Shelving: The Revolution Starts at Home

Ms. Magazine

The Revolution Starts at Home, edited by Ching-In Chen, Jai Dulani and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha,  takes a much-needed and unexplored look at domestic violence that exists within activist communities. The resources included are invaluable as is the detailed information on transformative justice and accountability that doesn't require a christian framework.

The latter is extremely important: I'm not a christian, but stories of redemption are so tightly woven into US culture they're inescapable , even within progressive communities that have "done the work." It's also pretty timely given the rash of posts on accountability. In the preface, Andrea Smith writes:

What we see in this book is the work of many groups doing precisely that. they do not seek a band-aid, quick fix approach to ending gender violence. Instead they seek to end structures of violence. Their models are experimentations in trying to do more than just crisis intervention, and are easily structured around creating the society we would like to live in.

Reading through the first-person accounts interspersed with practical advice, I can't help but wonder how transformative justice could work in society at large, outside activist circles where distrust of traditional systems of justice is understood and frequently dissected.