It has been a difficult few weeks for many survivors, watching the ways that Tara Reade has been treated in the news, and worse, knowing that it’s exactly how survivors are treated in our communities. Survivors are silenced and dismissed, our experiences are minimized, and our safety and wellbeing is sacrificed so that the oppressive systems and structures that enabled the violence against us may remain in place.
Even in radical leftist spaces.
When our movements for liberation replicate the oppressive systems that we seek to dismantle, we must call for accountability. …
You asked me many times: “Why me? Why do you keep coming back?” I told you that I was listening to my body, and my body was hooked. I didn’t know then, but I know now, that when post-traumatic stress disorder is activated, it can feel a lot like being turned on. When the body is convinced danger is present, it won’t stop searching until it locates the source of the threat. Subconsciously, we repeat the events of the past in an attempt to rewrite the scripts of our lives, to master our trauma, to create a new ending.
For…
Leila Raven
queer mama. prison abolitionist. community organizer. reader of Black feminist theory. lover of dance cardio.
