Propagandhi

Safe Spaces, Sexual Assault, Restorative Justice: Thinking Out Loud

So, some­where deep down on my nev­er-end­ing laun­dry list of ideas to broach with fel­low humans has long been the top­ic of cre­at­ing ​“safe spaces” at shows. It was bumped up the list a notch or two a few months ago by a con­ver­sa­tion I had with Shaw­na Pot­ter of the amaz­ing Bal­ti­more band War On Women after a show we played togeth­er in LA where­in she sug­gest­ed to me there were more things our band could do from the stage to acknowl­edge the audi­ence mem­bers, specif­i­cal­ly women, get­ting clob­bered and pushed aside by the prover­bial dude-bros. It used to come easy, berat­ing the oafs and out­right bul­lies, stop­ping songs mid-cho­rus to make a spec­ta­cle of the spec­ta­cle, sanc­ti­mo­nious­ly send­ing the meat-heads on their way nev­er to lis­ten to the band or con­sid­er the con­cept of a safe-space ever again as a result. But, for bet­ter or for worse, I’m not that per­son any­more and with hind­sight, besides a fleet­ing, shal­low moment of ret­ri­bu­tion for the peo­ple tired of get­ting tram­pled at shows, it ulti­mate­ly changed nothing.

(Stream of con­scious­ness folks, I’m head­ing some­where with this )

More recent­ly, this same top­ic of safe spaces was bumped up my laun­dry list a whole lot more notch­es by a pub­licly made claim (in direct rela­tion to the con­tro­ver­sy stirred up in the wake of our pod­cast dis­cus­sion with the very won­der­ful Melis­sa Mar­tin…and pos­si­ble trig­ger warn­ing) that Pro­pa­gand­hi had con­tributed to cre­at­ing unsafe spaces at our shows in Win­nipeg by allow­ing a man that we knew had com­mit­ted a sex­u­al assault in 1997 to play in bands that were sched­uled in open­ing slots. (In fair­ness to us, by the time these bands played any open­ing slots at our Win­nipeg shows, it was the under­stand­ing of the 3 peo­ple in our band/​crew that knew about the orig­i­nal assault, that some sort of com­mu­ni­ty mediation/​restora­tive jus­tice process had tak­en place between the sur­vivor and offend­er, but we now know that we were both mis­in­formed and in ret­ro­spect, naïve to have tak­en 3^rd par­ty infor­ma­tion at face val­ue. I’ll say this: it was cer­tain­ly con­ve­nient to believe it and I’ll own that). What­ev­er the case, it hap­pened: a man who com­mit­ted a sex­u­al assault was effec­tive­ly shel­tered from account­abil­i­ty and we neg­li­gent­ly con­tributed to cre­at­ing an unsafe space for a sur­vivor. Clear­ly regret­table. I sin­cere­ly apol­o­gize for that on behalf of Propagandhi.

I’m encour­aged and cau­tious­ly hope­ful to now learn that both afore­men­tioned par­ties are cur­rent­ly con­sid­er­ing pro­fes­sion­al 3^rd par­ty medi­a­tion to hope­ful­ly find some long-await­ed — is ​“clo­sure” even the right word? I don’t know. Bal­ance? I guess account­abil­i­ty is the prime goal. Like I say, cau­tious­ly hopeful.

So why am I telling you this? Well, I guess what’s on my mind as a result is ​“what now?” What do we do with this? How do we make this expe­ri­ence use­ful in edu­cat­ing our­selves and pre­vent­ing future occurences? I’m not total­ly sure to be hon­est, but as some­one who believes in what I under­stand to be the prin­ci­ples of restora­tive jus­tice and that sur­vivors have a right to feel safe, I feel like it’s appro­pri­ate to at least try so 

Here’s the ques­tion I pose to you all:

What do we — I mean all of us, but specif­i­cal­ly musi­cians here in the city of Win­nipeg — what do we do in the future, to pre­vent and address the shel­ter­ing and enabling of offenders/​perpetrators/​abusers? What do we do to cre­ate safer spaces? How do we help sup­port sur­vivors? what are our oblig­a­tions in try­ing to restore bal­ance and peace in the wake of an assault? How do we nav­i­gate all this with no pro­fes­sion­al train­ing as coun­sel­lors or mediators?

I have some thoughts just thoughts, mind you, not answers. Most­ly con­fused, half-formed, per­haps some­times malformed and often oscil­lat­ing thoughts that I cau­tious­ly explore with the women in my life and my sur­ro­gate-broth­ers in Pro­pa­gand­hi but I think at this point, at the risk of appear­ing to sur­rep­ti­tious­ly take a step back towards the fire exit under cov­er of a ques­tion left hang­ing dra­mat­i­cal­ly in the air — I do pose these ques­tions to my fel­low Win­nipeg­gers and musi­cians in all earnest­ness and respect­ful­ly pro­vide the fol­low­ing links (as intro­duc­to­ry and imper­fect as they may be) for your consideration:

Con­sent

• Con­sent­Ed
• Loveis­Re­spect
• Sex­u­al Assault and Vio­lence Prevention

What to Do

• How To Sup­port a Friend
• Sex­u­al Assault How To Guide
• How Do I Sup­port Some­one Who Has Been Sex­u­al­ly Assaulted?

Restora­tive Justice

• Restora­tive Justice
• Restora­tive Jus­tice Prin­ci­ples and Values
• Abo­rig­i­nal Restora­tive Jus­tice Remedies

If you’re a fan of what we’ve done over the years, I real­ly encour­age you — like, as in grab-you-by-the-shoul­ders-and-look-straight-into-your-eyes kin­da thing — to check this stuff out and take it back to your spaces and get the dis­cus­sion going in your own cir­cles. We live in a misog­y­nis­tic soci­ety. This stuff is per­va­sive. I guar­an­tee you’re going to encounter it at some point if you haven’t already. Take it from some­one who has learned the hard way, for every­body’s sake, you bet­ter have some idea how to respond.

Look Over Here! Look Over Here! Look Over Here Dixie Land!

Greet­ings fel­low corn niblets in a galac­tic ordure. How are you this fine fall morn­ing? What’s that? You’re hid­ing in your home, con­cerned about an immi­nent attack from var­i­ous­ly acronym-ed ter­ror­ists? Geez, aren’t we all? Well, if you’re hid­ing some­where in the south­ern Unit­ed States, make sure to ven­ture out from your spi­der-hole in late Decem­ber for some total­ly over-the-top fun and debauch­ery. That’s right folks, we’ll be putting the Jesus Fuck­ing Christ on a Uni­cy­cle in Christ­mas this year by bar­rel­ing through Texas and Flori­da with our pals War On Women and RVIVR. Check out the dates here!

Propagandhi, Can You Handle This? RVIVR, Can You Handle This? War on Women, Can You Handle This? I don't think you can handle this. (woo)

hel­lo fel­low slime with­in a rot­ting cos­mic log, how are you this morn­ing? Y’know, if i were you and lived in mid-east­ern Cana­da or the Norther­ly East­ern Con­tigu­ous Unit­ed States, i would start shuf­fling my social cal­en­dar to make room for the events we have sched­uled to occur in August of this year (2014 if i’m not mis­tak­en). The musi­cal troupes known as RVIVR and War On Women will be join­ing us in 8 sequen­tial­ly orga­nized live engage­ments that will fea­ture us bash­ing your fuck­ing skulls in with the son­ic equiv­a­lent of a weaponized god­damn pow­er-wash­er. So grab the kids and tell grand­ma to shine up her best set of teeth cuz shit is just about to get real (in a cou­ple months).

What Do California, Australia and Potemkin City Limits All Have In Common?

they all SUCK. haha just kidding. 

Hel­lo fel­low self-anni­hi­lat­ing ding­bats of the plan­et earth! how are you this rainy Win­nipeg morning? 

Have you heard the Good News? Jesus is com­ing back! It’s true! He heard about our upcom­ing show at The Obser­va­to­ry in San­ta Ana and he said to him­self ​“Self, let’s get down off this old hick­o­ry stick and kick us some MAJOR anus!” You should come too.

Unless you live in Aus­tralia of course. In that case, STAY in Aus­tralia and we’ll come over to see you in 2 weeks, ok? ok, settled. 

Oh, did you also know that Fat Wreck Chords repressed Potemkin City Lim­its on vinyl, which means i can no longer sell old copies on ebay for $100 a pop? Doh! Go git it l’il doggie!

Tour Dates! West Coast! Colorado! Go Mental!

Hel­lo fel­low instel­lar flot­sam, how have you been? We have some good news for you: Jord is not preg­nant. Also, we are hit­ting the road to come vis­it some of you in Feb­ru­ary and March while Beave has time off from his archery degree. Even rad­der is that we’ll be hit­ting the road with The Flat­lin­ers and our sisters/​broth­ers in arms War On Women. it’ll be total­ly killer. Click on the ​“SHOWS” link above or just look over there — — >

Yes, we have friends. Ok, *internet* friends.

hel­lo my euro­pean neigh­bors! while you’re wait­ing for us to come back over there, why not go check out our buds The Rebel Spell who are cur­rent­ly dri­ving around your con­ti­nent being the best cur­rent­ly exist­ing punk band from Cana­da that isn’t us. Haha. Check out these tour dates and go sup­port them. Tell them Chris sent you. Each time they hear that, they owe me a beer. 

2^nd Leg: Remain­ing UK Dates Nov 6 — Bris­tol @ The Red Lion w/​Kilnaboy Nov 7 — Der­by @ The Hairy Dog Nov 8 — Sheffield @ River­side w/​The Restarts Nov 9 — Leeds @ Tem­ple of Doom w/​The Restarts Nov 10 — Lon­don @ Grosvenor (Stock­well) w/​The Restarts 3^rd Leg (France/​Holland w/​Antil­lec­tu­al) Nov 13 — Paris @ La Miroi­terie Nov 14 — Schwäbisch Gmünd @ Esper­an­za Nov 15 — Dijon @ Deep Inside Nov 16 — Blois @ Bureau Blois Nov 17 — Lille @ L’Im­pos­ture 4^th Leg (Ger­many w/​Span­ner) Nov 18 — TBA! Com­ing soon! Nov 19 — Ham­burg @ Gängevier­tel Nov 20 — Pots­dam @ Black Fleck Nov 21 — Dres­dan @ Jugend­tanz Nov 22 — Giessen @ AK44 Nov 23 — Düs­sel­dorf @ Linkes Cen­trum Also, anoth­er inter­net bud­dy of ours, Jamie Kil­stein, has a new com­e­dy record out. He’s a fun­ny guy. A veg­an, pro-fem­i­nist, jiu-jit­su lov­ing, tyran­ny-hat­ing fun­ny guy. Check it out. I don’t think he’ll buy me beers though. sad face.