Cesar Chavez and the Continuous Cycles of Harm

We are three women. Two Chicanas, and one white and Jewish. Two elders and one in her 30s. We, like you, are outraged by the recent revelations of Cesar Chavez’s abuse of girls and his rape of Dolores Huerta.

All three of us are connected to City College of San Francisco’s Project SURVIVE, the school’s award winning, nationally recognized (Ms., Spring 2009) sexual violence prevention and healthy relationship promotion program. One of us founded the program, and one served on its Advisory Committee. One of us is currently enrolled in the program’s “Politics of Sexual Violence” course where students investigate the political, social, and psychological causes of interpersonal violence. They focus on sexual harassment, child abuse, domestic violence, acquaintance rape, and rape as a tool of war, enslavement, and genocide. Many of the students enrolled in this course and its companion peer education training course are survivors of one or more kinds of abuse. They learn how to heal and how not to blame themselves for what happened to them. All of them, whether survivor or not, learn how to hold perpetrators accountable. The healing and accountability processes address layers of pain.

Kimberlé Crenshaw charted the complexities of multiple identities when she originated the concept of “intersectionality.” Her work led to the “interlocking systems of oppression” analysis that Project SURVIVE uses. Racism, sexism, heterosexism, transphobia, ableism, classism, anti-Arabism/Islamophobia, antisemitism, xenophobia, ageism, and adultism. The most extreme forms of these oppressions use violence as a tool. Students learn if you only fight one of them, you lose the battle for all of them because they are linked by systemic violence. The ruling elite uses its institutions to pit oppressed groups against each other to distract us from the economic crimes they commit against all of us.

None of us is immune to what some call “evil.” Some of us seek spiritual solace to understand the cruelties humans can inflict on each other. Some consider political, social, and psychological theories. Paramount for many is the unfair and unequal distribution of resources.

Though poor and oppressed people sometimes commit inhumane acts, there is a difference between a small ruling elite and the rest of us. The 99%. Not perfect, not pure. Not exempt from cruelty. But exploited and ravaged. What might happen if there were equal access to resources? That goal is central to the farmworkers movement.

We knew Chavez was a flawed leader even before these abuses were revealed. He co-opted the Filipino farm workers union, made compromises with people in power, and did not support the rights of undocumented farm workers.

Now we know Chavez used his “organizing power” to sexually assault women. Nothing excuses the sexual abuse he committed. Nothing excuses the systemic violence held in place by a patriarchal order. Top down, and male dominant, expressing itself differently in different cultures, the patriarchy hurts all genders. Anyone can be sexually abused. Anyone can do harm. But since most of us are outraged at the stories of abuse, why can’t we end these cycles of violence?

We would argue that child abuse (sexual, physical, emotional) sits at the foundation of the patriarchy. Abused children have three options as adults: to resist; to abuse self (think about addictions) and others; to become “good soldiers.” Many abused people become good at following orders. They put their heads down and don’t fight back against injustice. Because they have such low self-worth due to the abuse they endured as children from which they never healed, they do not have the will to resist authoritarian rulers, or even bad bosses and greedy landlords. Sometimes resisters and good soldiers are also abusers.

Chavez, not a “good soldier” but instead a resister, tragically, also made that second choice when he abused girls and women, keeping the patriarchy intact.

Racist stereotypes against Black and brown men abound in the United States. Lynchings that used false rape accusations as brutal rationale are a shameful historical fact. What happens, however, when a man like Chavez, targeted by racism and economic oppression, does commit sexual abuse?

There have been good responses from the farmworker community. Cancellations or reconfigurations of Cesar Chavez Day events. A statue covered. Name changes considered. Movement work acknowledged. Dolores Huerta honored.

But what about the future? We ask you to look at transformative justice. A step beyond restorative justice, it seeks not only to repair but to prevent. Through education. Through restructuring and redistribution of resources. Through overturning the power elite and the patriarchal order that has infected all our cultures.

Now, more than ever, we must pry open the Epstein files and hold publicly accountable the rich and powerful men at the top of the patriarchal order, responsible for those documented abuses, as we would Chavez if he were alive. If we address the harm done to the survivors while holding abusers accountable, the patriarchy’s foundation will begin to crumble.

The post Cesar Chavez and the Continuous Cycles of Harm appeared first on CounterPunch.org.