Should the survivor define accountability?
When discussing the nebulous concept of ‘accountability’ with people, many have asserted that they don’t feel comfortable defining what accountability should or shouldn’t be. The ‘consequences’ (another vaguely defined term often used interchangeably with ‘accountability’) should be decided by the survivor. This logic is used both with accusations of abuse and also with the more general accusation of ‘harm.’ Sometimes it’s used to say that an individual survivor is the only one who can decide what ‘accountability’ should be, and sometimes that responsibility is granted to identity categories, like ‘only bipoc’ or ‘only trans people’ can say what’s an appropriate ‘consequence’ for racism or transphobia.
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