THIS is the one!! So many vindictive freaks out here doing their best to turn anyone who’ll listen against a person they had an interpersonal *CONFLICT* with!!
abolition happens in our relationships, so act the part, and let your values follow until it comes naturally https://twitter.com/sarah_ogun/status/1389313289100873729

@brainworm6 has been pleading for people (including me) to read Conflict is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman for yeaaars,,, & now I am passing this on to the public!!
Reading passages literally changed and healed me so much

Story no one asked for:
in a past conflict, my former closest friend was on a literal mission to isolate me from *All* of our friends(most of whom I introduced her to) just bc *She* had an issue w/ me & knew she couldnt transparently voice it &expect it to be validated by others

Instead, she executed the confrontation from a fake Moral highground and shrouded her issues in political criticisms, which were mostly valid, but did not justify the harshness of the process or how it ended by any means.

Since her campaign to intimidate everyone into taking “Her Side” or face a similar fate of wrath and ostracism succeeded, a dark period of shame and despair that only comes from the abandonment of friends followed for me.

This book helped so much to see how clearly Fucked up & cruel the whole thing was especially since This Conflict, like many others, began under the guise of a political impurity/hypocrisy call-out yet had me spiraling &questioning the entirety of what I thought was my character.

At the time I didnt have abolitionist language to voice my sense of unfairness, but I distinctly remember feeling like my entire personhood was on trial, even after I accepted fault, there was no option to defend myself from actual lies or take a diff approach to the whole thing

Bc the actual goal wasnt to offer criticism and move forward together,,or even apart! The goal was to establish control over me, since I refused to say yes to all charges and accept the precedent of a destructive power dynamic, I was met with utter venom and punished harshly.

TLDR: many who grasp the principles of abolition may not practice it when most crucial & may even use a shoddy political backing to cloak their thinly veiled spitefulness towards ppl they dislike for irrelevant reasons or their need to have docile subjects rather than friends!!

Im not saying I handled the situation well or that ppl criting us hide secret malice! But that
1.There are better ways to navigate conflict that dont reproduce carcerality&
2.Our handling of conflict must b distinct from our handling of Abuse (by other ppl &by the State,see book)

Conflicts are hard, but essential ongoing learning experiences for us
They unearth parts of u &ur relationships u may not recognize or know how 2 react to,,
but we must do our best to stifle the urge to inflict wrath &cruelty
& we HAVE TO for a viable future w/o police & prisons