Some Insight from INCITE!: Comment!!!

Some of my favorite passages from Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology and some questions for us to think about...


From the introduction (by the INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence Collective)
"The challenge women of color face in combatting personal AND state violence is to develo strategies for ending violence that DO assure safety for survivors of sexual/domestic violence and DO NOT strengthen our oppressive criminal justice system...The question that we ask as women of color is not how do we set up a model anti-violence program, but what will it take to end the violence against us?...Our work must be founded in a radical anaylsis and we must resist cooptation. Our work is not about opulating ethnicaly specific programs, not just about reparations for the past, not just about multicultural interventions, and not about reform. Our work is about justice and freedom."

Question for us: What will it take to end the violence against us?

From SisterSong's "The Color of Choice: White Supremacy and Reproductive Justice"

"Sistersong maintains that reproductive justice--the complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, economic, and social well-being of women and girls---will be achieved when women and girls have the economic, social and political powe and resources to make healthy decisions about our bodies, sexuality, and reproduction for ourselves, our families, and our communities in all areas of our lives."

Question for us: Do we see ending sexual violence as a reproductive justice issue?

From "Four Generations in Resistance" by Dana Erekat

"As a Palestinian you know education is a vital weapon for the fight in the struggle, this is why the Israelis close the schools every other day and enter the school every other day. Your daughter runs home in fear but you keep sending her back knowing that education is the only way. Knowing that interference with education is a colonizers tactic for preventing the growth of society, you don't need a diploma to understand that: it is your lived reality. You keep on living with hopes of a free Palestine in the next generation. You give birth to a daughter, knowing she will continue the fight. New generations of Palestinian women are born resisting with their bodies, with their pens, and with their lives. Motherhood is an act of defiance in the midst of colonization."

Question for us: What relationships with pre-existing, and possible educational systems are we making?

From "Sistas Making Moves" by Sista II Sista (a Brooklyn-wide organization of young black and latina women makin moves)

"Even though our advisors felt we should first raise money, we decided to jump right into launching a summer program with no money and no infrastructure...."

"...one of our biggest challenges: creating an organizational structure that was in line with our vision of the society we wanted to create."

"At SIIS we feel that true social transformation is holistic, that change comes from inspiration, emotional and cultural expression, and a strong political message."

"As our work around violence has grown, we've divided into three areas: challenging the police around issues of sexual harassment and violence against young women of color; building an alternative from the police for women to turn to in cases of interpersonal violence; and creating solidarity with women facing violence in the Third World."

Question for us: What is the relationship between our structure, our message and our love?

From "Gender Violence and the Prison-Industrial Complex: Statement by Critical Resistance and Incite! Women of Color Against Violence"

"We seek to build movements that not only end violence, but that create a society based on radical freedom, mutual accountability, and passionate reciprocity. In this society, safety and security will not be premised on violence or the threat of violence; it will be based on a collective commitment to guaranteeing the survival and care of all peoples."

Question for us: What is a guarantee? What does passionate reciprocity look like for us?

From "Trans Day of Action for Social and Economic Justice" by TransJustice, a project of the Audre Lorde Project (a community organizing center for LGBTTQT people of color in the NYC area)

"Gender policing has always been part of the United States' bloody history. State-sanctioned gender policing targets Trans and Gender Non-Conforming people first by dehumanizing our identities. It denies our basic right to gender self-determination, and considers our bodies to be property of the state."

Question for us: What is the relationship between sexual violence and the creation of (bodies as) property?

looking for your comments
love,
lex