Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

We also have to stop acting like saying that somebody can’t be in a space is disposing of them. First and foremost, asking someone who has caused harm not to be in a space, particularly where the survivor would be, is actually a consequence of the action that they took that was harmful. It’s a consequence. It is not a punishment. A punishment would be taking this person’s liberty and locking them in a cage for three years, or a month, or ten days, because of the actions that they took. We are not taking people’s liberty through CA. We are just not. The idea of disposability in my mind is an idea that applies to the prison-industrial complex. OK? That’s it. It is not boundaries. It is not a sense of you are not allowed to do this here. It is not, you know, people say things like, “You can’t ban people.” Well, yes we can. If folks do the same thing over and over and over again, and refuse to take accountability for that, and don’t want to learn, they can actually be banned from a particular space.