The recent protests against systemic racism and individual racist acts sparked my thoughts about our relationship with causes. I have long seen abuse, racism, and all injustices as being related, coming from the same root of entitlement and prejudice.

Relationship means a connection, association, or involvement.  We can choose to relate to domination and control by standing up for ourselves, holding the line against being controlled. Sometimes we find that the abuse never really stops. When this happens, we feel sadness and anger, and ultimately, have to come to terms with how to respond. That was the subject of a previous blog post “Tit for Tat.”

Being Proud of Our Devotion

This post is about shifting our attitudes regarding the need to take a stand on domineering, coercive behavior. Beyond the justified anger and grief is a space for pride in the fact that we never give up on empowering ourselves. I remember one group member framing what her ex was doing as giving her gifts because his behavior was backfiring on him with the family court system. I see another gift. Their behavior is something that spurs us on to empower ourselves. We feel stronger from this position, though of course, we would prefer not to learn by this means.  

Those people who lose a loved one to an accident caused by a drunk driver and then devote themselves to prevention are engaging in a relationship with that cause. The same is true of those who lose someone due to gun violence and go on to join groups for gun control. When IPV survivors learn assertive ways to disengage from abusive partners’ manipulations and accusations, they engage in a firm relationship against coercive control.    

Like raising children, we do not say after the first year of sleepless nights, changing diapers, etc., okay I got through that, I’m done! Ridiculous to even think, right? The work we do with our children changes as they grow, but it never stops until they can live independently. And even then, we do not stop caring. If we are lucky, those relationships grow into mutually satisfying ones, and then eventually the tables turn and they are doing more caretaking of us. The relationship never ends.

Seeing that we can choose our relationship with intimate partner abuse shifts how we think about it. It moves us away from feeling like victims to feeling not only like survivors but thrivers. Our contributions to this relationship may remain personal, maintaining our boundaries with abusive people. Other times it expands to joining with others for larger societal changes.

Working Against All Oppression

Just like with intimate abuse, we need to recognize antiracist efforts are not something that we can “do” today and then rest on our laurels. We can’t forget about it. Blacks and other minorities certainly cannot. A legitimate complaint about majority folk is that we lose interest, we don’t keep up our efforts. This usually is because we do not feel affected by it. But in reality, we are. The results of racism affect whites in indirect but profound ways.

The problem lies in treating racism or partner abuse like a goal or task. We do our thing and say mission accomplished. I did that, I marched here, I spoke there. Then we often feel done. Many of us want to treat the coronavirus that way too. But racism, Covid, environmental crisis. IPV—all demand an ongoing approach. They are not something we can throw money at and be done. We cannot act and then forget about it. None of these are things we can accomplish in a short period of time. Sometimes helping professionals tick off training without looking deeply at how it applies to their work. Those who work with intimate partner violence movements know we need to continue our work. Survivors who feel safe know they have to continue saying “no” to coercion.

I see these causes as relationships that we work on the rest of our lives. A permanent part of life that we value and engage with. This does not mean we think the causes are hopeless or unattainable, but something to be cultivated.  

That is what we need with racism and intimate abuse, as well as the other big crises of our day. Not to see them as impossible, but as causes that we dedicate ourselves to. As a white person, I need to continue to educate myself and support antiracism, rather than depending upon my black friends to tell me what to do. They need us to see them fully, to see their realities and do what is right to value them as much as we do whites. We cannot give up.

Everyone needs to be against violence in whatever form it takes: intimate partner abuse, child abuse, racism, or any other injustice. This means learning about the experiences of those who suffer from it and what motivates those who use it. It means broadening the sphere of what violence means to include emotional abuse and microaggressions, those frameworks that support all forms of coercive control. It means increasing our empathy for how it affects victims, really taking it in. Much like many white people finally understood the plight of blacks after viewing the video of George Floyd.

What is required of our society is the acceptance that antiviolence work is never completed. It takes all of us to shift our society from one of domination to partnership values. It takes everyone to maintain it, not just the victims. We all are in a relationship with domination. The question is “what kind?”