Thread by @wmnjoya

This is a terrible story and if it's true that the perpetrator got off with a 10K bail, then justice was not served.

brightkenyanews.com/gbv-activist-w…

But I also would like to point out the violence with which this story was drawn to my attention. I had not heard of the story, but this tweep drew it to my attention by suggesting that I had not said a thing because the violence was not perpetrated by a man.

The tweep was gloating, using the tone of "aha! I caught you being a hypocrite." The possibility that I had not seen the story, rather than that I saw it and chose to keep quiet, did not occur to this tweep.

I am horrified twice. First by the extreme violence against the victim, caught on camera, and then being denied the chance to empathize with the victim with this "I caught you!" bullying. I had to avoid the story until my anger subsided so that I can focus on the victim.

Our first responsibility to victims of injustice is to respect their humanity and call for justice. It is not to use their pain to score points. This callousness only feeds the violence because perpetrators know that we the public will be fighting each other and forget justice.

In a traumatized, capitalist society like ours, there is a strong current in the Kenyan public to look away from victims of violence and instead fight with observers. This is because looking at victims necessarily means that we must do something, and we don't want responsibility.

By their very pain, victims are a sign that we must change the status quo, because it is not tenable. This is what the noise following violence is about. It's a way of saying "it doesn't matter that this system is injuring people. We must keep it."

Kenya has a deeply entrenched madharau for those who are lower in the social hierarchy of class and gender. We know how women are forced to work in homes of the middle class and exploited in terms of low pay and violence. Eva Kasaya wrote her experience. wandianjoya.com/reviews/tale-o…

So this thing we do, fighting over blame like it is something to be proud of, is a signal of our trauma that has produced a callousness, where we are more concerned about keeping systems than changing the systems because they hurt people.