!!!!!!!!! @sheabutterfemme, babe... have i told you today how much i love you?! https://twitter.com/sheabutterfemme/status/1276218829325172744

i have been screaming this thread to the top of my lungs for a long ass time. my god.

and also, creating the necessary space to preserve your peace and sanity and safety is okay. i made a very public call the other day that i didn’t want to see a particular someone on my TL and would block folks for putting her there. i meant that.

but the call was never a request to unfollow, berate, or harass her. it has always been to make the necessary conditions to call her in. and to keep me/my community safe in the meantime.

my issue with public call outs is that the public (not necessarily the survivor) almost always individualize the harm/abuse. “that person did this thing, they are bad and must be exiled so that we never recreate that harm”... and then 200 abusers later, they do the same thing.

at some point, we have to really reckon with how often each of us harm and the fact that, as k said, many will also abuse (even, and more-likely-than-not, unintentionally). when we individualize it, we only flatten what abuse is. it is cultural.

i think it is also true that many people—even some who are abolitionists—must sit with the fact that their true desire is to see people punished. we should make room for that honesty. and really sit with the “why” behind that.

i can absolutely be honest and name that there have been some people who have harmed me that i wanted to be punished. and on this journey, there will probably be others. i can only hope that those feelings only grow thinner as i grow, and that i always lead with principle.