The heart of violence

Cancel culture, prisons, and all forms of punitive ‘justice’ that dehumanize perpetrators fundamentally abandon survivors and leave us alone with the question: Why?

The question repeated like a prayer, cried out as a heart-wrenching sob caught in the throat, circled around endlessly is: Why? Another variation of this question is: How could you?

We love to repeat the fact that most sexual assaults happen in the context of relationship, but we refuse to grapple with what that means. Politically, collectively, in our u…