Sarah Colomé , IL, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent
Throughout the past several years of working to combat rape culture, I have noticed a disturbing trend. I often find that in our work, we make strong calls for solidarity that may not be equally, if at all, reciprocated. We often forget that violence against our children is a reproductive justice issue. We forget that our oppressions are intertwined. Sometimes we don’t show up as often as we should.
The wake of the tragic death of Michael Brown, fueled by the recent finding that every 28 hours a black person is killed by a security officer, highlights the lived reality of fear and dehumanization experienced by many people of color. Have we, as a community, engaged with this historic issue of police misconduct and brutality? Are we examining our own prejudices and acknowledging when we ourselves, racially profile others? Are we collaborating with other community organizations focused on racial justice and police violence to transform our society into a safer place for all to exist? Have we actively framed this as a reproductive justice issue?
Dani McClain outlines this disconnect between movements in The Nation explaining, “the killing of Michael Brown, like the killing of many young black people before him, is rarely framed as a feminist issue or as an issue of pressing importance to those who advocate for choice, self-determination and dignity as they relate to family life.”
To create change in the manner in which female identified persons can walk through the world with more ease and less threat of violence, we must recognize that others face similar fears about violence because of their identity. After all, the same structures and systems that functionally condone, and perpetuate the degradation of female identified and queer presenting or identified persons, also actively propagate the dehumanization of people of color, and yes, all oppressed people.
Doing “the work” can manifest itself in a multitude of ways:
* Explore with your staff why some individuals feel they should not, or could not, go to police officers to safely report street harassment.Consider screening a film like this one from Found Voices, and asking a partner organization to come debrief and collaborate.
* Offer community-wide trainings on how to report abusing policing in your area. For example, report here for New York, here for Chicago, or here for Los Angeles.
* Organize a staff outing where you attend a local rally or teach-in, or write letters to legislators, in support of racial justice.Support movements for Marissa Alexander, university teach-ins on Ferguson, or local measures for police accountability.
* Consider offering your employees and volunteers “cop watch” trainings. Organizations including Cop Watch NYC, CAAAW,Berkeley Copwatch,We Cop Watch, and We Charge Genocide all offer these trainings.
Challenge your organization, and the community as a whole, to refrain from segregating ourselves and our work, claiming “that’s not what we do.”
* Continually doing our work, without recognizing how oppression interacts among us both uniquely and interconnectedly, destabilizes the very foundation that is essential to create tangible, sustainable change. Addressing gender-based harassment and violence without acknowledging that others are equally harassed and violated based on their visible identities, whether actual or assumed, does nothing to create relationships for future bystander interventions.
This is not to suggest that there are not phenomenal groups doing intersectional work and capacity building across movements. This does not negate that there are a multitude of struggles and experiences of oppression that are lived out daily, needing our support, intervention, and attention. Nor does my assertion forgo the difficult realities of the nonprofit industrial complex, and the structures that often make our desire to collaborate difficult.
But I ask you all this: Are we showing up for those who are targeted for harassment based upon their perceived race? If not, we must ask ourselves why and how we may in some instances, be perpetuating the very experiences of violation that we are aiming to prevent.
It should never be acceptable to ask for support from our community when we do not show up for those same people as they engage with their own struggle. Recognize the privileges we hold in various spaces. We know that male presenting individuals hold privilege in this world that female presenting people do not. This status as a target group however, does not negate other instance of privilege that we may hold. We must hold ourselves accountable to recognize our complicated, multifaceted identities, and how in some situations, the power of our privilege may outweigh the disadvantages of our target group status.
Ask yourself:
* Are we showing up at rallies, marches, or protests addressing police brutality, misconduct, or profiling?
* If not physically, or otherwise able to attend, are we engaging these topics on social media, or relating them intersectionally in our own work?
* Are we incorporating the voices of other marginalized groups in our work against rape culture and street harassment?
* Do we make sure to recognize that for many, police are not a safe option for reporting or “protection?”
* Are we engaging in self-assessment and reflection on how our own actions may perpetuate, or result in, others’ experiences of street harassment?
Bystander intervention does not exist solely in acting when someone is being cat called, followed or bombarded with sexualized comments. Bystander intervention exists in acknowledging and challenging ANY instance of oppression, no matter the movement that the target group may align with.
This note is a call to action, out of love, to the community I fight alongside with passion and commitment. We are at a crucial time for a multitude of resilient movements, both nationally and internationally. We must stand alongside one another. I challenge us all to interrogate our own perceptions of others, as we call one another to accountability for our actions.
Sarah is a progress-focused educator and advocate dedicated to building strategic coalitions centered on creating social change who serves as an adjunct professor in DePaul University’s Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies department. You can follow her updates on Linkedin or hear her perspectives on Twitter.
