Shawna Potter

SHOW NOTES:

Harm occurs on an unfortunately wide spectrum. How do we find the appropriate and commensurate path for repair? How do we know if someone is overstating harm? When does the pursuit of justice turn into the abuse of others? And what do we do about it? Listen as host Shawna speaks with Sarah Schulman, author of Conflict is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair about this important, difficult, and somewhat controversial topic. Content Warning: sexual violence, victim-blaming, abuse, harm

Sarah Schulman is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, nonfiction writer, journalist and AIDS historian. Her 20th book LET THE RECORD SHOW: A Political History of ACT UP, New York 1987-1993, was called a "masterpiece" by the New York Times and was a finalist for The John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Nonfiction from PEN.  Her play, THE LADY HAMLET, premiered at The Provincetown Theater in the summer of 2022. Sarah is an Endowed Chair in Nonfiction at Northwestern University.

The official sponsors of this episode are Navarro Hair Design, First Defense Krav Maga, and Pupcakes and Pawstries.

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.



RESOURCES/SHOW LINKS:

Conflict is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair - https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/C/Conflict-Is-Not-Abuse

Fucking Cancelled podcast - https://fuckingcancelled.libsyn.com/

We Will Not Cancel Us by adrienne marie brown - https://www.akpress.org/we-will-not-cancel-us.html

Conflict resolution handbook - https://inclassreadings.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/handbook-of-conflict-resolution.pdf

Creative Interventions Toolkit - https://www.creative-interventions.org/toolkit/

Emergent Strategies - https://www.akpress.org/emergentstrategy.html

“I just got a complaint about harm, what should I do?” Infographic:  https://www.instagram.com/p/CSwvPEQHIZI/

National Sexual Assault Hotline - https://www.rainn.org/resources or 800-656-HOPE (4673)

Community Mediation Maryland - https://mdmediation.org/need-mediation/

Talk Toomey - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-toomey/id1041754937

Peer Pleasure - https://peerpleasurepodcast.com/

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 actually know and love. I’m Shawna Potter, singer and lyricist for War On Women - and your host. If you’ve been listening for a while you know this podcast started out as a way to promote the latest WOW album, Wonderful Hell, when we couldn’t play shows. This season I’m still tackling select WOW songs (check out the previous episodes for Second Wave Goodbye & Say It), but I’m also doing something new. Well, 2 new things. One, I’ll soon have episodes where I interview other artists about their political lyrics, which will get us into some different genres and topics, and I’m really excited about that. But I’m also diving into topics that could and should be WOW songs, like this episode here. What we’re getting into today is an important and difficult conversation that we all need to be having right now, so stay tuned to hear my interview with author Sarah Schulman about her book, and the concept that conflict is not abuse. (consider this your general content warning)

Before we get too deep, let me shout out this episode’s sponsor - First Defense Krav Maga in Virginia, check them out, lovely people there that I've had the pleasure of training in bystander intervention. And new sponsor, Navarro Hair Design out in Seattle, who offers 20% off extension application services for the trans community. Amazing. Also shoutout to my badass patron Melissa P. AND I have a couple podcasts to shout out! One is called Peer Pleasure, that gets deep, like therapy deep - with musicians and artists, including me and even Brooks Harlan, WOW guitarist, who rarely does things like that, so it was very cool to hear his interview. But the host, Dewey, interviews people  way more famous and interesting than us, so check out Peer Pleasure. Also interviewing way more famous people than us is an old boyfriend from my Nashville days, my buddy Toomey! He hosts Talk Toomey which is a part of Knotfest.com now and you can listen to full eps in pod form or check out clips on the Knotfest YouTube. I am so freaking proud of him, it’s so weird and cool he gets to interview some of his favorite musicians. And I know how much he loves music because our bands used to play together all the time when I was in high school. I have also been on his show and we talk a lot about the old days so check it out if you wanna hear two old friends shoot the shit. You can find links to all this stuff and other resources related to this episode in the episode description.

[music break]

I was recently lucky enough to travel to Barcelona, where the Spanish translator and publisher of my book, Making Spaces Safer is based. Orciny Press set up a book talk at a feminist book store, , and one of the questions from the audience was "what was the hardest part of writing your book?" and with no hesitation, I said writing the last chapter, not the research, not collecting stories, not the endless editing, but writing the chapter on transformative justice. One, it's a big, complicated subject that is difficult to whittle down into a few pages. Two, I have no expertise, just some experience with it, as most of my work is preventative, or about what to do in the moment - but I felt that readers deserved at least a jumping off point for figuring out what to do post-incident, or after harm has been caused. Since doing the research for that chapter I’ve continued learning about different models of justice and accountability. Mostly, it's led me to a lot of questions: How do we define justice if we’re striving for a less violent world? A world without prisons? How do we acknowledge the humanity in everyone while understanding that harmful behaviors do not happen for no reason -  especially here in the US where we’re spoon fed this idea that only bad people do bad things and they have to be punished for it. Because frankly if that’s true, then we are all bad people. We are all capable of harm, just like we’re all capable of being harmed. And punishment might feel good at first, But how does it break the cycle of violence? Does it make our communities safer in the long run? How do we move away from punishment and ostracization and create something new that allows for change and growth? I certainly don't have all the answers, but we need to keep asking questions until we find them.

What's coming up in this episode might be challenging! I mean, the world just barely agreed that street harassment is bad, so of course we are not fluent in the language and practice of transformative justice. But I’m happy to be challenged, and I hope you are too, by the works of people like adrienne marie brown, some of the resources listed in the show notes, and my guest today, Sarah Schulman, author of Conflict is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair.

I first heard about her book a couple years ago when Kathleen Hanna, guest vocalist on WOW’s song YDTMHTL, [YDTMHTL music] but more widely known for her work with Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, anyway she posted a photo of the book on Instagram. You’ll hear me mention this in the interview, but I immediately tensed up just reading the title of the book. It’s hard to describe, but it’s like my body was saying “oh so you don’t believe victims?” and then my brain was like, no that’s not what it says, why did you jump to that? And then I knew I had to read it - I had to find out what was in this dang book, and hopefully find out why I had such a reaction to reading the title. You might be feeling tense right now, too, so if you are: please, stick with me, keep listening, breathe. I promise, it will be worth it.

[interview time]

[interview - please get in touch about any errors, ignore time stamps]

Shawna Potter: Sarah Schulman, I am honored to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. Please introduce yourself to everyone.  00;00;11;25 - 00;00;19;00 Sarah Schulman Yes, I'm Sarah Schulman. I'm right now in my apartment in the East Village in New York, and I'm a writer and happy to be here.  00;00;19;24 - 00;00;43;00 Shawna Potter I wanted you on the show because I have read your book. It is sitting right next to me. It is full of pink highlighter all throughout. I think it's extremely valuable for anyone that cares about a less violent world. But I will say, the first time that I saw your book, I had a visceral reaction. I kind of tensed up, and I almost expected the book to call me a whiny, liberal snowflake.  00;00;43;00 - 00;00;47;15 Shawna Potter Or something. I assume that is not the first time you've heard something like that.  00;00;47;27 - 00;01;11;17 Sarah Schulman Well, you know, my books usually or hopefully always are brand new ideas. I rarely weigh into a preexisting debate on one side or the other. So if people haven't read the book, they think they already know what's in it because they think it's that old idea that they heard before. And so that happens a lot once they actually read the whole thing.  00;01;11;17 - 00;01;26;01 Sarah Schulman And because I'm a novelist, that I work with this kind of cumulative arc where the argument unfolds like a story and you actually have to read the whole thing to get the idea, then there's a more nuanced response.  00;01;26;11 - 00;01;36;09 Shawna Potter Yeah. So let's clear it up. How about for anyone listening that maybe is having a similar reaction right now? What is the danger of conflating conflict with abuse?  00;01;36;24 - 00;02;03;05 Sarah Schulman Well, there's a lot, but well, first, let me start with my definitions so we know what we're talking about. Okay. To me, abuse is power over. It means that the person who's on the receiving end of the cruelty did not create the situation did not cause it and can't stop it. It's out of their hands. Some other entity or group or individual has more power than them.  00;02;04;00 - 00;02;31;21 Sarah Schulman And that's what abuse is. Conflict is a different thing. It's power struggle. And it can be just as painful and it can have dire consequences. But the difference is that the multiple parties are participating in the escalation in some way, even if that way is not equal. The reason we need to know the difference is that, well, first of all, if you are in a conflict, you have some power to transform it.  00;02;31;27 - 00;02;38;26 Sarah Schulman And that should be desirable information, right? We should want to and be happy to understand that.  00;02;38;29 - 00;02;40;05 Shawna Potter Right. Right.  00;02;40;14 - 00;03;20;07 Sarah Schulman But unfortunately, we're in a situation where perpetrators and by that I mean Trump the Israeli state. You know, the police are constantly positioning themselves as victims falsely to avoid responsibility for their position. And this distorting language makes it that when we acknowledge that we are participating in escalating a situation, we then are no longer eligible for compassion because the bar is so high that you have to be a pure, clean and total victim to be in any way eligible for compassion.  00;03;20;07 - 00;03;43;18 Sarah Schulman And that is a disaster because all people need help. And when people ask for help, they should be able to get it. And it's not about whether they are guilty or innocent or anything like that. Right now, we only feel like we're being heard if the party for whom we blame our pain is being punished. That's the connection.  00;03;43;18 - 00;04;08;25 Sarah Schulman And that's what it means to us, that we've been hurt. But if we could get support and help because we need it, and that could be separate from how we understand the cause of that pain, who we want to project that onto or who is responsible for it. I think we'd all be in better shape because my life anyway has shown me that punishment does not work.  00;04;09;05 - 00;04;52;07 Sarah Schulman I don't think there's any examples of punishment being a successful social dynamic. So though those are some of the reasons that I think it's helpful to break this all down. And when people who are actually in conflict position themselves as being abused, then people who are actually abused do not get their situation recognized. So we're in a world where people who are really abused are under supported and people who come in are often perpetrators or involved in creating pain, make the false claim of being victims, and they don't have to take any responsibility So it's a very uneven dynamic.  00;04;53;04 - 00;05;03;27 Shawna Potter I'm going to ask what people can do about it next. But first, how can people recognize an overstatement of harm? Like, is there a checklist we can go through? How do we know?  00;05;04;25 - 00;05;24;29 Sarah Schulman Well, one thing I like to use is going through the order of events. I think that that's always very revealing. So let's say I'm having a conflict with somebody. I'm kind of like, he did this and then he said that and then he did that. And then I and then I make sure, shit when it comes to me.  00;05;25;28 - 00;05;30;01 Sarah Schulman And then I go back to everything that he did Right.  00;05;30;15 - 00;05;34;06 Shawna Potter Right. So. So, yeah, when you leave yourself out of it, that's a problem.  00;05;34;06 - 00;06;05;09 Sarah Schulman But usually there's an originating action and then there's a consequence So, for example, when people resist, they become stigmatized because the originating action is a race is treated as though it's neutral. So, for example, we say that Palestinians are terrorists, right? Or something like that. Instead of saying that these are a people who have been subjugated, who have been occupied, and who are trying to find some kind of way of transforming their situation.  00;06;05;14 - 00;06;26;07 Sarah Schulman So you leave out the originating action and then you only pathologize the response. And that happens intimately as well. You know, like the child screams at the mother and then that becomes a bad child. Of course, I was born in the fifties, so that was the paradigm. Now it's the bad mother. I understand that this is switch. But why are they why are they upset?  00;06;26;12 - 00;06;34;07 Sarah Schulman You know, so is trying to understand really sources where pain originates can give you a lot of insight.  00;06;35;00 - 00;06;48;11 Shawna Potter Which I think means that we have to exercise patience and curiosity. Right. When we are when we're told about an incident in our community, like we can't rush to judgment I guess.  00;06;48;16 - 00;07;06;15 Sarah Schulman Well, I think it's actually a timesaver to actually talk to people and find out what's really going on. I think the most effective thing you can do when you're being told to hurt somebody is to ask that person, why do you think this is happening? That question, why do you think this is happening can give you so much information.  00;07;06;22 - 00;07;28;28 Sarah Schulman Now that I'm older, I know that there are people who had a conflict when they were 20 who at age 60 are still not talking to each other and don't even remember what the originating of that was. So even though it takes a little bit of time and it's uncomfortable in the present, you save all this time of your future of hostilities that will exist for no reason.  00;07;29;17 - 00;07;58;27 Sarah Schulman If you just ask people like pick up the phone and ask them, why is this happening? Because we're always being asked to hurt people. Like I'm constantly being told, Why are you working with that person? Why did you invite them? You know, then it's like we're always being told that. Or if someone we identify with, whether it's your friend or someone in your click or someone in your religious group or whatever, if that person is mad at the third party, you're supposed to hate that other party forever.  00;07;59;07 - 00;08;19;07 Sarah Schulman Like your friends ex-boyfriend. You're supposed to hate him forever. Right. Because that's how we show loyalty. But that's not really loyalty. I think loyalty is helping people negotiate, giving them to giving them support for being self-critical and not abandoning them when they acknowledge that they've participated in escalating the situation.  00;08;20;01 - 00;08;47;01 Shawna Potter So other than maybe not not ignoring, not shunning the other person asking, why do you think this is happening? Is there anything else that you know, the audience or the friends or the allies of of these of the parties involved anything else that they should be doing in the face of an allegation of abuse, especially when it's fairly clear that it is an overstatement of harm?  00;08;47;02 - 00;08;50;24 Shawna Potter Like how how can they help everyone move to repair?  00;08;51;18 - 00;09;26;06 Sarah Schulman Well, right now, we have a lot of negative bonds that create our community is, you know, families who unite around the one family member who they blame for everything clicks, who shun the one person who told them the truth about themselves. You know, as a Jewish person, I'm supposed to support Israel because my relatives live there like the family there's all these kind of negative bonds that transcend what is actually happening, that overwhelm the truth.  00;09;26;08 - 00;09;57;03 Sarah Schulman Of people's complexities. And and, you know, just asking questions and trying to get real conversations and negotiating and rethinking dynamics is what breaks all this down. Like right now, as we're talking, we're in the middle of this horrible Russian assault on Ukraine. Right. And we're watching these countries, Spain, Ireland, Poland. They're opening their borders to the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees, as they should.  00;09;57;18 - 00;10;24;17 Sarah Schulman But for years, they have been keeping out Syrians. They've been keeping out Africans. They've been putting nonwhite, non-Christian refugees into camps for years, for decades. You know, and it's like this is something that we need to question or let's see, see this opportunity. Yes. Russia is occupying militarily occupying Ukraine, but Israel is occupying Palestine. But Saudi Arabia is invading is occupying Yemen.  00;10;24;25 - 00;10;37;06 Sarah Schulman Why are we only having empathy when the when they resemble, quote, resemble us racially or religiously? Right. So these opportunities to think and expand how we understand our relationships.  00;10;38;00 - 00;10;50;04 Shawna Potter And how would that work? You know, I'm thinking of my audience with music lovers and small communities. How would that work for us? What do we do in our communities when there is an overstatement of harm?  00;10;50;08 - 00;11;13;06 Sarah Schulman Well, I think the first thing you do is you talk I mean, speak to the person who's being vilified You know, I just ask I mean, whatever happened? People do things for reasons and there's misunderstandings and sometimes people do bad things. You know, we are human and don't forget, there are people who want to have reconciliation with the person who murdered their parents.  00;11;14;03 - 00;11;26;15 Sarah Schulman Right. There are all kinds of like gestures towards reconciliation. So why should you be mean to someone forever? Because they sent an email that and perhaps you misread. Yeah.  00;11;26;29 - 00;11;32;16 Shawna Potter At what point does the pursuit of justice turn into the abuse of others?  00;11;32;22 - 00;12;13;07 Sarah Schulman Sometimes right away. I mean, I've seen that happen. Like, I've seen restorative justice processes become like vigilante and, you know, people doing uncool things, being treated like major crimes against humanity and being used to discredit people. And again, I think it always comes back to Face-To-Face conversation asking questions, being willing to be uncomfortable and not having a pack mentality because you need to have supremacy ideology to shun somebody you know, it's only if you if you don't think that you're better than them that you can negotiate with them.  00;12;13;07 - 00;12;20;10 Sarah Schulman You have the part your partner in conflict must be your equal for you to have any kind of resolution.  00;12;21;12 - 00;12;26;08 Shawna Potter What do you wish more people would ask you about your work or this particular book?  00;12;26;17 - 00;12;58;05 Sarah Schulman I don't know. It's such a weird response. You know, I've written 20 books, right? And this book has had the weirdest responsable, really, because most people who respond to me, well, they haven't read it. So, I mean, almost every day there's something mean on Twitter about this book that has nothing to do with the book. Wow. It's because before it was published, this one person whose name I'm not going to say put something out there claiming that the book told people to call the police, which, of course, is the opposite of what the book is saying.  00;12;58;10 - 00;13;23;25 Sarah Schulman But the book had not even been printed yet, so they had not read it. And this thing was retweeted like thousands of times. And for years now, I've been swimming upstream against that. No. So there's there's just this constant rhetoric of people who have not read the book or they've only read the excerpt that's on Amazon, which is primarily about interpersonal relationships.  00;13;24;05 - 00;13;49;07 Sarah Schulman And they don't see how it's the beginning of an argument that extends to geopolitics. And they feel so personally implicated because they're so invested in being the pure victim. Right. That they then condemn the whole book that they haven't read. Yeah. Or some people have just read the part of the title that says not abuse and they think that I'm taking away their hard-won realization about their views.  00;13;49;23 - 00;14;16;19 Sarah Schulman But, you know, a book should be a development of ideas and I'm one of those writers who puts out lots of ideas, and some of them are stronger than others. There are some ideas in this book that are wonky, I know that. But there are also some ideas that I think are very rigorous. And the thing that I think really is the strongest is the idea that dominant culture people can be offended and threatened by difference, but so it can traumatize people.  00;14;17;18 - 00;14;36;07 Sarah Schulman And, you know, it's for different reasons, but we have to really be aware of that as well. That just because someone else's difference makes you feel uncomfortable about yourself. And sometimes when you're traumatized, it's so hard to just keep it together that the thought of having to be self-critical is overwhelming. That doesn't mean the other person is hurting you.  00;14;36;15 - 00;14;51;19 Sarah Schulman Hmm. Right. It's because we have unresolved pain from the past, you know, and we often asking the present to solve our unresolved pain from the past. But the present didn't create that pain, and it can't solve it. So it's just, you know, awareness, more awareness.  00;14;52;04 - 00;15;01;09 Shawna Potter Now, you don't have to answer this, but have you ever reached out to the person who incorrectly tweeted about this, saying to call the cops and tried to work something out with conflict?  00;15;01;10 - 00;15;21;25 Sarah Schulman I certainly have. So every time I see her, I say, hi, how are you? And sometimes she says hi. But I ran into her at a Taylor Mac concert, and I had the book with me. It had just finally been printed and she had been circulating these false things for a long time. And I said, Would you like a copy of this book?  00;15;21;25 - 00;15;42;29 Sarah Schulman And she said, Sure. And I handed it to her. So now I know she has it, but she's never like, apologized or retracted or anything. And it just goes on and on. Yeah. Being implicated is not an assault. Like reading a book that makes you question yourself. That's good. You know, it doesn't mean that you're being hurt.  00;15;43;26 - 00;16;08;12 Shawna Potter I just wonder if and and I just I'm using you as an example, because this is a great. It's a good one. Let's say if if you just wanted an apology because she put out false information about you. If that's your reasoning for wanting to like do some sort of more official mediation or conflict resolution, would you. Do you think that that that is a good enough reason?  00;16;08;21 - 00;16;17;22 Shawna Potter Or would you say if that's all I want out of this, then that actually isn't the goal and it's a disservice to to what the conflict resolution could be.  00;16;18;00 - 00;16;42;10 Sarah Schulman And actually offered her a wide range of things like I offered to her that we could have a public discussion about the book I've offered that we can have a private discussion about the book that could be mediated or could be just the two of us. But she has refused all of that. There's also another person who had asked me to get involved in group bullying of somebody and I immediately called that person.  00;16;42;10 - 00;17;06;25 Sarah Schulman And after I heard what they said, I said that I didn't agree with this, and I told her that. And then she reviewed the book and misrepresented the ideas, and it was inaccurate. And the publisher, the editor did not fact check. And this woman has been unable to take responsibility for that for like so many years now. And every once in a while, she gets on Twitter and says something.  00;17;07;01 - 00;17;32;06 Sarah Schulman And every time I messaged her privately, and I'm like, why don't we get together and compare the text to your review? We can have other people there. We could do it in public. We can do it. And she doesn't answer right And I recently had a thing in Jewish Currents magazine that was very, very disturbing where the oh, this was about my new book My History of Hacked Up, but it was a similar construction.  00;17;33;02 - 00;17;35;10 Sarah Schulman So the television show pose.  00;17;35;14 - 00;17;35;24 Shawna Potter Mm hmm.  00;17;36;12 - 00;17;46;11 Sarah Schulman She had an episode that showed black trans women for being part of the act up 1989 action at St Patrick's Cathedral.  00;17;46;12 - 00;17;46;29 Shawna Potter I remember that.  00;17;46;29 - 00;18;05;26 Sarah Schulman Episode. Yeah. And that's great that that was on TV. But it never happened in real life. So in my history of act up, when I describe that event, I don't say black trans women were arrested because they weren't. And but there was a review or who thought that they were. So she thought I was being transphobic. And she wrote this whole review.  00;18;06;08 - 00;18;31;27 Sarah Schulman And I asked the editor Did you fact check this? And they said yes, but they couldn't have because it never existed. So, you know, these types of things, misrepresentations and inaccuracies, I do try to negotiate them. And sometimes people just can't. But anyway, I think that that's as far as conflict is not abuse. I think that it creates this kind of sense of paranoia or conspiracy.  00;18;31;27 - 00;18;42;19 Sarah Schulman Like she's claiming she's one thing, but she's secretly pro-police or whatever You know, we have a lot of conspiracy thinking paradigms, you know?  00;18;43;05 - 00;18;50;04 Shawna Potter And at some point, if obviously, if they refuse any offer to to speak, then there's you kind of have to let it go.  00;18;50;13 - 00;19;03;29 Sarah Schulman Well. And what I haven't done is like said their names publicly and gone into a whole refutation I'm still trying after years now to resolve it in a one in one basis. That's all you can do.  00;19;04;26 - 00;19;09;17 Shawna Potter Well. Is there anything that you'd like to plug right now? And can you tell us where to find you online?  00;19;10;09 - 00;19;17;16 Sarah Schulman Well, I'm I'm very available, so I'm very easy to find. I'm I'm on Facebook, on Twitter.  00;19;18;06 - 00;19;20;12 Shawna Potter Thanks. You know, thankfully for me. Yeah.  00;19;20;12 - 00;19;29;07 Sarah Schulman Yeah. And I guess my most recent book is Let the Record Show Political History of Act Up New York. 1987 to 1993.  00;19;30;00 - 00;19;34;08 Shawna Potter Thank you so much for joining me, Sara. I really appreciate you taking some time to speak with me.  00;19;34;16 - 00;19;39;14 Sarah Schulman Thank you. And best of luck to your band and good luck with your music. And good luck with your music.

—

How did that feel, listening to that interview? Was it tough? Did it make sense? There are a couple of ideas from my conversation with Sarah that really hit home for me. One, that overstatements of harm are possible. So if you’ve been on the receiving end of that, it is real and you’re not alone. Two, that they can cover up the real source of pain someone is experiencing. Which means revenge or a cancellation campaign might feel good in the moment, but it won’t provide the long-term healing people need and deserve. Three, overstatements of harm can make it more difficult to give our support and resources to victims of abuse, sexual assault, and rape. And lastly, that talking things out, however difficult it may seem, actually saves time and brain space in the end and is usually worth doing. Now of course I can expect a right-winger or someone with ill intentions to willfully misrepresent these ideas and jump to the ridiculous conclusion that I don’t support, or Sarah doesn’t support, victims and survivors. Of course we do. It’s kinda not even what we’re talking about? And we can’t let the fear of someone twisting our words prevent us from talking about the messy bits of this work. Frankly that’s what keeps people from calling out overstatements of harm, which are sometimes themselves a form of harm. But we must have these conversations. We must deepen our understanding, and empathy, for how people really are and what we’re really capable of in order to make the world a less violence place.

I talk in my book Making Spaces Safer that public call outs are one tool in our toolbox; and they are great against faceless corporations, or active threats that warrant urgency, or when other, more productive options to resolve issues, have been exhausted, like when victims and survivors have TRIED other avenues and been willfully ignored. But if it's possible, when in conflict, in-person communication has a better, and proven, track record.

Maybe now you’re asking “ok, so wtf am I supposed to do?” In the show notes, there is a link to an infographic that walks you through the process of what to do if you get a complaint of harm. Full disclosure, I helped write it, which is why it's from the point of view of a band, but it pulls from many sources. To sum up, it centers hearing the person out first, and it also leaves room for conversation about the allegations of harm. So, here's how we start. if someone tells you they have experienced harm, abuse, violence, assault, etc, believe them. Yeah. Even if somehow you were there and know it didn’t happen how they remember it, Believe them enough to help them. because clearly they are going through something. They are upset about something. And you can help them by listening and potentially directing them to people who know more than you - like counselors, therapists, crisis text lines with crisis response experts, AA, NA, whatever they need...

And if you know the person being called out, your first question could be “are you OK?” and like Sarah said, talk to them to hear their side, ask "What do you think happened?" You might find out enough about the situation to know the best way to help. And if you’re not actually close to the people affected, maybe you can urge those who are to check in with them and find a way to help them. If you've been abused, sexually assaulted, or raped, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline by calling 800-656-HOPE (4673) or by visiting rainn.org, where they have a ton of additional resources and ways to get help. If you're able to, get a trauma-informed therapist you feel comfortable being honest with. If you've been using drugs or alcohol to cope, consider a recovery program because - It's never too late to start the healing process. If you are the one with a conflict (which is not the same as abuse or assault) but if you have a conflict with someone, and you know you want answers or accountability but you’re not sure what to do - finding an organization or person trained in conflict resolution or community mediation is a great option.

So. Just like the transformative justice chapter in my book, this podcast episode is merely a jumping off point. There is no way to fully cover this topic in one little punk podcast episode. So I urge you to keep asking questions, continue thinking about how individuals and communities can stop cycles of violence and come back to harmony & repair, and you can start by checking out the resources in the show notes.

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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. Thank you, good luck out there, stay safe, and fuck scotus.

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