my resignation

below is an edited draft of my resignation from the domestic and sexual violence center in olympia.

Dear Friends and Co-workers,

I am writing to resign from my position as Prevention Education and Training Specialist. At this point I believe that the potential of _______ to be willing to engage in the work of deep prevention has yet to be realized.

I sense an enormous resistance from the agency to be willing to challenge the dynamics of violence (i.e. power, control, fear, and exploitation) at every level. And I see this not as a problem of a few bad individuals, but rather the result of a harmful system that forces good individuals into acting out dynamics they don’t believe in and would never consider otherwise. That is to say that the system in which this agency is organizationally engaged, is such that, to survive, the good and lovable people within the agency are coerced to use the dynamics of power and control, fear and exploitation.

It is a systemic problem with the non-profit industrial complex. I firmly believe every hurtful dynamic that I have experienced at this agency is rooted in the problematic system that the State has forced non-profits into through the 501(c)(3) structure. I also believe that this structure has been created by the State to control social movements and therefore the complete eradication of systems of oppression is impossible if solely led by non-profit organizations. This structure demands hierarchal wielding of power under the pretense of that being synonymous with leadership. Leadership through power dynamics, control, fear and exploitation is mimicking the patriarchy that is battering the women, men, and trans people we serve. Female directorship is not feminist management.

The constant marginalization of strong individuals’ voices with radical politics has been the modus operandi of ________ and has been happing longer than most of the current staff has been here. And how could this be any different? I don’t think that if can be different with the current systems in place. To create radical internal change would require radical action externally towards the end of violence and oppression, which would require the resistance of all perpetrators of violence. It would also require a real analysis of what violence is. Gandhi is quoted as saying,” Poverty is the worst kind of violence.” Not providing access to comprehensive reproductive health care is the collective re-raping of women, and false and misleading sexual education is the rape of young people. Because isn’t that what rape is anyway, a non-consensual act meant to remove autonomy and individual power? Rape is not about sex. We know that, we teach that! Power and Control, fear and exploitation are the roots of this violence and they are the roots of poverty, the roots of restricted access to healthcare, and they are the roots of the miseducation of young people today The biggest perpetrator of all of these forms of violence is the State. My point is to work to undo violence, we are asked to examine the roots of our culture and resistance to violence at its root means facing the perpetrator who happens to be our biggest funder. So now we have a conundrum. Now we are reliant on the one thing that is the biggest cause of what we are working to undo and we are required contractually to tell them what we are doing, why and how.

And they require they we manage that money and the people who use that money in a way that perpetrates the violence itself so that no matter how much we do the work in our community on some level we are traumatizing ourselves, keeping each other in a state of crisis and preventing any real community changing work from being achieved in the long run. I have seen this acted out with many staff from the time I was hired.

So for these reasons, I am resigning and continuing my work in other ways.