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this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2024
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askchapo
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I've only ever heard people bring it up in vague terms, never specific names or incidents, which makes it hard to verify the truth or lack thereof to the claims.
AFAIK the incident many refer to has to do with the former member Steven Powers in 2020. I say former because he's been permanently suspended from the party, something not often mentioned when his name is brought up, and both internal and external sources to the party can attest to that. There really isn't any evidence of widespread covering up of SA and Abuse, and if it did exist it should be taken extremely seriously. Unfortunately libel and smearing like this is part of the history of dismissing large socialist organizations, and all socialist spaces that grow to a certain point will have to and have had to both seriously deal with incidents like this within their organization and show internally and externally that it does not define them, that it is in fact counter to their goals and methods.
When I was first wanting to join the party, I had friends warn me and link these various documents, and frankly it gave me unease. As part of my entry to the party I asked extensively about this situation and found that the Philly PSL Branch had suspended him permanently, and he's not rejoined the party in another region since. Speaking again as someone victimized as such in the past, I feel that there are robust and answerable institutions that are responsive within the party to deal with people like this, and is exactly what made me feel okay entering organizer spaces again after some things that have happened to me in the past. There's no public document I can share though, only my own testimony as someone who's investigated this internally and willing to speak on it.
For transparency when I said external sources, I meant a statement by the PSL saying he'd been suspended as well as people who I'd met in real life willing to speak about it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ there may not exist a public document saying the words "permanently suspended" but that's my understanding internally. I hope you'll understand why a person who is working on the ground may be hesitant to write things down when even mistakes like I made are very easy to make. Frankly these things are serious but also easily able to be wielded by people who don't really care about the safety of SA survivors and just want to red bash (for example, right wingers attacking queer people with "grooming" allegations) so there's hesitancy to even give things like this fuel by discussing them publicly, but I think it's worth being open about in this situation.
My only impressions of the party so far have been professional engagement with the serious matters of being a disciplined ML organization within the imperial core, and issues like this are clearly counter to bringing about the revolutionary change we want to see in the United States and the world. Me and other party members do a lot of work towards achieving this change and I for one would be incredibly pissed if it was wasted on interpersonal drama and protecting people with anti-social desires or tendencies.
Edit: Also thank you for being genuinely curious and open about this discussion, it's not an easy one
Unfortunately with the way these things are usually framed that's an easy assumption to make lol