Aishah Shahidah Simmons, a documentary maker and survivor, has brought together several voices who reflect on their own experiences and envision what love and accountability can look like after disclosures of child abuse. Simmons’ own mother also contributes to this collection of essays with a letter titled A Mother’s Lament. As she had initially not believed her own daughter’s account, she underscores the detrimental impact of parents and caregivers not believing their children. She also envisions how we can collectively co-create a world without violence.
After every 5 essays, a single blank page is followed with one word printed in the centre. ‘Breathe’
A reminder to visit this book slowly, and to regularly take breaks as it holds your hand through exploring transformative justice.
As the late bell hooks says, ‘love and abuse cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care’. It can be difficult to imagine what this could look like as perpetrators are often people that we have personal relationships with in our communities and families. What kind of support is needed for survivors to thrive and how do we prevent abuse from taking root?
Love WITH Accountability gives us room to visualise communal support as an alternative to the Police and the complex legal system. It also addresses the broader violence of colonial legacies within these institutions. Carceral or punitive measures that often only benefit the State and perpetuate the cycle of sexual violence within prisons do not focus on transformative ways of responding to violence that centre survivors and their need to heal. What options do we have when the legal system fails us? With community healing we question how to make justice transformative and meaningful to survivors on their own terms.
There is hope and there are answers.
These essays explore what love WITH accountability can look like in relation to parenting, disclosures and even the language we use to hold ourselves accountable. These personal reflections shed a light on practices and philosophies that we can design as individuals, parents, teachers, and as community members to create change in how we socialise around abuse.
Simmons chooses to prioritise inclusivity in the experiences shared, which serves as a reminder that it is often LGBTQIA survivors of colour within the Black diaspora that have been the backbone of grassroots anti-violence movements across the world, and leaders of transformative justice within communities in the U.S.
The contributors are each generous and honest in their reflections. It is evident the amount of love and consideration that Aishah Shahidah Simmons has put into Love WITH Accountability through the voices we hear in each chapter, and how she lifts up those around her.
Aysha
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