Concerned community members met on campus last Thursday to discuss issues of violence within the Arcata/Eureka community. Several ideas were brought up as to how community members can take safety into their own hands. A list of the discussion last Thursday is below.
If you as an concerned individual, or a member of a group working on or wanting to work on the following, please contact: n_antiviolencecrew@yahoo.com, or call 707-845-1127.
Also, attached is an article by Andrea Smith, a Native-American woman who is commited to uniting aspects of the anti-violence movement. She is the co-founder of the group, INCITE (www.incite-national.org) and there are talks of having her come to our community to speak in order to inspire a coalition between groups and individuals organizing against violence within the police state.
Specific concerns regarding violence /safety in the community:
Safety on campus regarding sexualized violence:
- Concern for acquaintance rape on campus
- Need for new lights and call boxes
Possible solutions:
- Peer safety crew
- Stranger assaults/domestic/acquaintance prevention:
- Supporting services in the community: Humboldt Women’s Shelter, Rape Crisis Center
Dialogue and awareness for new students /everyone for MORE than stranger assault prevention – not just reactionary
- Need to address the HOP policy regarding campus assaults
Sexual Assault Prevention Committee:
Student representatives should be present…meetings 2nd Thu of the Month in the Health Center @ 9:00
Kim Berry’s (women’s studies professor) Sexual Assault Class -
We need accessible information/services. How are the LGA’s trained?
Examples of creating accountability:
Accountability for UN. Policy.
Posters about sexual assault put in all buildings. (Crisis info, info and resources).
Be familiar with laws regarding response
Find ways to hold them to it?
Community Safety Networking:
- Humboldt county Domestic Violence Prevention Council – get campus voice involved – join their meeting or ask for their presence here…find a way to dialogue with them
EPD is getting involved in a Pilot Advocate Program. – We should tie this into COPWATCH
- Local Women’s Solidarity Group Neighborhood Watch Groups – add internal neighborhood accountability and positive support network – collective of people to support survivors and help confront batterers and rapists (while acknowledging that the rapists’ perspective is partial and perverse.) Possible neighborhood watch stickers against internal domestic crimes such as acquaintance violence.
- Find a way to link the following within communities:
- Cop watch, domestic violence support, escorting services, and emergency care services (possibility of organizing around emergency response services in the community…and go from there.)
- Regional community support centers in communities providing resources for non-violent organizing (cop watch, Indy media, sexual assault survivor solidarity groups,
Other ideas for community safety (examples of direct action through cop watch, safety crews, guest speakers…etc.)
- Criminal justice system can be threatening to the survivor of domestic violence – pro-arrest history in Humboldt of domestic violence offenders - may or may not be followed
- Off-campus escorting network: accessible lists of escorts (or other services – derive solidarity through disaster relief awareness) – bbqs, potlucks, community gatherings: creating actions based on that communities’ needs…but, what about neutral settings? How can we address concerns about attendance of the very people that we may have concerns about?
- Strategize as a community about how to be/keep each other safe. An independent, structured, accessible group (not associated with the cops)
- What about dangerous situations is it realistic to get involved, are we trained? A group to link crisis to resources.
- Andrea Smith – speaks about alternatives to the police, pushes the complexity of organizational structure (author of the book “Conquest”.) A plan that matches our capabilities. – Big possibly of bringing her to campus and to the community to speak…link to her women of color uniting against violence website: www.incite-now.org
Other discussions:
- Restorative Justice
- Individuals responding (or independent group) to domestic violence in the community instead of the police. Feminist response group – independent “cop” group DIVERT is example of this.
- Survivors have a hard time going to a survivor service. How can we put out information about what does/does not constitute a healthy relationship – and have people pay attention to it. Start with kids? Start with sex Ed – then sexual violence.
- Lets find a way to gather/find our allies
- Partner with them (groups and community members.) Commission on the Status of women – representatives from the women’s center must link up – meetings – Dec. 7th – 5:30 at the Eureka Courthouse
Holding local Media accountable for perpetuating violence:
-Solutions:
-Newspapers as a tool for communication. Hold them accountable as a community resource. (Editorials?) Use of independent media centers as a means of holding racist, sexist, homophobic, journalism accountable.
- RE: Lumberjack. It is organized through a class, could someone be invited to inform them before the begin writing about these issues? Sexualized and racial violence
- How are the professors structuring the class?
- How are they teaching about racism/sexism, etc?
- Direct action methods? Letters to the editor
- Indy media as a way to reflect on the lumberjack. This could connect the community (members and activist groups)
- Start a moodle site to help communication between community organizations...?
Other ideas:
- Start Sexual assault group on campus
- Juveniles as victims of violence – how can we give them a voice? Both domestic and police…. what resources are available?
Once again, please feel free to contact us regarding this meeting, and any information you have regarding services already available within the community, or individuals/community groups already working on these issues so that we can all unite and form more cohesive groups to combat community violence.
Lets create the ideal community, together.
Andrea Smith Annex 1 Critical Resistance
Andrea
Smith
Annex 1
Critical Resistance - Incite Statement
Gender Violence and the Prison Industrial Complex
We
call social justice movements to develop strategies and analysis that
address both state AND interpersonal violence, particularly violence
against women. Currently,
activists/movements that address state violence (such as anti-prison,
anti-police brutality groups) often work in isolation from activists/movements
that address domestic and sexual violence.
The result is that women of color, who suffer disproportionately from
both state and interpersonal violence, have become marginalized within these
movements. It is critical that we
develop responses to gender violence that do not depend on a sexist, racist,
classist, and homophobic criminal justice system.
It is also important that we develop strategies that c
hallenge the criminal justice system and that also provide safety for
survivors of sexual and domestic violence.
To live violence free-lives, we must develop holistic strategies for
addressing violence that speak to the intersection of all forms of oppression.
The
anti-violence movement has been critically important in breaking the silence
around violence against women and providing much-needed services to survivors.
However, the mainstream anti-violence movement has increasingly relied
on the criminal justice system as the front-line approach toward ending
violence against women of color. It
is important to assess the impact of this strategy.
1)
Law enforcement approaches to violence against women MAY deter some acts of
violence in the short term. However,
as an overall strategy for ending violence, criminalization has not worked.
In fact, the overall impact of mandatory arrests laws for domestic
violence have led to decreases in the number of battered women who kill their
partners in self-defense, but they have not led to a decrease in the number of
batterers who kill their partners. Thus,
the law protects batterers more than it protects survivors.
2)
The criminalization approach has also brought many women into conflict with
the law,
particularly women of color, poor women, lesbians, sex workers, immigrant women, women
with disabilities, and other marginalized women. For instance, under mandatory arrest laws, there have been
numerous incidents where police officers called to domestic incidents have
arrested the woman who is being battered. Many undocumented women have
reported cases of sexual and domestic violence, only to find themselves
deported. A tough law and order agenda also leads to long punitive sentences
for women convicted of killing their batterers.
Finally, when public funding is channeled into policing and prisons,
budget cuts for social programs, including women
Publish to Newswire
Add an Event