the dark side of community

how the places we love can cause harm

All communities — including houses, religious groups, workplaces, and affinity groups — have the potential for both beauty and darkness. By understanding how darkness arises, we can reduce the chances of harm.

A couple months ago, I read this post about sexual assault connected to a community house in San Francisco. In the weeks that followed, I spent a lot of time thinking about my own communities and especially The Village — just like the house in the post, we have a trial system, many people move here during vulnerable times in their life, and we have no procedures for navigating reports of assault. It’s easy to think the things that happened in that post would never happen in your community, but the reality is that in every community where these things happen the people involved felt that way too.

source: ajijchan

So what can we learn from this story?

Note: This post can be read standalone, but if you’re looking for more context on where these thoughts are coming from, I recommend reading the post I linked to above.

When people join a community, they are in a vulnerable position. Until a new resident knows that people generally like them and would support them, they have less power than those who have the safety of the community’s acceptance. Feeling on the outside often adds pressure for new members to conform to the in-group. This isn’t always bad — integrating new people into existing culture can be helpful — but it creates higher risk for people losing their sense of self and boundaries, which puts people at greater risk of harm.

Trials can apply unhealthy amounts of pressure to conform to the in-group. I’ve written about trials, and am personally opposed to them, but understand they can also be quite valuable. If your house does have a trial, I strongly recommend setting really clear expectations going in — timeline, likelihood of acceptance, what the house is looking for, and anything else that might be relevant. Do your best to judge if people coming in are equipped (financially, emotionally, logistically) to move again soon — if they’re not, there will be even more pressure for them to make this situation work and try to fit your mold of “ideal housemate”. It’s also important to frame the trial as “are you a good fit for this house?” and not “are you a good person to live with?” Let your new resident be the person they want to be, and encourage them to be that person elsewhere if they’re not what you’re looking for.

Desire for status can create toxic community environments. It’s a natural human instinct to want to be seen as cool, interesting, and impressive. But when it’s unchecked and collectively reinforced, communities can end up prioritizing their external image over their internal care for each other.

Drugs have a dark side. It’s not unusual for communities in the Bay Area to do drugs together. I’m not fundamentally opposed to this — drugs are great at facilitating connection and fun. But they can also lower inhibitions and make consent messier. I recently heard a story of someone who, shortly after moving into a house, joined their MDMA circle where she ended up being kissed by a housemate she didn’t want to kiss. If your house regularly does drugs where everyone participates, let people know this when they apply. Give people the chance to decide if that’s their vibe before they’re already there and having to make the uncomfortable decision between being in the out-group and being intoxicated when they don’t want to be. And yes, this applies to alcohol as well.

Have strategies for handling harm before it occurs. From what I’ve seen, the deepest harm is often caused not by an initial act but by the way people fail to respond appropriately when they’re told that the initial harm has been done. Be prepared to respond appropriately.

There are lots of ways to go about handling harm, and the strategy you use will likely depend on the specific scenario, but you can still have a general plan with options to consider. I would recommend that at a minimum you always have a clear way for people to report assaults to the house, e.g. to designated people who commit to following a process, and that you take reports seriously. You can find some sample processes here.

If you ever find yourself or your community moving in the direction of dismissing a report as not needing followup action, I highly encourage you to first bring in a mediator that is unbiased (i.e. not directly connected to the community, and ideally a professional if you can afford it) to talk to the involved parties and share their opinion.

Two mediator recommendations:

If you want to handle harm better without having to ask your friends to leave your communities, I recommend looking into Restorative Justice and Transformative Justice. It can be possible to build a shared understanding of how someone (or a community) caused harm and what they could do better, and then get them the support in making those changes. Restorative Justice (RJ) strives to restore relationships, offering tools to work towards repair, which is only possible when both parties are interested. Transformative Justice (TJ) looks at structural factors that contributed to harm, including community cultures and systems of power in our broader society.

In the story I linked to above, RJ isn’t currently an option because the author of the piece left the community and doesn’t want to interact with the situation anymore. TJ is still possible — the community in the story can reflect on what they would do differently next time, and the rest of us who participate in the broader network of community houses can ask ourselves how we can better prevent this kind of harm from occurring in the future.

These things require emotional labor, and often aren’t smooth or easy, but can be very powerful. The Alternative Justices project has many resources on this topic including this handbook. The Creative Interventions Toolkit seems full of relevant and helpful tools (though I haven’t read it yet), and I’ve been enjoying reading Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement which has real life examples of trying these strategies (not always smoothly!).

Sometimes people don’t want to do the emotional labor, lack the time or energy for it, can’t afford necessary professional help, or simply don’t have enough trust or safety for their labor to be able to bear fruit. In these situations, you can simply remove people from their communities when they’re accused of assault. You can also choose to not remove them, but know that each time harm happens (which might have been the case) and you don’t address it, you’re increasing the chances of that harm being repeated. The hard truth is that there’s usually no easy way out.

source: costello

I’ve caused harm and I will again. You’ve caused harm and you will again. The communities you’re in have caused harm and they will again. This is inevitable, but it’s possible to reduce the harm we cause and to handle it better when it comes up. I hope that this woman’s story and my reflections on it will inspire more people to prepare for when harm happens, reducing our collective pain and strengthening our communities.

Resources

This section was generously added by Zarinah Agnew, community home organizer and founder of the Alternative Justices Project.

thanks for reading <3 this was a post from evy's un-named community housing blog