Learning to Exhale
By: creared by Leila Raven with art by Emulsify
Publisher: Leila Raven
Published: 2021
Place of publication: [New York, NY?]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 59
Subjects: Restorative justice; Rape; Blacks; Communists; Caribbean Americans; Sexual minorities; Offset printing; Specimens; African Americans; Social conditions; Social conflict; Zines
Description: CW: Rape, SA  In Learning to Exhale, Leila Raven foregrounds the barriers to accountability for gender-based violence in organizing spaces. With a focus on rape allegations within the Commune Magazine Collective, Raven utilizes personal experiences and thoughts to reflect on the roles of activists and organizers alike in building safer organizing spaces. This zine is a resource for survivors who reject carceral systems and who seek safety and healing from abuse in organizing spaces.  Raven emphasizes the pervasive nature of gender-based violence in organizing spaces with a strong emphasis on centering survivor demands and transformative justice. Tweets from the #NoPlatformFor Rapists campaign, flower illustrations, and magazine cutout letters are interspersed throughout, with royal blue subheadings separating chapters and entries; the front cover title is written out in collaged magazine cutout letters as well.

Keywords: kaleidoscopic justice, AK Press, Commune Magazine collective, cancel culture, power, patterns, language, accountability, healing, survival, protection, empathy, reciprocity, binaries, praxis, transformative justice, response
Notes: Cover title.

Printed in color from a pdf.

This zine was made during the COVID-19 pandemic, but is not explicitly about the virus.

Freedoms and restrictions are not stated. Assume copyright.

Purchase; Brown Recluse Zine Distro; 2021.
Table of contents: title: Introduction --; title: Naming the harm is not the harm  -- Hyejin Shim; title: A diversity of tactics and who gets to use them  -- Nathalia Gibbs; title: #NoPlatformForRapists --; title: Commune Public Response --; title: An Open Letter to the Person Who Raped Me --; title: In-the-in-betweens  -- Je'Kendria Trahan; title: Community Accountability Means We All Play a Role --; title: Conclusions --