Getting Our Cake: Accountability in the Movement

The impetus of this inaugural post was the Chicago city budget that passed on Nov 24, 2020. I think it’s such a pivotal moment to reflect on accountability in our movement work. How we, on the Left, respond to this moment will shape a lot of the politics in our city for years to come.

I’ll start with acknowledging that it feels a little weird to be writing a post on accountability when I’m not an expert. I’m still learning and trying to figure out how to practice this value in a consistent and grounded way. I often think about the lessons of Emergent Strategy including that “what we pay attention to grows” and that “we become what we practice.” In this moment, it feels really important to collectively pay attention to accountability so that we can embody it in every aspect of our movement work.

Background

Before I get into ideas I have for actions we take to center accountability, I want to zoom out. This summer, across the nation, we saw the latest iteration of an uprising fueled by continued violence on Black bodies and a further entrenchment in austerity politics in the face of a deadly pandemic. Here in Chicago, many of the actions included demands for CPAC (Civilian Police Accountability Council). That demand wasn’t new and goes back to at least 2013. Seven long years later, it felt like a new and different opening. Something about this moment launched abolitionist politics into the mainstream followed by both agreement amongst some who were learning about it for the first time, as well as misunderstandings and attempts by some to water down a philosophy and world view that so many have spent their life’s work developing and practicing. Ultimately abolition isn’t vague or a utopian view of the world. It requires a daily practice. It’s at once a desire for systemic change and individual change and everything in between. It’s been refreshing that so many folks who wouldn’t label themselves as leftists or abolitionists now agree with the argument that policing and carceral systems can’t be reformed. But, as so many have pointed out, you have to start with the cop in your head and interrogate how you may be using carceral logic in your day to day.

The same is true with accountability: it is great so many people believe in accountability of systems (CPAC as an example) but when there is a question of how we pull these high-level ideals into the organizational or interpersonal scale, it becomes more difficult to navigate. Part of that is a skills gap and part of it is that it isn’t yet a regular practice in so many spaces. And of course it’s a lot more complicated when you are dealing with emotions, past histories, and interpersonal dynamics with people that you share space and build community with. It’s a lot easier to assume that our aligned values will help us avoid harm so why make it awkward by bringing up accountability and making a plan and practice for it? Well, if we want to see accountability in these massive systems that are so resistant to it, then we need to start with ourselves and organizations/individuals that see accountability as a positive, in order to model it, practice it, and make it more accessible so that eventually it becomes clearer to understand transformative justice for folks who can’t understand a world without prisons or policing. This gets at one of the Emergent Strategy principles of fractals.

What is accountability?

It might be helpful to back up to create a shared understanding of accountability. There are many resources out there that explain community accountability and transformative justice better than I can but a helpful framework I want to use comes from Mia Mingus who lays out these four components of accountability: 1) self-reflection, 2) apology, 3) repair, and 4) changed behavior. I highly recommend going to Mia’s workshops when offered but a few takeaways that feel relevant to remember in this moment are that:

• Apology and repair may not always be possible but self-reflection and changed behavior can still happen.
• True accountability has to be consensual.
• Repair doesn’t necessarily mean restoring a relationship to where it was before the harm/conflict.

The other important point about accountability rooted in a transformative justice approach is to ask not only how to respond to harm when it happens but also how to prevent it. Often when we think about accountability, the former is the image that comes to mind. An accountability practice that only responds to harm after it happens, while important, is a recipe for burnout. It’s important to move beyond that interventional accountability and also explore a proactive anticipatory accountability practice. Think about fire drills at school. We have them so that in the event of a real fire, there is less chaos and potential for someone getting hurt because everyone has a shared understanding of the process to get out of the building. That knowledge and muscle memory was cultivated long before it was needed so that it doesn’t feel as new or confusing in the moment. It’s still scary and uncomfortable, of course, but it’s worth investing in. Right now in the city, we’re having conversations about both interventional and anticipatory accountability but it might be helpful to separate them.

Interventional accountability: Reflections on the budget vote

In my experience, whenever accountability is brought up it’s most often at a very high level (think: institutions) or at a very micro inter-personal level (think: sexual assault). In those cases it can feel very clear to point to what the harm is and who caused it but in other scenarios it can be less clear. Lack of clarity can stem from a more subtle form of harm or maybe it’s not harm that we traditionally think of but rather a lack of a culture of care. (I can probably write a whole separate post about creating cultures of care but a helpful starting point is to try to imagine mutual aid outside of the context of crisis response and also thinking about the support mechanisms we create in our community (/) organizations.)

This budget vote is also complicated in terms of harm because both sides are painting different portraits of harm. The no voters point to the harm this austerity budget creates in a moment of pandemic-exasperated economic crisis, which movement has been explaining throughout this year (and more). The yes voters are interpreting their vote as harm reduction by touting the “wins” of elimination of layoffs (which rightfully has had a lot of questions around the circumstances) and the addition of a non-law enforcement mental health response pilot alongside a police co-responder pilot (which has a lot of uncertainty around its implementation and possibility for success). And beyond the harm of the budget’s impact, there’s also the harm created through the fracture in movement. This is the most united and loud that movement and the broader city have been around a budget vote (at least in my memory) and so it is extra painful to have had such a clear and resounding call ignored. It is an immediate break in trust and signals a lack of willingness to trust in one another to stand firm together even in the face of uncertainty of what would have happened without votes traded to the Mayor. Instead this complicates the path to victory in future budget votes, non-budget battles, and critically 2023 (which will hopefully be what my next post is about).

Rather than recap the votes and arguments of what was possible strategically, I’m just going to focus on the process to stay on this theme of accountability. And I’m going to focus on Andre Vasquez (40th ward) and Maria Hadden (49th ward) because I think there was more vocal disappointment with them and because I haven’t paid as much attention to the politics of Sue Sadlowski-Garza (10th ward) and Mike Rodriguez (22nd ward). There’s an interesting contrast between the two of them in terms of how their bases are attempting to hold them accountable and what stage of accountability they seem to be in.

With Ald. Hadden, she has held two public meetings after the vote to debrief what happened. While at times it felt like a lot of defensiveness, there also seemed to be the seedlings of apology and ideas for changed behavior. There were aspects of the apology that were not adequate (ex. naming the impact) or unclear (ex. whether there was remorse/feeling that the vote itself was a mistake) which will make the repair work harder. However, holding the space in a relatively quick fashion and having a decent amount of transparency are positives that we can take away from this example. Ultimately, it is difficult to judge how likely the repair of relationships and rebuilding of trust will be, in part due to the politics at play and also because those things take time, evidence, and stronger commitment to changed behavior. After watching these debrief sessions, the added difficulty is also a fundamental difference of opinion in terms of strategy. I learned a good amount of new things from the sessions but also drew different conclusions on what would have been the appropriate strategy. Based on the chat, others overwhelmingly did too. The disagreements on strategy are so deep rooted in future voting decisions that it seems like it could be an uphill battle to rebuild trust.

With Ald. Vasquez, to my knowledge there have been no debriefs after his vote (or at least they haven’t been public/accessible which is a whole other conversation) and it feels like there haven’t been genuine attempts at apology or repairing harm. Unlike in Ald. Hadden’s case, there was a swift, clear, and public statement from his (endorsed) organizational base. Based on the reaction (and even just looking at the likes and retweets), it’s very clear that people appreciated DSA’s statement. I did too. Later I noticed in a lot of the replies that many were cheering this on because they saw it as DSA holding Ald. Vasquez accountable. Honestly that part made me uncomfortable because it felt dangerous for people to view a (slightly) punitive call-out as accountability. To be clear, I think the statement was necessary. Especially in lieu of in-person forums where people can process things like this, I think this statement was cathartic and helped channel a lot of in-the-moment anger. Additionally it helped reaffirm people’s commitment to DSA as an organization that will defend its values and that is important in terms of membership and trust in organization. So it was good for DSA to make that statement. However, it’s an important opportunity for political education to be clear that that statement is not what accountability looks like, especially if we are advocating for accountability at the systemic level. Having said that, I think there is still opportunity for DSA to practice accountability and assume they will, in time. I see the statement as decisive action that is hopefully just the beginning in a broader accountability process and quicker future accountability even with less high-profile offenses (as the letter itself mentions towards the end).

Anticipatory accountability: Actions moving forward

We’re at a really interesting point in time where the yes vote alders that movement helped elect are in office for 2.5 more years. That’s 2.5 more years of budget and other key votes for which we will have to work together in some fashion. And beyond that, while many hot takes following the vote alluded to it, accountability is not about discarding people. So even if we want to, we can’t and shouldn’t throw these alders away.

However at this point it feels pretty safe to say, that after this level of betrayal to movement, we can’t restore these relationships to their original state either. So the question becomes: how do we transform our relationships with them and what does that look like? I’m not exactly sure the right answer to that and hope we can create space to brainstorm that collectively, across organizations, in the near future.

Here are some of my initial ideas on actions we can take that can help proactively create a culture of accountability and make it less tempting for electeds to break with movement:

• Ask questions — Movement put in the work for this budget vote repeatedly, from turnout in surveys and public comments to political education and pressure conversations. All that effort in the face of so much else demanding our attention in the world right now resulted in these alders feeling the pressure, as evidenced by their hedging while casting yes votes. Many said that they didn’t like some of the budget’s outcomes but would work to make it better. So an immediate next step is to have IPOs and city-wide organizations start to organize visits to ward nights to ask exactly how they plan to do better. Ask what they plan to do very specifically, put it in writing, and make clear that we will be watching for follow-through (despite subsequent votes being less high-profile than the budget vote). For example, after watching Ald. Hadden’s budget debrief, it became very clear that the promises of the non-law enforcement pilot are very vague. There weren’t many specifics committed to by the Mayor’s team and the additional funding, if it comes, is slated to come from CARES funds. Promising to do better is good but we’ll have to watch to see what happens.
• Create more opportunities for political education and research — I joke sometimes about how much I’ve learned on Twitter. One example of that is about how city council works. Maybe I have curated a good list of nerdy activists and journalists to follow but it is cool to see the knowledge sharing that happens while live-tweeting the city council meetings. How can we more intentionally cultivate and document those learnings so we can better understand what’s happening? How can we dive deeper so that we can brainstorm procedural strategies to win more? How can we understand the rules so that we don’t get boxed in and know where to direct our pressure and anger? On that last point in particular for example, I don’t know what would have happened if the Mayor couldn’t pass the budget. What would have been the move and how is our movement helping alders navigate that? And beyond that, I think there were a lot of learnings for new movement alders in these first 18 months around how to write and put forth a bill, how to navigate committee hearings and the politics that come with that, etc. So how can we share those lessons not only with future movement electeds but also to the broader organizing community trying to engage in this process? Our alders don’t have the same capacity that the Mayor’s team has so how can we best support them in research, strategy, and public messaging? It’ll be important to identify the gaps, find new opportunities for political education, and build up a research arm. There are good examples of all of these in the city but they can always be strengthened.
• Show the receipts — Oftentimes when election season comes around you see various organizations put together scorecards on votes. What if we had a live, real-time scorecard? Electeds might try to hide or defend bad votes but what if we made it so easy for people to follow along that they couldn’t? What if we paired that with political education so that we don’t stay angry in our bubbles and more people understood the impact? We can make every vote feel like it has as many eyeballs as the budget vote? That would make it easier on ourselves during elections. They say you need to interact with a voter seven times to make an impression but why limit ourselves to just election season? There is power in numbers and it is valuable to win more people over to our side, including at the moment of key votes. For the record, this also applies for alders that are doing good things. We need to be better at publicizing that so people know how much our alders do. I’m not talking potholes; there is a real undervaluing of alders’ legislative role and it is vital for us to change that. It’s been hard to change because it’s a lot easier for neighbors to understand and see and feel that pothole. If we keep a record of people’s votes, actions, and rhetoric that is easy to navigate and understand, it will make it easier for neighbors to see and feel that impact and ultimately for us to kick them out or defend their seats (depending on what ward you live in).
• Make the implicit explicit — For those that engage in electoral organizing, it can be exhausting. I think that exhaustion is very palpable in this moment and amplifies the feeling of betrayal. The resources we gave alders to elect them were based on a promise and expectation of remaining aligned on platform items. But we know that people sometimes govern differently. So what if we stop trading in work for promises and focus on creating a little more certainty? During election season a big focus is winning endorsements and mobilizing members of your organization to volunteer for/donate to a candidate. The idea here is to adjust our endorsement processes to incorporate accountability. Ask questions about how a candidate would consult with the organization before a key vote, how they would handle a disagreement in strategy, how the elected official benefits from your organization in between elections, what the level of tolerance is for breaking ranks, how they would like to engage in accountability practices if they are needed, etc. Make it collaborative, specific, measurable, and consensual. Truthfully, it’ll probably weed out some candidates but that’s for the better. It’s tempting to be able to claim a winning elected official but the point of endorsements is to try to further your vision as an organization. Prioritize intentional change over highly visible wins.
• Navigate coalition building when building campaigns — Thinking about accountability between an elected and an organization is important but electeds are endorsed and aided by lots of different organizations. What if organizations disagree on strategy? Who does an alder listen to? What is the role of organizations in collaborating and working with each other? What does it mean for us when we have to work with each other on a different campaign if there is resentment from the past? The left is growing everyday but is still small and can’t afford to get smaller. 2020 has been an interesting year on what works and what doesn’t work with coalitions and it is a real opportunity for us to get creative about solving our capacity gaps.
• Start with yourself — This one might be cheesy but gets at my earlier point about fractals and making accountability a daily practice. At Allied Media Conference this summer, one of the panelists shared an example of a bubbling conflict of roommates not doing dishes as an example of small ways conflict can turn into resentment and challenged the audience to ask themselves:

“What is a conflict that you currently have that if not addressed could turn into more violence or an instance of harm or that animosity can be carried into the future and what can you do today to reclaim that conflict and approach it in a way that is holding care, self-determination, and abolitionist values instead of embracing logic of the state?”

It’s important to not only to practice initiating accountability when we are the ones causing conflict/harm but also to get to know ourselves: How do we react to conflict? What type of apology resonates when we have been harmed? Where does tension live in our bodies, how does that manifest, and how can we ask for support when we notice this? This applies at the organizational practices level too: Does our organization have a plan for harassment? What are our accessibility practices? How do we keep people’s data safe?

• Be loud about your values — This one I added to the list after learning more about the negotiations and backroom deals for this budget. I knew it’s not pretty to see how the sausage gets made but there was something that felt different hearing about how certain alders were iced out and the play-by-play of negotiations. “Giving away” her vote was a sticking point in the debrief Ald. Hadden hosted and was a striking to hear in a public forum in the first person. Hearing those details made it clear what a divide and conquer strategy leveraging 11th hour offers can be. I’d encourage us all, but especially electeds, to make it a point to push back in tense moments with something like “I need to think about this” or “I need to consult X.” Of course it can be scary but creating space is helpful. It’s similar to negotiating a job’s salary where there is a sense of urgency created to agree on a number but most times it is artificial and signals bad faith. The fear is that the job (or in the budget example the “win”) will be taken away if you can’t be decisive. But most of the time that won’t happen and even if it does that signals something much larger. In the budget case, if the Mayor’s team somehow had rescinded the offer, it would have then been very easy to paint the mayor as the villain without creating a rift in movement’s trust. It’s hard to undo but vital to make things more inclusive. Which is related to another key question to ask ourselves: “who isn’t in this room and how can I bring them into this conversation?” which applies both to alders negotiating on behalf of others and as individuals in our organizational work.

Some of these strategies might work and others won’t but we have to start trying different approaches to ensuring a united front before the next key vote or election. Thinking about this through the lens of (anticipatory) accountability is something to think about both within our organizations and interpersonal relationships. Getting comfortable with accountability will take time and making it a regular practice will take effort but the aftermath of this budget vote has made it clear this work is vital.