Reflections on Queer Dreams and Nonprofit Blues

Antiviolence work dictated by capitalism and not talking about politics #queerdreams

— Jordan Alam (@thecowation) October 4, 2013

Something that stuck with me in this first panel I attended was a quote from Beth Richie: “I don’t think that this country has a consensus that violence is a bad thing.” Listening to the panelists talk about anti-violence work, naming organizations and their structures, I couldn’t move past the idea that violence is not just a private and individual thing. Messages we get about violence so often revolve around humanizing it, putting a face to the victim or perpetrator, that sometimes the larger causes become lost. There are layers to it: the simple idea that some people deserve violence or that some people must be punished for their actions. But what happens when that hurts the community they are part of? It may bring more police into an area or cause greater silence amongst those who are victimized to know that the punishment is jail time for someone they know. The panel had no grand solutions, but they talked at length about how service providers in anti-violence often believe themselves to be part of a “movement” without really addressing these issues of bringing different types of violence – deportation, arrest, etc. – into spaces that really need other forms of community healing.
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