Clouds Of Smoke At The End Of The World

Remember when Lil Nas X beautifully explored his sexuality, seduced and killed the devil to the banger of all time, and instead of cheering on this openly gay and proud Black artist for his artistry and fighting back against respectability politics, suddenly said respectability politics was all the Queerest Place on the Internet cared about? Hm. Wonder what happened there.

This Pride Month, remember to love intersex people and make them feel included in the 2SIALGBTQ+ community!! (I spell the acronym this way since Two Spirit, Intersex, and Asexual and/or Aromantic people are often forgotten or spoken over)

Like, if these people have done the most damage to society, to the safety and dignity of minorities, to the basic decency upon which the world functions, are they willing to stand at the front of the effort to fix that damage?

I am genuinely begging people on this post to realize that our current system CREATES the issues y'all come onto this post to use as proof restorative justice won't work. There are many reasons people resist change, but one very relevant one is that a system where accountability is inherently tied to suffering does not motivate people to put in the effort to change. A deeply hurt person who has developed a lot of very toxic habits, who struggles to imagine a life for themself where they don't rely on those habits to have a sense of identity and safety, may seem like someone who "doesn't want to change." If we assume that is true, then no one tries to help, then there is no reason for that person to believe change is possible or that they could ever be cared for by society given what they've done, so why try?

I am truly fucking begging y'all to talk to like. Any poor white person from the rural US South who realized how evil and systemic white supremacy is, and becomes extremely personally invested in fighting that in their community. This is not some abstract hypothetical. & there are MANY people who would very much be willing to change, if change actually seems feasible. If you see yourself as unforgivable, because everyone around you seems to see you as unforgivable, is it not easier to just dig your heels in?

We NEED!!!!!!! people to be willing to come over to our side and that simply will not fucking happen if your every reaction to "we need to have a process that allows people to make amends and which incentives meaningful change" is "ohhhhhh but that's hard tho :("

having a process for people who have done morally horrific things to make amends, rejoin community, and do right going forward is actually fundamentally crucial for the left

Then, when me and @magicrainbowkitties rightfully pointed out that people who do the worst things have to both accept that they've done those worst things and also that to make amends they'll have to accept the greatest amount of risk in making things right.

You then promptly shifted entirely to

Any poor white person from the rural US South who realized how evil and systemic white supremacy is

That is literally what this post is saying we need to have a process for. What exactly are you caveating here????????????

I'm not moving any goalposts. I didn't say "someone who said slurs a couple of times." In the notes of this post, I have elaborated on how this post was prompted by reading about a woman who worked as a fucking drone operator for the US military. I have also responded to people talking about child rapists.

I am really frustrated and annoyed by your "caveats" because they make no sense. I do not fucking understand what you people think I am saying with this post. Like, genuinely, what the fuck did you think I meant by this section:

I say a system and process because its not "oh the drone operator said they were sorry and felt bad so its all good now :)" there is no shortcut here. but it is absolutely necessary. no revolution is comprised of morally pure people. in many cases, the most devoted revolutionaries are the ones who know exactly what it is like on the other side.

Did you think I was just fucking around and smashing random keys when I wrote this? By "process" and "there is no shortcut" I meant "people who did the worst things don't need to accept they've done anything bad and don't need to accept that making amends means accepting a great amount of risk"? Is that what you think I meant?

Its not just y'all. Other people keep coming on this post and adding "caveats" because, as far as I can tell, y'all cannot see a person talking about restorative justice without immediately assuming that they don't understand that bad things require actual effort to amend. The point of this post is that it is necessary to have systems for people to make amends, that actually facilitate and incentivize people to do that hard work, rather than providing zero support or clear pathways to actually go about doing that.

My original post is about the need for a formal, explicit process that facilitates people making amends. These caveats seem, to me, to suggest that people want those who have contributed to harm to make amends, but then get defensive at the suggestion that communities need to put effort into actually allowing that change to happen, making it clear how it needs to happen, and having that change actually matter, rather than simply talking about it in the abstract but doing nothing to facilitate it.

I will never disagree that people need to actually make amends and take on responsibility. I am saying that we need to make it clear what we expect from people and actually let that change matter and reintegrate them into our communities. What is best for victims is what actually works to prevent harm, not just in the moment but on a systemic level. If we want people to change, we have to actually make change possible, we have to make the mechanisms for change explicit and accessible, and make it actually matter.

We can talk all day long about how people need to take responsibility and it needs to actually matter and they need to be willing to take risks etc etc, but we do at some point actually need to grapple with what that means. If someone does harm, we need to be able to actually say "okay, this is what the process for taking accountability looks like," and then we need to live with the fact that the end point of this process is that person is still a part of our community. I see a lot of people talking about wanting folks to take accountability, but then also don't seem to want to discuss what that would actually practically mean, don't want to imagine being in a community with people who have done harm, don't want to imagine what social changes would need to occur for this process to be as productive as it could be. And then you end up with this fixation on people who don't want to change, itself a product of a system which does not incentivize meaningful change, used as a cudgel against any discussion about how to incentivize meaningful change.

I understand why people immediately go to "but will they actually take accountability? but will I be expected to personally make a person who harmed me a better person?" but there is a reason I distinguished between social vs interpersonal forgiveness and emphasized this being a process with no shortcuts. Trauma causes an aversion to nuance, because nuance is discomfort and vulnerability and risk, and that's all entirely understandable. But we can't just sit here in our trauma responses forever and talk about how much we want a better world while also being viscerally uncomfortable with what getting to that better world actually involves.

Once again: Yes, it will be hard, and complicated, and cause a lot of discomfort for everyone on a lot of levels. It will take a hell of a long time to get where we actually want to be. We will fuck it up a lot along the way. There is still no other choice. If we cannot hold multiple concepts at once and synthesize them productively, then our great-great-grandchildren will be dealing with the same trauma and horrific systems we are right now, because we want the fruits of a better world without doing any of the labor to get there.

This, exactly.