This archive report was first published on 18 August 2019.
Published on August 18, 2019, a black feminist writer shares her experiences with call-out culture and its potential to hinder social justice work.
While working with incarcerated rapists in the 1970s, the writer found that sharing her own story of sexual assault helped the men open up about their own experiences. This led to the formation of Prisoners Against Rape, the country's first anti-sexual assault program led by men.
However, the writer believes that the #MeToo movement's reliance on punishment and exile mirrors the prison industrial complex, and that social media can lead to rushed judgments in a 'courtroom composed of clicks.' This, she argues, is a paradox that Audre Lorde warned against, stating that 'the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.'
Instead, the writer advocates for restorative justice processes that hold the stories of both accusers and accused, working together to ascertain harm and achieve justice without violating human rights or due process. This approach, she suggests, can be applied to people fighting white supremacy as well.
In 1992, a group of women in rural Tennessee asked the writer to provide anti-racist training to help keep their children out of the Ku Klux Klan. Despite being subjected to insulting language and requests to sing 'Negro spirituals,' the writer chose to listen and respond, sharing her own experiences of racism and helping the women make progress.
These experiences have led the writer to question whether call-out culture is unifying or splintering social justice work. She argues that public shaming, particularly when done by those who believe they have greater integrity or more sophisticated analyses, can be counterproductive and lead to a 'cancel culture' where people are expunged for not perfectly agreeing with others.
