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So, I just listened to the @yourewrongabout episode on Jonestown, and I think there& #39;s a difficult reckoning with what Jim Jones believed, and the causes he triumphed, and his abuse.
And working in human rights and public defense I gotta tell ya.
These things square. 1/
And working in human rights and public defense I gotta tell ya.
These things square. 1/
I recently escaped an abusive, dysfunctional, paranoid Eastern-Germany style capital public defender office, and came to one where I knew the supervisor had an abusive reputation, but it was a new office and small and I& #39;d heard he& #39;d maybe gotten better.
Spoiler: he hadn& #39;t. 2/
Spoiler: he hadn& #39;t. 2/
The people who get into this work really believe in it. REALLY do. Right? Like who would sign up to lose almost all your cases and your clients and never see justice done and courts not give a fuck about doing it unless you& #39;re a True Believer for the cause. No one. 3/
But that& #39;s why work like this is PERFECT for abusers. By which I mostly mean egomaniacal straight white men. Because you can be a big fish in a small pond, partly. Because you can take on a savior role, partly.
But I think mostly because of how they can use The Cause. 4/
But I think mostly because of how they can use The Cause. 4/
The majority of the people in the trenches who did this work are women, and women of color. And those are the people who are expected already to work to the bone for the benefit of others. And to do so at the detriment of themselves. So there is that for male supervisors. 5/
But then there is The Cause. No one who gets into this heartbreaking, backbreaking work, who gets into it because we believe in it so much, would do anything to undermine The Cause. We will let our backs be broken over the bows of male egos before we ever hurt our clients. 6/
And so my current supervisor let it slip, only 2 weeks into my employment with my current office. In an office meeting I disagreed with a very stupid thing he was proposing, which would have challenged the way all federal courts everywhere function. This is normally unwise. 7/
But he wanted to try to challenge, in a manner that would have cast negative aspersions on the entire federal judiciary, the way all fed courts everywhere work using a client with an impending execution date. And an unrelated, actually winnable claim.
And I dared disagree. 8/
And I dared disagree. 8/
And he screamed at me, "FINE THEN YOU PICK WHICH CLIENT YOU WANT TO KILL NEXT. YOU OBVIOUSLY WANT TO HELP THE STATE EXECUTE YOUR CLIENTS, YOU PICK THE ONE YOU WANT TO MURDER. YOU& #39;RE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR MURDER BECAUSE YOU& #39;RE TOO CHICKENSHIT TO FIGHT SO TELL ME WHO DIES NEXT"
9/
9/
Reader: when another older white male suggested the course of action I had originally suggested in that meeting, because I thought what he was proposing was unwise, did my supervisor credit that man and agree? Of course he did.
But you knew that. 10/
But you knew that. 10/
Point is, Jim Jones/abusive public defenders/rights crusaders do this work because no one will fight back against them. Because that would be fighting against The Cause. And the actual, real-life people you work with. You stay in line because you don& #39;t want to harm them. 11/
Getting into these fields allows mediocre abusive white men to accrue a lot of power, use and abuse the labor of women and POC and take savior credit for it, and by threatening the very people we all got into this work to help, keep everyone in line and quiet. 12/
