Original photography by Isabella Mendes, image editing by Natasha Coulis

Deconstructing and critiquing the Court of Social Justice and “accountability”

Plus, a case study: Jay Manicom

Trigger warning: This piece of writing discusses sexual assault of children and adults, and describes an example of racist judgments towards Indigenous people.

There are unrepentant people who have done things so egregious that the harm is self-evident by naming their behaviour.

Jian Ghomeshi. Donald Trump. Brock Turner. Harvey Weinstein.

We know they did the things they did because multiple witnesses who didn’t know each other came forward at risk to themselves. (I’m oversimplifying here for brevity’s sake because I expect majority agreement and I dismiss any refutation as being silly.) They deny what they have done and therefore have made zero amends. There’s no repentance here, no reconciliation, no restitution. Nothing but a stench so thick it could make birds fall out of the sky.

As far as I’m concerned, each of these men can be thrown into a volcano. Until they repent, I’m not convinced their lives have enough worth. You’re not going to find me writing some kumbaya piece about how even these men are humans and they don’t deserve violent scary deaths because this goes against my values of love and peace and non-violence and human dignity. Some people…

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Natasha Coulis, Strategy-minded non-fiction writer

How to strategically survive and thrive in a high-conflict, low-trust world. Focus: Critical thinking, relationships, politics, relationships, motherhood.