SHOW NOTES:

Learn all about the War On Women song “Say It” - insight on making the video (including how they ensured full consent from everyone appearing in the video), critiques of the song, a short history of WOW’s self-titled album, and more. 

Speaking with Shawna is guest Hannah Brancato, co-founder of the culture-jamming FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, the organization behind The Monument Quilt for survivors of rape and sexual assault, and their allies. They discuss collaborating on the music video, what it was like to see the effects of their activism in real time, and the difficult necessity of living our values.

The official sponsor of this episode is  First Defense Krav Maga out of Herndon, VA.

Episode transcripts, important links, and ways to support Shawna and this podcast can be found at shawnapotter.com. Everything War On Women can be found at linktr.ee/waronwomen. For bonus episodes, behind the scenes content, and the chance to make special requests and get shoutouts on air, become a patron at  patreon.com/shawnapotter.

Thanks to Brooks Harlan for chopping up War On Women’s song “Her?” to create the podcast theme song. Main podcast photo: Justin Borucki.

Content Warning: sexual violence, victim-blaming

LINKS/RESOURCES:

To access confidential help, visit https://www.rainn.org or call 800-656-HOPE (4673)

Sexual Assault Awareness Month: https://www.nsvrc.org/saam

https://www.hannahbrancato.com/

Monument quilt: https://themonumentquilt.org/archiving-the-monument-quilt/

Force: https://upsettingrapeculture.com/

Fake victoria’s secret campaign: https://upsettingrapeculture.com/pastprojects/pinklovesconsent/

Inheritance of white silence: https://www.hannahbrancato.com/inheritance

“Say It” music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4KjM2zEj1w

The work of artist & videographer, Danielle Damico: http://www.daniellecdamico.com/

Mariame Kaba: http://mariamekaba.com/

adrienne maree brown: https://adriennemareebrown.net/

Decolonizing non violent communication: https://co-conspirator.press/Decolonizing-Non-Violent-Communication

But Her Lyrics (ep 12) with Ian Danskin https://anchor.fm/dashboard/episode/e16v0nk

But Her Lyrics (ep 8) with Brittany Oliver https://anchor.fm/shawnapotter/episodes/Seeds---008-e146nr3

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

{intro music}

Shawna Potter: Welcome to But Her Lyrics...the show where we delve into the meaning and politics behind the songs of War On Women and other artists you love. I’m Shawna Potter, singer and lyricist for War On Women - and your host. HUGE TRIGGER WARNING! April is sexual assault awareness month and on this episode we’re breaking down “Say It,” WOW’s anti-victim-blaming manifesto. Just so you know, this episode is sponsored by First Defense Krav Maga, hello to Nick and the whole team there. Also a huge shoutout to Recruit Melissa P. for her support on my patreon!

Coming up I’ll be interviewing Hannah Brancato, an artist, educator, and fellow activist; she’s the co-founder of FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, the organization behind the Monument Quilt, an amazing project for survivors and their allies, which we’ll get into. On top of all that she was around when we filmed the music video for Say It, so keep listening to hear us talk about the local activism at the time, the concerns we had while creating the video and what we did to address them, and how to deal with internal conflict when we’re all working towards the same goals. But let’s get into this song!

“Say It” is on the self-titled WOW album, commonly referred to internally as “baby factory”. Released Feb 2015 on B9 records, our first recording with them and our first full length. In the previous episode of But Her Lyrics.. You can hear me dig in on, “Second Wave Goodbye”, another song from the same album. I didn’t give much of a backstory on the album in the last episode, so I’d like to do that now. Brooks Harlan and Nancy Hornburg played guitar, Evan Tanner on drums, and bass duties were split between Rusty Haynie, Sue Werner, and Brooks! Sue has been with us so long most people think she’s the original bass player, but no - Rusty was our first bass player, he plays on the Improvised Weapons ep, out on Exotic Fever Records, and he played on the demos of new songs we recorded. We shopped them around, waited for what seemed like forever, got a lot of “No’s”, resigned ourselves to maybe just self-releasing another EP, when we finally heard from Chris at B9 that he wanted to sign us. By the time everything got finalized and we got a few thousand bucks to turn these demos into a full length, we had a new bass player named Sue. To save money, we kept as much of the original demos as possible, cleaning stuff up where we could, and adding Sue’s vocals to me and Nancy’s. 

When I think about writing this song, the word inspiration, you know, what inspired it, doesn’t seem right. The word that comes to mind is immersion. I was fully immersed in the world of anti-gender-based-violence activism; this is before #metoo broke big, before street harassment became widely accepted as bad. I was reading everything I could get my hands on, I was organizing events, I was tabling, I was speaking at other’s events, I was taking trainings, I was giving trainings, I thought about the fight against gender based violence every second of every day. And went to work. And had a band. So this song just came out of me. It’s also not the most complicated song in the world, I mean, both verses are the same. But that’s because at the time I felt they were important enough to say twice. 

The verses prop up the chorus. They’re a challenge. Hey Dad, hey stand-in fictitious dad, you might say things like ‘it's never ok to hit a woman’ or support me, your little girl, in all she does, but if I came to you and told you what I’d been through, told you the details, what I was wearing, who I was with [lyric reference] could you stomach it. If this dad can’t stand to hear what his daughter is trying to tell him, how can he support her? How could she not feel abandoned when she needs him the most? At the time the “believe victims'” idea was being pushed pretty hard, getting more widely accepted, and I thought yeah, that’s their part, they need to believe us enough to help us when we tell them, but we have to tell them. And that’s scary. For one person, to feel so alone after a traumatic event, and be told “ok, tell everyone or you won’t get any help. Tell friends, family, nurses, police'' - yikes. So I thought, what if there was a way for someone to get used to saying it out loud. To practice saying “I was raped” in an environment where you wouldn’t owe anyone an explanation, you wouldn’t be second guessed, bc the spot light is not on you? What if a small punk band put on a show and yelled at the top of their lungs, so that everyone in the audience could sing along and no one had to know who meant it for real. And, what if everyone else listening got used to hearing it so their shock wouldn’t get in the way when they were needed for support. And what if all victims and survivors yelled “I was raped” at the same time? Then there’d be no way this problem could be ignored anymore.

Alright, it’s time to talk to Hannah about her project the Monument Quilt which we featured heavily in the music video, and everything that led up to filming it. I checked my old emails before recording because I was curious: our album came out in early 2015, and it looks like we started talking about it in Jan of 2015, a Craigslist ad asking for participants was posted Feb 10th, the same day the album came out, shot March 28th & pickup shots on April 25th, went live Oct 29th 2015, Shot by Danielle Damico, edited by our very own Brooks Harlan.

[interview time]

[interview - please ignore all time codes and get in touch about any errors]

spotter

Hannah Brancato thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. Please introduce yourself to everyone.

Hannah Brancato

Yeah, thanks so much for having me shawna. It's great to see you? Um, yeah, my name is Hannah brancato and my front ends are shanur and I'm the co-founder of force upsetting rape culture which is the organization behind the monument quilt which we'll be talking about today.

00:20.58

spotter

I know.

00:37.11

Hannah Brancato

Was part of the collective from 2010 to 2020 so currently I'm a artist and educator and continuing my work in new ways focusing on like telling stories of activists and doing some work today about whiteness and. Racial trauma and things like this and still working on the monument quilt even though the project's over in terms of um, archiving the project which I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit later today.

01:00.65

spotter

Um, for sure. Yeah I wanted you on not only to talk about all the work you've done which we will get into but because you were there for the planning of the music video for say it which I think is such a huge part of the song and its impact. Um, my notes say that it was January Twenty Fifteen when we started talking about filming this video in the monument quilt warehouse. So why don't you tell us about the monument quilt and why did you have such a giant building to house a quilt that warehouse was huge and like cavernous.

01:36.85

Hannah Brancato

It was I actually wish that we could have stayed in that space the whole time. The monument quilt was in existence but the monument quote started in 2013 and it was um. Ah, collection of stories from survivors of sexual and intimate partner violence on quilt squares and the reason that we had such a huge warehouse is that you know each person's story was four feet by four feet and then they were sewn together into these eight foot blocks which we were collecting. And in the end we ended up collecting about 3000 stories that you know would come together in public spaces and occupy and take up public space for healing. So um, yeah, so we had that giant warehouse where volunteers were coming and helping us sew them together and um, you know.

02:11.63

spotter

Wow.

02:27.20

Hannah Brancato

Becoming part of the project doing workshops where they made their own quilts. We also um around the time of the video we were starting to do more events like we were starting to host events and like be a community space for gathering around. Um.

02:35.26

spotter

Ah.

02:43.16

Hannah Brancato

Sexual violence and around the organizing and activism that people were doing beyond the monument quilt project. So yeah, that that was a really like pivotal and interesting time we ended up being in that space for like about another year after that and then we moved into a different studio space. A couple blocks away not too far away. But.

03:03.44

spotter

And so how long did that you say you're still working on it. But how long did that project last.

03:08.35

Hannah Brancato

So we were gathering force the collective and the members of the collective changed over time. So that's who I mean when I say we that we were collecting quilt squares from 2013 to 2019 and

03:15.88

spotter

Yeah.

03:24.99

Hannah Brancato

And the quilt was displayed the quit when I say the quilt I mean the you know, um, hundreds of quilt blocks made by you know, survivors and allies around the country. We displayed them 50 times in the Us and Mexico in in those years and the project kind of came to a close on the national mall in. May to June of 2019.

03:46.46

spotter

And I remember that I couldn't go because we were on tour and I was so bummed about that I even made a quilt square to be part of the project I was sewing it I remember sewing it in the tour van and I got it to you guys and then I couldn't see it.

04:03.87

Hannah Brancato

Ah, it was a beautiful. Yeah.

04:06.41

spotter

Displayed. Um, so that's a bummer but I'm still very happy that we were involved in and a couple different ways. Um I'm just kind of curious What kind of what were like the categories of stories that you would say were most common in the quilts O Missionss did you see the same kinds of themes coming up.

04:23.95

Hannah Brancato

Yeah I feel like that's an interesting question because I would say that maybe the themes changed a bit over time. You know if you think about like the duration of the project starting in 2013 and ending in 2019 you know it was part of the building up.

04:24.61

spotter

Over and over.

04:29.76

spotter

Ah.

04:41.14

Hannah Brancato

Of the me too movement in terms of um, yeah.

04:41.43

spotter

Right? you and I were activists witnessing our work actually ah have an impact you know to see this these big cultural shifts and like what a strange thing for us to live through. You know.

04:49.20

Hannah Brancato

It? yeah.

04:56.49

Hannah Brancato

Exactly like when we you know I'm sure that you have this experience too with the street harassment work that you were doing is that at first people were like is it really necessary and that you know and then you know and then there's kind of this like slow build where people are.

04:59.54

spotter

Ah, yeah, um.

05:05.37

spotter

Um, oh hundred percent but

05:14.25

Hannah Brancato

Starting to feel that there's a space for our stories to be heard and to be witness and to be believed without that question being asked or maybe with some like buffer or protection when that question is asked like I think by having a project and organizing space for survivors. We kind of like provided that.

05:21.39

spotter

Yes, yes.

05:33.39

Hannah Brancato

Kind of safer space within which we could like be public but also like be able to rely on each other and depend on each other um and then yeah and then I think like when the metoo movement happened everyone was like yeah of course this is the thing um which like and you know I don't know that that level of urgency or passion.

05:39.00

spotter

Oh that's lovely.

05:53.21

Hannah Brancato

Necessarily like sticks. But I do think that there's a different awareness about how prevalent sexual and intimate partner balance is and like I don't think there's any illusion anymore that this is a problem that we've solved like I think that in general people understand that they probably know somebody who's a survivor.

06:04.20

spotter

Right.

06:10.67

Hannah Brancato

And or have had the experience of like naming their own stories which you know so I would say that that is a theme that came up in the early days of the monument quilt that people would sometimes read other people's stories and it would help them put words to their own experiences which they hadn't been clear about before.

06:26.42

spotter

Um.

06:28.43

Hannah Brancato

Um, including myself that was definitely my experience multiple times even as an organizer in the project. There's something about putting language and like putting language to traumatic experiences. Um and especially to ah to experiences that we don't often talk about in public right.

06:32.79

spotter

Who.

06:46.22

spotter

Right? I think that kind of ties into the song itself me telling people to just just say it just say it. It's okay, just say it you were raped Wow No no, no of course.

06:48.70

Hannah Brancato

Um, So I think yeah I think so too. Yeah, Absolutely yeah and I mean not that it's easy right? But um, yeah, but but yeah, and then I think we really also made an effort to Uplift. Um. People's identities within their stories because there's definitely a perfect victim Narrative. There's a whitewashing that can happen about what it means to be a survivor of sexual violence and so it was important to us to uplift stories of Lgpdq folks of Trans folks of.

07:10.72

spotter

Ah.

07:24.29

Hannah Brancato

You know, black women, indigenous folks because they're experiencing higher rates of violence and because those stories can often get erased in like mainstream media narratives and so um, you know when when you move from Story sharing and culture change to policy change. That really matters because if you're only focusing on white Cis women then that's going to affect what kind of policies you work for and that's what we saw in the domestic violence movement so we were always aware of that history and like wanting to be a part of making sure we're talking about how is um. Criminalization of survivors of black women who are survivors a part of the narrative and therefore the carcer system isn't reliable as a way of getting accountability or justice right? Um, you know? Yeah, How is tribal sovereignty wrapped up with um.

08:06.53

spotter

Long.

08:14.70

spotter

Right. Um.

08:21.42

Hannah Brancato

Native survivors not getting justice So these are stories that we really tried to like emphasize and then also and this this is related to some of the organizing we did with you for the video but also wanting to make sure that men who are survivors had space to share their stories because often that's another one that gets kind of glossed over.

08:39.32

spotter

Um, yeah, yeah, now why the fuck did you let some punk band take over your space for a few days. Ah no, did you have any reservations about collaborating like or excuse me.

08:41.30

Hannah Brancato

In public conversation about sexual violence.

08:58.14

spotter

Did you have any reservations about collaborating or like did you check the lyrics to make sure I wasn't going to embarrass you all like what were your concerns or was this like yeah cool I know you go ahead? whatever.

09:07.28

Hannah Brancato

I Mean yeah I mean I think there was a level of like we had collaborated before on other things and organized together before I Also think that you know what you're doing as a musician is completely in line with like my belief and forces belief about like how important culture changes in any social Justice work.

09:22.90

spotter

Boom.

09:27.40

Hannah Brancato

So it's not just that you know we have to be like over here like lobbying or being all intellectual like I can get sorry to your podcast listeners like I know I can get to this kind of like academic level but we also have to like just be having these conversations. Through the music that we're taking in through the art that we see pop culture like Tv movies like it's got to be everywhere so I was like in full support of you know, having a message about like survivors sharing their story through through music and also you know yeah like.

09:45.31

spotter

Yeah.

10:02.78

Hannah Brancato

That's that's what punk should be That's like what counterculture should be about you know.

10:04.81

spotter

Yeah I would say force was pretty fucking punk. You know the way that force got started with all the culture jamming the Victoria's secret thing I'll I'll put some links in the show description episode description. So that people know what we're talking about. But yeah force has a long history of.

10:20.60

Hannah Brancato

Yeah, yeah, and you know I think the monument quote like the monument quilt got like really big and like it became it. It's what made force into like this nonprofit and this like official organization. But yeah, the work we were doing before that was.

10:24.78

spotter

Being pretty punk in my opinion.

10:33.34

spotter

Oh.

10:38.91

Hannah Brancato

More scrappy and like a couple of us at a kitchen table. You know, figuring out what we could do with the skills that we had and like um, yeah so I think that there was like a different energy in some of those early projects for sure.

10:40.80

spotter

Yeah, yeah.

10:50.18

spotter

Yeah, now 1 thing that was really important to me when working on this music video. Um is I wanted to make sure that if we were asking people to participate that. Ah, that our ask was as appropriate as possible that they were informed. Um and then everybody knew what was going on. Um, and um, you know and so I knew that there were obviously people out there who were survivors of sexual assault and rape. But I didn't want to trick anyone. Be in a punnk rock music video so I worked with you all to to craft a Craigslist ad and just make sure that it was you know thorough and that we were you know, checking all the boxes crossing all the t's so do you remember anything about those conversations at all. Ah. Any concerns anything that we wanted to make sure that we accomplished.

11:48.15

Hannah Brancato

Yeah, for sure. Um, so I want to mention Shanti Flagg here because she at the time was the studio manager and then became the studio director and is still one of the 2 remaining collective members. Um, she and Maura Fernandez who are working on archiving the monument quilt I'm kind of in a support role helping them out. But yeah, so Shanti was um, just getting started around that time as the studio director and you shared like Draft Language we definitely knew we wanted to as I mentioned earlier wanted to make sure that there was.

12:05.59

spotter

Moon.

12:23.80

Hannah Brancato

Representation of um of lgbt hu folks black folks like non-binary gender nonconforming folks and that and and men as survivors and that was kind of all listed together and Shante pointed out like hey.

12:32.67

spotter

Um, yeah.

12:40.33

Hannah Brancato

It's important I like I hear you about like the importance of um also including men in this list but it's not the same like it's important to kind of separate it out because the rates are so high for you know, black women and Trans people and for men it is an ignored story. But.

12:50.49

spotter

Yeah.

12:59.80

Hannah Brancato

Rates aren't as high right? So She didn't want there to be like an erasure of the differences between those experiences and the call and so yeah, that was like a kind of an email conversation. The kind of conversation that you know we were having all the time like how do we. You know like we're we're doing all this big stuff and trying to like get the word out and media attention and everything and then like how do you also put great care into like every decision that you make and the language because all of it really does matter and even just the difference of like starting a new sentence to invite men who are survivors.

13:24.27

spotter

Um, yeah, yeah.

13:34.57

spotter

Right? It's such a small change but it but it makes a difference and it and it and is more accurate and I yeah I happily took that note it was like oh yeah, of course obviously and because I I get it I totally get it I just was like I'm you know not a writer so that's.

13:35.66

Hannah Brancato

You know to be part of this.

13:53.62

spotter

Um, all in there. Um, but I really do appreciate that I had you all not only your support to make the video in your space by just you donating the time in the space itself but that you were involved and wanted to make sure that if if this was a collaboration that it represented everyone. And our goals. Um accurately and as um with the biggest impact possible So I was really really happy that you guys were around. Ah.

14:14.41

Hannah Brancato

Yeah.

14:22.51

Hannah Brancato

Yeah, no for sure and yeah, just talking about like the free space I should mention too that like so we were in this big space that was formerly the station or thrift store. Anybody in Baltimore now would know it as open work. So it was we were in the space in between when it was about to be renovated.

14:34.12

spotter

Little.

14:40.00

Hannah Brancato

Um, and so that space was gifted to force for free during that time. It was very raw and like we felt like we yeah yeah, exactly and like because we had that space for free. Um, yeah, we felt a responsibility for it to.

14:44.23

spotter

That's right I mean you can see in the video. It's just concrete back there.

14:57.30

Hannah Brancato

Be able to be used by our community including you I remember like around that time brittanney oliver also hosted like a roundtable discussion about black women in street harassment in this space like we were starting to do quilt making workshops that were focused on particular organizing and issues January Twenty Fifteen I believe is when.

15:02.36

spotter

Um, yes.

15:16.89

Hannah Brancato

We brought the monument quilt to Jacksonville Florida for Marissa Alexander's final sentencing hearing. She is a black woman that faced prison time for self-defense. And well for firing a warning shot that that harmed no one she and she's currently like an at advocate and like touring around and speaking about her story. She actually spoke at the final monument quilt display which is amazing. But um, yeah, we had like a organizing. We had a quilt making workshop. During that same month where people came to make quilt squares to support marisll alexander. So yeah that I think that like that video being filmed was part of like a bigger effort for force of just opening this space up and like being a resource for our community as we were starting to build some traction and power and move like I said from.

15:55.63

spotter

Moon.

16:05.73

Hannah Brancato

Seeing ourselves as being like a couple scrappy people with no resources to being people that were being given resources and therefore had a responsibility to like try to share those resources with other folks that are trying to do the same work. You know.

16:13.17

spotter

Um, yeah, oh I'm so glad we didn't just barge our way in I'm glad that it was a fond thing for you sorry one second. Ah sorry um I pulled my headphones out I don't know what you said.

16:23.70

Hannah Brancato

Yeah, yeah, definitely good memories for sure. Oh no I said um I said good memories for sure. You know I'm glad that I think that? yeah again I think it's evidence of like that time and 15 um that we were not alone which was like the mantra of the monument quilt but that.

16:36.40

spotter

I'm good.

16:44.67

spotter

Um.

16:48.82

Hannah Brancato

There were people like you like tackling the same thing from a different angle and that's what builds power. You know that's what that's what social change is about. So yeah.

16:54.36

spotter

Yeah, fuck. Yeah yeah, um, now I sent you the lyrics to the song just as a reminder because I'm even I understand that you're not listening to the song over and over every day your entire life. Um. Do any of the lyrics stand out to you. Do you have? um like we're talking about that change right? between like back then and like now the culture has shifted a little bit like do you have a different perspective on them with hindsight.

17:24.43

Hannah Brancato

Yeah, for sure. Well again I think it I think it's really a sign of the times because ah the lyrics are about victim Blaming. You know they're about like questioning people for what they wore instead of asking about the abuser and while I have no illusion that that never happens. Um I I Do think that even the term victim blaming is something that at least people maybe like the general public is aware of now. Um and they might and they might still do that shit. They might still do it. But.

17:52.27

spotter

Oh everybody knows definitely everybody on Twitter.

18:00.82

Hannah Brancato

At at least maybe there's somebody in their fear that's going to check them on it. You know what? I mean so yeah, like I like what I love about the lyrics is that you're not just saying like victim blaming and it's all on Joshua. It's like you're saying like are you going to ask what I'm wearing like what if like does my age matter what if I'm you know 30 or 12 Um, and yeah I mean that's.

18:03.40

spotter

Yeah.

18:19.59

Hannah Brancato

That's like the actual experience of what happens right? Um is that yeah we can say victim blaming all day. But what does that actually feel like and look like when it's happening and it looks like people questioning you for the decisions you made instead of focusing on like who did this.

18:20.15

spotter

Um, yeah.

18:28.40

spotter

Mm.

18:32.50

spotter

Yeah, on focusing on what what someone else did to you? Yeah um, now that you have some distance from the monument quilt um sort of I know you're still involved a little bit but do you? What do you think about when you look back on that that period of time.

18:35.83

Hannah Brancato

Yeah.

18:52.49

spotter

Where you were where this it seemed like this was all you were doing and and my opinion as someone else in Baltimore it's just you guys were so active and and and I just can't imagine like like how do you feel now that some time has passed.

18:55.75

Hannah Brancato

It was yeah.

19:08.67

Hannah Brancato

Well, you know there's been different stages. It's been a tricky time to for me to leave force because I left in my like last day as part of the force collective was January of 2020 and then the pandemic hit so you know great timing. Um, but but yeah I think I mean if anything maybe that gave me more time to reflect I think like the and the immediate aftermath of the monument quilt was just like burnout central for everybody to be honest and I don't think that activists talk about that enough but that's a real part of activism. Um, yeah, we.

19:28.71

spotter

Ay ay.

19:37.47

spotter

Um, yeah, yeah, um.

19:46.71

Hannah Brancato

I think that like over the time of force between 2015 and 2017 as 4 started to build power our leadership team and Shanti and other people on our staff were really like hey we need to actually be accountable to our values like if we're saying that we're against rape culture. And white supremacy and like all of these intersections of sexual violence like how are we doing our work every day. How are we making decisions about money. You know, let's get real about like the way that we're um, the way that we're practicing this stuff like in our workplace not just in like the media that we're creating for other people to look at.

20:10.42

spotter

Oh.

20:20.55

spotter

Um, it's hard.

20:23.66

Hannah Brancato

Um, and so we did that really hard work of like becoming a collective and and changing the processes of like how decisions were made and it was really slow and like it was really hard at times and it meant like constant accountability like self accountability for all of us involved.

20:37.70

spotter

Um, yeah.

20:41.82

Hannah Brancato

Especially me as a co-founder and as a white person but like for everybody really and yeah and just like really holding ourselves to like a high standard and then so doing that work is slow like that kind of work is really slow which is part of why the monument quilt. Like we originally thought it was gonna be a couple year long project and it ended up being a 6 year long project and part of the reason for that is because of that slow work of you know, trying to be a collective and um, yeah, trying to trying to resist like nonprofit industrial complex ways of doing things right? Um, and then yeah and then like the.

21:00.81

spotter

Um.

21:12.90

spotter

Yeah.

21:18.37

Hannah Brancato

But like to pull off the monument quilt. We kind of had to go back into this like production mode which is all of that white supremacy culture crap urgency comes up and you know scarcity of resources and everything like that. So it was There was a lot of tension. You know for me like there I was kind of trying to hold both truths like.

21:22.30

spotter

Um, yeah, yes.

21:35.95

Hannah Brancato

At the same time. How do how are we actually going to pull this thing off on the mall and you know and also resist all of that bullshit. That's like in the world every day and not replicate harm so it is it. It is not easy and I think like.

21:37.42

spotter

Right? It's yeah yeah I feel you.

21:51.39

Hannah Brancato

You know I just want to talk about the complexities of it I guess like when I reflect on it I Want to talk about those complexities and be open about it because I don't think anybody's doing favors by um, only focusing on the successes. You know like we can only learn from each other if we talk about the messy parts too. So.

22:03.24

spotter

Um, yeah, you know that that makes me think so I've I've spoken to Emily may from hollaback on the big words episode of the podcast. We talked about this idea that when we're doing the work right. Um, we sometimes we disagree and and that's fine. That's normal conflict is normal but the stakes can just feel higher because we care so much about the work or we're like directly affected by the thing that we're working to fight. Um. And I want to say like how did you? How did force deal with those moments. It sounds like you just had a slow methodical process to like work through it. Um in a collective way. You know where everyone was fully accountable. Everyone's on board and if you're not, you don't do it um. But correct me if I'm wrong like was there some other way that dealt with it or just how like how did you deal with it personally because you're right like I I too surprise was raised white um and white culture and totally feel that like sense of urgency and scar save resources and like. Well, ah, someone's got to be in charge I'm just going to get shit done. You know and and have to fight that sometimes.

23:22.44

Hannah Brancato

Yeah, for sure I mean I I think in particular the um, the way that a friend and colleague v vu that I'm working with now that they do work around domestic violence in Dc has put it to me as this question of how has. Your past trauma maybe prevented you from taking accountability for the ways that you're manifesting dominant culture and that again I know I go there with that academic language but that's a good question if you can like unpack it maybe like that's it. It's a really good question and I would say as a white woman in particular doing antisexual violence work. It's in.

23:41.55

spotter

Oh yeah. Yes.

24:00.13

Hannah Brancato

It's ah that's a question that like really has guided me over the past few years I don't think that we were perfect and how we don't I mean we we were we were like I said the point is that we were messy and how we dealt with conflict and disagreement and that's why we had to like take several steps back and like figure out how to have some processes around.

24:16.84

spotter

Yeah.

24:19.18

Hannah Brancato

Um, what accountability is I think when it comes down to it. My takeaway is you know folks were like you need to before you start with your work. You need to know what the accountability processes are you need to know what the system is going to be and we kind of were like building the ship as we went instead of setting that kind of stuff up before we started our work. You know.

24:34.65

spotter

You weren't alone there. Everybody was doing that. Yeah.

24:39.30

Hannah Brancato

Yeah, and maybe that's just the way that it always is but I I Just think that that set us up for a lot of heartache and pain and you know if we had had some of those systems in place earlier. Maybe we could have leaned back on them and had had them to turn to but um. Yeah, and then ultimately too I think it's like for me like when when when when I was called out for Stuff. You know like when people like brought questions to me about like you know who are we taking money from why are we taking money from this person or organization or maybe we shouldn't take a ah.

25:03.90

spotter

Um.

25:18.27

Hannah Brancato

Corporate sponsorship from this company. Um I just learned the hard way. Yeah I Just like learned the hard way to like not be defensive and to like take a breath and maybe take a day you know and like check myself in terms of how I'm.

25:18.41

spotter

Um, ooh that's tough that's tough.

25:30.77

spotter

Um, yeah, yeah.

25:35.26

Hannah Brancato

Needing to respond right? because it that but I mean especially the money stuff brings up two things. It's like well like we also want to pay better than a living wage like we want to pay each other fairly for our work and like um, you know be like really generous with the resources but we can only do that if we actually have money right.

25:52.75

spotter

Yeah.

25:54.96

Hannah Brancato

Um, so I would just kind of I could I could get myself into that. Um and like part of what I learned is that maybe some people are better at fundraising than me in terms of like mentally being able you know to not internalize that stuff I mean I was good at bringing money in. But.

26:09.61

spotter

Yeah.

26:13.89

Hannah Brancato

I Think man. Yeah I think that like it was always very emotionally difficult. So um, so yeah I don't know that doesn't really answer your question directly about like how did we deal with conflict. But there's not really a handbook about it. You know.

26:18.64

spotter

Um, yeah. No, but that's good advice though. Yeah.

26:28.47

Hannah Brancato

I mean I'll say too like I'm reading like all the books now like I love adrienne maree brown and all of the work that she's done around like activism and how do we do the work you know I've learned so much from marym kaba like thinking about abolition and like how does that show up in like the day-to-day of the work that we do, um.

26:31.83

spotter

Yeah.

26:44.76

spotter

Hmm.

26:45.65

Hannah Brancato

I've been reading through a workbook called decolonizing nonviolent communication which is based on the nonviolent communication book but like looking at the ways that the original book was like maybe had some white culture in it and how can we like break that down but like still use some of the tools. Um, so. I would say like now a lot of what I'm doing is about trying like trying to give my students and people that I'm working with space to set up those protocols and like lay out those values for themselves to maybe um, prevent them from some of those you know. Prevent that like it's not, you're it's always going to be painful I'll say that but like to to make to make there be like maybe a little more ease or space to learn from each other first I'm in like the classroom that I'm in right now is um I'm teaching a class called art and resistance today at Towson University so

27:23.83

spotter

Yeah.

27:29.53

spotter

Um, yeah.

27:35.70

spotter

Awesome.

27:39.91

Hannah Brancato

Yeah, we'll be talking about some of this stuff today. Yeah, oh yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah no I should maybe I will do that.

27:40.25

spotter

Cool show our music video get us some new fans just kidding I'm just kidding. No yeah, get us 5 more streams because I need point Zero zero zero zero zero zero five more cents ah

27:54.79

Hannah Brancato

Ah, well I just played it again. So.

27:56.87

spotter

Ah, okay, yes, we're on our way. Ah, um, cool. How can people find you and what do you want to plug right now.

28:00.75

Hannah Brancato

Ah, yeah, yeah.

28:06.19

Hannah Brancato

Yeah, um, well I want to plug that the monument quilt you know is like I said it's made up of 3000 survivor stories they're on 758 foot quilt blocks and what Shanti and Maura are working on now and I'm helping with is.

28:16.72

spotter

Well.

28:23.52

Hannah Brancato

To get a permanent home for all of those stories and so like we've always known that like force wasn't going to house in a giant warehouse somewhere those quilts forever and so for the stories to be able to continue to be seen.

28:32.59

spotter

Right.

28:38.86

Hannah Brancato

First of all and for the story of the quilt and the survivor stories to continue to be told. It's like really important you know for this for this to happen. So we've already placed the quilts in um, some like college collections. Some individuals have collected them. Um, and the Baltimore Museum Of Art and the reginald deffluous museum of african american history and culture have collected some of the quilts but we need you know we need more partners so we're looking for. Um, institutions colleges museums domestic violence shelters community organizations like anybody that wants to house anywhere from one block to 50 blocks. You know to get in touch. If you want to find out more information about archiving the monument quilt you could visit upsetting http://rapeculture.com or you could email archiving at the monument http://quilt.org and the month there is also a website. The monument quilt dot org which will be updated soon. But right now there's no information on there. But yeah people can reach out that way and then you know you can follow me on Instagram I'm at Hannah Brancado and um, that's where I'll be sharing about some of the work I'm doing 1 project called move slowly where I've been interviewing folks that I know from this work about a lot of what we've been discussing today.

30:38.90

spotter

Moon.

30:41.34

Hannah Brancato

About Burnout the pace of Activism and how we can kind of like take care of ourselves while we're doing this work. Um, and that's going to turn into like a visual and sound our installation about making visions for the future. So I'm really excited about that and collaborating with.

30:56.51

spotter

Whoa.

30:58.70

Hannah Brancato

Um, mahandra who's ah also a musician that does like ah sound healing work and stuff and the inheritance of white silence project which is a project that I've been doing about excavating family histories and like looking at internalized white supremacy culture and how that is passed down. So yeah, so that my my Instagram's best

31:13.44

spotter

Um.

31:18.26

Hannah Brancato

Place to keep in touch with that stuff and then you know the force website for the archiving stuff.

31:21.36

spotter

Cool. Perfect. Thank you, thank you? Hannah so much for spending some time with me and going down memory lane a little bit with me.

31:28.24

Hannah Brancato

Absolutely, it's great to catch up. Thanks Shawna.

—

Be sure to check out the links in the show notes for ways you can connect during SAAM and beyond, because this is an everyday, everywhere problem and I promise you are needed. Before I go, let me share some other people’s thoughts on this song. Here’s a quote from someone who appeared in the video, I’ll keep it anonymous, and they had this to share over email: “this song has been really helpful to me in coming to terms with a lot of the self-imposed shame I've had about my sexual assault. I just feel like the song is so important for women like me, who have been scared to talk about being raped for fear of being seen as weak, which I KNOW logically is just crazy, but there's still that stigma. I think humanizing the issue and putting faces to it is so important.”

But it’s not all good, there are Critiques, too! I’ve heard something to the effect of: “I don’t need some lady yelling at me to say I was raped, I know I was raped” which I love, and just serves as a great example of how if something isn’t useful to you, isn’t good for you, if you don’t need it? Then fucking leave it, right? We’re not for everyone, I know that, for a million reasons we’re not for everyone. And we shouldn’t be! Bc there are a million bands, a million opportunities to find what works for you and just leave the rest.

I’ve also been asked if I care that men are singing along to this song? statistically most straight cis men have not experienced sexual violence or rape, but some have. And I’m happy for anyone to find this song helpful. Honestly it’s been one of the most surprising and humbling aspects of this entire band, the impact that this song and video have had. I do not take lightly the trust people are extending when they share their stories with us. This year’s theme of sexual assault awareness month is Building Safe Online Spaces Together. Check out the link in the show notes, learn what you can do to intervene or to support people who are dealing with online harassment and abuse.  You can also listen to our song “YouTube Comments” to learn how NOT to speak to people online, or listen to episode 12 of But Her Lyrics… where I talk to Ian Danskin about a lot of stuff, including online hate from radicalized white men. Fun!

[end music]

Keep listening to hear the War On Women song, “Say It” in full. 

You can support this podcast by sharing, subscribing, and reviewing it - it’s free and it helps. To find the transcripts, or find out more about what I do, my book, my trainings, my patreon, head to shawnapotter.com

To learn about all things WOW, head to linktr.ee/waronwomen

Thanks for listening and for doing what you can to be someone people can trust with their truth.

SAY IT

Daddy, Daddy if I was raped would you wanna know where I walked?

Would you wanna know what I wore?

Would you wanna know who he was?

What if I was 30 or 12? What if I had one drink?

If the victim is your daughter, does that complicate the blaming?

We will no longer be silent! Speak up, let your voice be heard

Dissenters drown in a sea of truth and our healing will cover the Earth

Say it! Say it! I was raped.