In organizing spaces, disagreement and holding ourselves accountable is key.
Both underpin the way we keep each other in our community accountable to the people. These are the natural products of good communication and critical thinking.
But when communication fails in times of crisis, we run the risk of reproducing the same violence that already promises to bring about our end.
Instead of holding ourselves and one another accountable to our own standards, some cultivate a call-out culture that damages any alternative ways we strive to live. Call-out culture privileges certain information and identities and is at times unwelcoming of new members and ideas.
The alternative, holding one another accountable, pushed us to be responsible for ourselves just as much for one another.
While education is certainly integral to coalition building, a lack of it can be systemic rather than individualistic. This is not to invalidate repeated abuse or malign treatment at the hands of toxic people or institutions. Nor is this an excuse to dictate ideas without challenge. This is moment for a collective breath to occur.
The violence has less to do with the member who misspeaks or takes the mic at an action. In these everyday interactions between people, we ignore or excuse the violence carried out by the state. We are asking for a pause on call-out culture until we have successfully rebuilt our coalitions and movements back up.
We hope that our movements that push UNC and the General Assembly are strategic and purposeful without having to risk losing pieces of ourselves in the process.
