STILL thinking about this and how our current mechanisms for consequences and accountability actually leave us less safe rather than more https://twitter.com/NeolithicSheep/status/1276114996636811266

This is in terms of the current reckoning in SFF to be explicit

Because look: currently as a community we require dudes who are not abusive predators to cut ties with those who are as a means of ejecting dudes who do abusive, predatory shit from our community. This is also one of our few means of providing consequences.

I gotta ask though, since we require this: WHO HAS EYES ON THESE DUDES WHO DO ABUSIVE, PREDATORY SHIT NOW?

Have we really done anything other than spread our problem around? Like ok Cole has lost friends, 2 publishers, and his agent. His reputation is trash in SFF. Sykes has lost friends and his reputation but... That's it.

Either one though can lie low for a couple years, wait for the internet's memory to move on/claim he's changed, and pop up in a different community that isn't plugged into discussions in this one.

Meanwhile maybe they changed, maybe they didn't, but nobody will fucking know because we required all the dudes who could be relied upon to give honest reports, who these dudes were willing to be dirtbags in front of, to cut ties.

What responsibility do we have as a community - not their victims but us, the community at large and particularly the cis dudes that these men will do abusive, predatory shit in front of, will speak their bullshit misogynist thoughts openly to - to stay close enough to watch?

Cause like... I wish Kate Welch had felt able to say all this sooner. https://twitter.com/katewelchhhh/status/1276190856530194432?s=19

And it's pretty clear that we need white cis dudes with eyes on Myke Cole who can and will check him. He's not gonna listen to anyone else. https://twitter.com/RishJG/status/1276384441745772545?s=19

And same with Sam Sykes tbh. If we don't have eyes on them, we're just giving them the opportunity to continue this shit in other communities. https://twitter.com/shingworks/status/1276174269697810432?s=19

These are things communities need to explicitly talk about and try to come to an ethos that both protects past victims *and minimizes future harm*.

The problem is that organic communities like eg SFF are large and more like a network of communities, and doesn't think of itself as something that can and should organize around explicit principles.

Also coming from my background in explicitly antifascist organizing let me maybe actually scare you: who is keeping an eye on Myke Cole for approaches from the fash? Do you want a dude with urban warfare and cybersurveillance experience radicalized by them? I do not.

But human beings want community and Cole just lost his and the fash will fucking be waiting.

Like... They are ready and waiting and will offer these dudes affirming community where they don't have to do the difficult work of becoming decent human beings.

I've got no answers because the answers MUST come from the community. All I have is a shit ton of questions.