While I don't disagree with this, there's something funky to me about how much energy, attention, and empathy we extend to perpetrators of violence and harm. Particularly without coming to the table without an articulation of what accountability and repair looks like... Thread: https://twitter.com/jduffyrice/status/1280213555745259520

...looks like for individuals and communities harmed by abusers and perpetrators of violence. I'll be the first to admit that I've participated in this, encouraging myself and others to stretch our imaginations and consider justice outside of courts and incarceration 2/?

BUT I've always tried to present ways we can work outside of the PIC for accountability. As abolitionists, we must detangle ourselves from the tunnel vision of uplifting our decarceral vision with perpetrators of harm as the vehicle. Yes, the PIC monopolizes violence 3/?

...and punitivity, but we need to practice centering the needs of individuals *and* communities that were harmed, not their abusers. (Aside: while also addressing community-wide culture that facilitates — or perhaps doesn't adequately prevent — harm from occurring) 4/?

It's just troubling to me how often the advocacy for an abolitionist vision hinge on people who are not interested in engaging in an accountability process or partaking in repair for their violent acts. How often their names and harm are invoked towards abolitionist goals 5/?

When we do so, we traumatize and retraumatize community, often without providing solutions, outlets for grief, trauma, and mourning. This is especially true when those perpetrators enact harm by wielding systemic power (white supremacy, patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia) 6/?

. @SonofBaldwin's tweet is sort of where I am at this point. I'm not about to die on an abolitionist hill that absolves white supremacy (& white supremacists like Amy Cooper) of culpability for harm they cause 7/? https://twitter.com/SonofBaldwin/status/1280293325807980544

That said, I also can't ever see myself endorsing a system as corrupt, racist, antithetical to Black liberation as the U.S. criminal justice system — not even as a stopgap solution to systemic and interpersonal harm 8/?

At first glance, I just think we just need to be meaner to abusers. No love and light and thoughtfulness and compassion for them. Accountability should not be comfortable. Further, it should be tailored to what particularly would make them feel the impacts of their actions. 9/?

I've seen Black queer and trans femmes and survivors doing this work on the ground, and it's inspiring to see it, but everyone with a larger platform errs too much on the side of "love and light" and "turn the other cheek" for me. Hard stop. 10/?

Accountability should center the needs of the harmed and there's no requirement that it should be comfortable or feel proportionate/warranted to the perpetrator. I also don't think that we should shy away from counterviolence h/t @mayafinoh 11/?

That isn't to say anyone should be entitled to wield lethal violence, but should not violence still be a tool in our kit — especially when it's punching up against perpetrators who weaponize institutional and systemic power? 12/?

I'm not here for respectability politics, and would totally be down to jump said person, publicly shame them, destroy their property, show up at the place of work and cause disturbance & get them fired, and banish perpetrators entirely from communities and shared spaces. 13/?

I repeat: I'm not above or against jumping abusers and perpetrators of harm. Hood niggas been gave us the blueprint for community-based accountability and we need only embrace it 14/?

Also considering how we can force them to redistribute money, food, housing, platforms, power, and resources to the harmed. Anyone saying Amy Cooper has gone through enough isn't thinking critically about the implications of her harm and the depth of the repair it requires 15/?

All this to say, I don't want perpetrators to feel that they can cause harm with the mindset that "oh well, I can just do some transformative justice and make things better." Rather, if they cause harm, know that community will take them to task and it won't be comfortable 16/16