Ejeris Dixon > Quotes

“I cherish the ways we have shown up for each other, and honor the ways we've failed and made mistakes. Our stories are sacred.”
― Ejeris Dixon, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

“When we define ourselves, the result is complexity. We are none of us one thing, neither good nor bad. We are complex surviving organisms. We do appalling things to each other, rooted in trauma. We survive, we learn.”
― Ejeris Dixon, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

“Through talking with my friend I began to think about the intensity of the rage TJ practitioners hold when the process doesn't go exactly how a survivor expects. And the anger and hatred is not just directed at TJ practitioners, but at TJ as a practice itself. There's a piece of capitalism in it. It feels like a terrible purchase. "I purchased a process, and you were supposed to give me salvation. This is not salvation. I hate you and I curse you and all of your generations." I'm not blaming survivors or support teams at all. It's just that we can't return people to their lives before trauma, or before violence, and that realization can feel devastating.”
― Ejeris Dixon, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

“First you hunger for the taste of a stranger, then your enemy, then anyone called a leader, then any small difference will do. Your hands become sharp and your words become sharp and the only move available, even with beloveds, is bloodletting.”
― Ejeris Dixon, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

“Instead of appealing to a fear of consequences, community accountability appeals to higher values and aligns self-interest with the collective good. In CI's limited experience, liberatory goals were required to guide the process, since pragmatism could lead to the use of coercion or threatened or real violence as temporary measures for assuring the stability and safety needed to make further steps possible However, the pervasiveness of punishment as a model for accountability and the association of the term "accountability" with retribution contributed to difficulties in moving beyond this mode of engagement. Thus, a practice such as banning, which makes a modicum of safety possible while mobilizing for a more engaged process, can become an end rather than a means. (Mimi Kim)”
― Ejeris Dixon, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

“It is absolutely true that people who harm people were also harmed. I know people sometimes don't want to hear that. I know that makes people mad, people feel like that's an excuse, whatever. But I, with every fiber of my being, the both/and harm and survivorship really sits with me all the time. Cause there's not one person I've worked with who harmed other people that was not also deeply and profoundly harmed themselves in some other context. (Mariame Kaba)”
― Ejeris Dixon, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

“I know for a fact that we can't heal or hurt alone. We must heal or hurt in relationship with other people. (Mariame Kaba)”
― Ejeris Dixon, Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement