resource for challenging activist abusers
http://www.incite-national.org/media/docs/2406_cmty-acc-poc.pdf
Gender Oppression, Abuse and Violence: Community Accountability Within People of Color Progressive Movements
2004 Report from INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence
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this section listed very accurately the behaviors i had encountered:
More on Counter-organizing - or- What is the opposite of accountability?
People who commit acts of gender oppression, abuse, and violence can add on all sorts of additional manipulative behavior in order to: 1) Make sure their victims/survivors don’t do anything back, 2) Make sure they don’t get caught, and 3) Make sure that if they do get caught they can get out of it. These 3 things are the opposite of accountability.
- Pick someone who they think won’t tell or is not in a position to tell (vulnerable, powerless, young, feels guilty or responsible, is not believed by others, etc.)
- Uses denial (Silence; I didn’t do anything; What did I do?)
- Uses minimizing (It was nothing; It didn’t mean anything; I’ll never do it again; It was such a little thing; What-that?)
- Tries to make them believe it’s their fault (You wanted it; you asked for it, you didn’t say “no”; you should have known; you liked it; you made me do it; you provoked it)
- Do things when people aren’t looking or in ways that people can’t see
- Act in heroic; self-sacrificing or other ways that will make people think they could do no wrong or feel indebted to them
- Apologize and think that’s all they have to do
- Get people to feel sorry for them
- Start making excuses for their behavior (not to explain or understand, but to excuse their behavior and avoid accountability) (bad childhood, stress, too much work, too much responsibility, they’re so dedicated to the movement)
- Quit or leave immediately if they think they have to take some accountability (not for the victim/survivor’s safety or because it’s the right thing to do, but because they want to avoid accountability)
- Use delaying tactics until everyone gets worn out
Examples:
- Chronic abusers, harassers, rapists, batterers, etc who find one person (usually female-identified) after another to oppress and abuse
- Abusive persons who “mentor” other (often less powerful or younger) individuals in order to exercise power and control over them or to take advantage of them