Accountability isn’t revenge.
Accountability feels bad to someone who did bad things.
Don’t get it twisted.
Discussion
Accountability isn’t revenge.
Accountability feels bad to someone who did bad things.
Don’t get it twisted.
Ways to stop violent assholes that are embraced by communities may not be suitable for governments.
I oppose the death penalty. I don’t mourn someone killed by a person they tried to harm.
Restorative justice and changes in behaviour are of course the best outcome. If that doesn’t work, I fully support threats of proportional violence to dissuade a serial
abuser from bringing his nonsense to a given place.
Banning a serial abuser from a specific gathering is not revenge. It is not exclusion from society as a whole.
Refusal to ban a serial
abuser from a specific gathering excludes people who did nothing wrong, and makes the whole event more sexist, more racist, more exclusionary.
Refusal to embrace accountability is often buried in lots of flowery language, but it’s simple:
It’s the assertion that putting an abusive person through anything close to what the victims experienced is a bridge too far.
It’s the assertion what victims go through is acceptable, and not only that, they haven’t suffered enough. Meanwhile, the perpetrators get handled with soft gloves, even if this keeps the harm to victims going.
It’s the acceptance of a world in which the characteristics you were born with, not your actions, determine whether everyone looks away when someone hurts you.
For assholes, cutting off access to victims feels like revenge.
Ignore the whining of assholes.