
#8CantWait
, and now, having read our platform, are supporting
#8toAbolition
. it’s heartwarming because it means we were able to use this moment to reach, inform, + bring in new people.
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see, these aren’t “outside agitators.” featured here is my high school boyfriend from manhattan hunter science high
Dozens of looters arrested in SoHo after night of mayhem in NYC
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i just read that september is suicide awareness month, and it makes me think of something
@thellpsx
wrote in "care work." instead of asking people to promise to keep living in a world that can be unbearable, we have to work to create a world that makes people *want* to stay.
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TALK ABOUT IT, BRITNEY
Britney Spears calls out police who visited her home following viral performance videos of her dancing with fake knives:
“It's about power for cops.”
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i just can't get behind this "support abusers in healing so they can stop abusing" idea anymore. we already know that abusers put on a show for everyone and that only their victims meet mr. hyde. this performance is a central feature of their abuse.
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I moved away from calling violence against women, lgbq + tgnc folks “gender based violence” bc it puts the focus on the gender of those targeted as the reason for the violence, rather than the oppressive systems that enable it.
I appreciate “patriarchal violence” as a term! 👇🏽
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@farmereva_
what i think about most is that so many of us won’t survive *without* revolution
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yikes. i know many folks see Crenshaw do this + say “see, intersectionality is liberalism!” but it’s so important to remember that Black queer feminists like the Combahee River Collective brought us the analysis of interlocking systems of oppression before Crenshaw gave us a term
Kimberle Crenshaw delivered a keynote address at Cornell University today... She mentioned the attack on free speech, affirmative action by the Supreme Court, and other liberal anxieties. Did she mention Palestine even once? nope! She comes at a time when Cornell is repressing
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my dream job is to be a movement mom
I want to make food for people who spend their days & nights organizing directly impacted communities, and I wanna make sure they drink water
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now we’re seeing all the “how to spot signs of suicide” thinkpieces the same way they do “how to spot signs of sex trafficking” and I promise you if everyone had access to safe housing we’d dramatically reduce both
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5 yrs ago today I was released from jail for defending myself against my abuser so no, self defense isn't enough without prison abolition.
I want y'all to know I'm 500% dead ass serious when I say I encourage women to get armed and learn self-defense.
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most survivors *don't* have documentation of our assaults. in fighting, fleeing, freezing, or fawning for our survival, many of us forgot to take pictures.
the burden of proof should not fall on survivors
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all of my love and solidarity with survivors, many of whom are on the frontlines of organizing toward safety + abolition.
#justicefortoyin
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some of you are trying to repackage your rape apologism as ~transformative justice~ and it truly needs to stop
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Cyntoia will be free next week!! ✨🎊
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Huge victory for the
#MeToo
movement today as DC becomes the first city worldwide to fund comprehensive, non-criminal solutions to street harassment! We’re investing in education instead of criminalization, and it’s going to make DC safer for everyone.
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“Prison abolition is not simply an end goal but also an everyday practice. Being abolitionist is about changing the ways we interact with others on an ongoing basis and changing harmful patterns in our daily lives.”
— S. Lamble
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I will truly develop a crush on someone I literally do not know based on a personality that I made up for them
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I may not always immediately unfollow/unfriend your abuser. I will, however, mobilize to remove your abuser from roles where they are building a platform + preying on people.
with collective action and consequences, we can constrain an abuser’s ability to cause more harm.
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"Instead of asking 'what law was broken, who broke it, and what will the punishment be?' Restorative justice asks: Who was harmed, what do they need, and whose obligation is it to meet those needs?" -
@sujathabaliga
#NSAC2020
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someone called 6 y/o's avatar "ugly" on her computer game and she was like, "i'm wonderful and powerful and brave, and that is not a nice thing to say." 🥺
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abusers are playing chess with us. i'm less interested in rehabilitating individual abusers and more interested in transforming the culture that enables abuse.
are you gonna be a pawn for the patriarchy, or are you gonna fight for liberation?
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shout out to trans + queer kids of color who parented ourselves + now build family structures rooted in mutual respect and care 🌈 our alternative lifestyles are not signs of our brokenness but rather symbols of our resistance against oppression + our survival against all odds 💫
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here’s a FAQ on supporting your trans kid:
Q: How do you know your child’s gender?
A: Ask! Or let them tell you & then — and this is key — believe them!
Q: but don’t kids change their minds all the time?
A: yes! you can believe them every time, knowing that things change!
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Last year, I was raped by a former Commune Magazine editor. Today, I'm sharing my experience + journey of seeking safety, healing, justice, + accountability.
I offer this as a resource for building safety from gendered violence without prisons or police:
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organizing is not a substitute for healing your trauma (this isn’t a subtweet, I just found this out)
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Happy
#MayDay
to women, trans, queer, & non-binary folks who are frequently unpaid, underpaid, or even criminalized for feminized forms of labor like sex work, housework, childcare, & emotional labor!
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“When ‘I’ is replaced with ‘we,’ even illness becomes wellness.”
— Malcolm X
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today celebrate Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, & the TWOC who continue to fight for the liberation of ALL queer people.
#NoJusticeNoPride
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abolition is a process, a way of life. abolition isn’t an outcome or end goal; it’s here, and now, and ongoing.
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There is a massive COVID outbreak now in a Massachusetts prison. Please join me in calling *right now* to apply pressure + ensure that those who are violently ill get the medical attention they need 👇🏽👇🏽
🚨PLEASE SPREAD 🚨We just received the following message from MCI Norfolk: someone is throwing up violently and needs medical assistance, they're [DOC not taking him to a hospital or giving him medical attention. Please call Norfolk right now and demand he get help (508) 660-5900
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The presence of rapists in our communities is not an argument for prisons or policing.
Prisons uphold rape culture.
Instead of asking, "What about the rapists?" ask yourself: How do you respond to survivors who share their experiences of abuse and assault?
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“Children make the best theorists, since they have not yet been educated into accepting our routine social practices as ‘natural’... Since they do not yet grasp our social practices as inevitable, they do not see why we might not do things differently.”
— Terry Eagleton
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my 5 y/o yells “no!” at passing cop cars and I just feel like I’ve done such a good job at this parenting thing
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I appreciate this take. for a long time, I pretended hard work+education were my pathways out of homelessness, and concealed my *actual* survival strategies of stealing+sex work. I'm grateful to now be in spaces that reject the stigma against people who are sex working+ unhoused.
“Homeless to Harvard” or “homeless to Hollywood” stories in mainstream media suggest that if people experiencing homelessness work hard enough they lift themselves to stability and success. It places the responsibility and shame on people denied their human right to housing.
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but still tried to get my number lol, SIR if you wanna be my lover you gotta come sweep my block
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just saw someone on Facebook write “one accusation is different from 24” and idk maybe I’m old fashioned but for me one rape is too many rapes
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Sex workers are being shadowbanned on instagram, so we’re taking our message to the streets.
#decrimnow
#letussurvive
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I was telling 6 y/o how expensive apartments are and she goes “whoever charges us for an apartment I’m going to kick his abs. or their abs if they’re nonbinary.” lmao we’ll fight you but we will respect yr pronouns
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i apologize all the time. i think it's good and healthy to be accountable. to reflect, to take responsibility, to learn from past mistakes, to grow. to understand that it's not my intentions, but my impact that matters. to work toward repair. to know + do better in the future.
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as a pro tip: if you're facilitating a community accountability process, and the survivor has explicitly shared that they don't want the details of said process shared online, it would be good if you didn't share those details online.
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supporting survivors means LISTENING TO SURVIVORS about how they want to be supported. the issue with "i'll unfollow your abuser" isn't that it's carceral; no one said that. it's that different survivors have different needs, and there's no one size fits all approach.
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“Can you send this back? I didn’t order this.” — 6 y/o, regarding a meal I cooked, at home
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I love that so many folks are excited about my hyperhyperhyperlocal candidacy. 😍 You can also support me by sending a donation to our school in my honor via PayPal to LangleyPTAPayments
@gmail
.com! Funds help cover aftercare programs, field trips & childcare during PTA meetings!
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i feel like almost every day i see survivors speak up about how we just want to be safe from sexual violence and almost every day i see known abusers say they just want to hold immense power & enormous platforms.
deplatforming abusers is such a low bar, and yet -
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"What we are seeing now are new demands: demands to demilitarize the police, demands to defund the police, demands to dismantle the police and envision different modes of public safety. We're asked now to consider how we might imagine justice in the future."
— Angela Davis
"I don't know if we have ever experienced this kind of global challenge to racism and to the consequences of slavery."
Angela Davis says anti-racism protests around the world are "a very exciting moment".
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I went into a cafe today and the barista was like “you’re wearing a mask, do you know something I don’t know?” and I was like phewwww buckle up,, friend I have bad news and then worse news
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You may not be able to donate to PTA presidency campaign, but you can support my local advocacy to end sexual violence with education & resources instead of criminalization: 💪🏾
#CancelKavanugh
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shout out to all the survivors in movement spaces, whose names you may never know, but whose ideas you hear out of the mouths of the abusers who claim credit for their work ✨
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"Abolition helps us conceptualize new forms of justice," says Angela Davis. instead of replicating the state's mode of justice using retribution, revenge + a narrow focus on individuals, we can build new kinds of relations + interrogate *why* the harm was able to happen at all.
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we’ve gotta step it up on the mainland
Holy shit Puerto Rico just brought a guillotine to the Governor’s mansion for their
#BlackLivesMatter
protest.
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"our children are not our property. Our children are little people who have been placed in our care, for us to nurture and guide. It is a most important charge, since they will one day be the ones who shape the direction of the world." — Safiya Bukhari
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I used to believe we could just educate people about consent, boundaries + healthy relationships to build a world without rape.
the existence of the ~feminist rapist~ shows us it’s not that rapists + abusers don’t know better. they *choose* to assert power + control over others.
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There’s an abuser in
@HellaBlackPod
. In solidarity with Black women, sex workers, and survivors, we’re calling for accountability: .
We’ ask that only BIPOC share this statement. Allies can support by supporting Black women’s podcasts.
#HellaBlackPodcast
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we live in a culture that consistently conflates accountability with punishment. this is rooted in carceral logics. we can embrace accountability and move with trust and good faith on *both sides* of the call.
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in movement spaces, survivors are often silenced by claims that speaking out about abuse is carceral, or carries the threat of carceral consequences, even when we are careful to avoid engaging the state.
in reality, it is SURVIVORS - not abusers - whose safety is at risk.
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hi y'all, as it turns out, my rapist's predatory friends have created an account pretending to be me.
please report and block
@theeleilaraven
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it breaks my heart to see the same story again & again: Black woman calls for help to protect herself from abuse, she tries to find a way to protect herself in the meantime, and then she becomes a victim of both interpersonal & state violence.
rest in power, Niani Finlayson.
Police fatally shoot domestic violence victim who called 911 seeking help
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a lot of folks throw around the words “transformative justice” while only thinking of *one* TJ strategy: ~the accountability process~
@thellpsx
+ I talked at the
@AlliedMediaConf
about what transformative justice means beyond one strategy 👇🏽
🎨: @/abolitionongradients on insta
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