What Are Obstacles to Accountability?

Jul 23, 2020

Since May 2020, protesters across the United States are demanding that cities defund and abolish their police departments in response to unabated police killings of Black people. Along with conversations about systemic racism, this movement has also sparked a dialogue around how to keep people safe without police. This reimagining of a flawed system necessarily includes building accountable communities. But accountability is hard.

In this video, experts speak candidly about what gets in the way of true accountability, how White supremacy culture socializes us to rely on punishment as a response to harm-doing, and how we can reimagine accountability as an opportunity for growth and transformation instead of something that scares and isolates us.

This video is part of the Building Accountable Communities video series from the Barnard Center for Research on Women. It features comments from Sonya Shah, nuri nusrat, Mimi Kim, Ann Russo, Esteban Kelly, adrienne maree brown, Rachel Herzing, Stas Schmiedt, Lea Roth, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Mia Mingus, and was produced by Mariame Kaba, Dean Spade, and Hope Dector.

Ayu Sutriasa is the digital editor at 大象传媒, where she edits stories in the health and wellness beat, in addition to specializing in gender and body politics. She currently lives on unceded Duwamish territory, also known as Seattle, Washington. She speaks English and French. Find more of her writing on .