An open letter to the bass music scene and those who want meaningful change…

​​⚠️Trigger Warning:  ⚠️ Contains heavy themes of sexual assault (SA), gender-based violence, institutional betrayal, and mention of suicide ideation. This does NOT contain stories or re-telling of SA.

The purpose of this open letter is not to “cancel” anyone. The purpose is to share my compound experiences in the anti-gender-based violence* movement, share how my activism intersects with my own SA, and advocate for the support I need from my community. 

I am by no means perfect or flawless in my advocacy for victims/survivors. I still have a lot of my own trauma to work through. I still have a lot to learn from those who have come before me in efforts to dismantle rape culture. 

I have written this letter in a way that feels the safest for me. Please respect my decision to not use some names. 

Who’s showing up for who?
My experience as a sexual assault survivor is deeply intertwined with how I show up for the anti-gender-based violence movement and specifically my music community. Yet, being exploited by organizations that claim to want to help folks like myself has done more to silence me than my rapists ever did. 

In the beginning, I felt so alone in my victimization. And after sharing with people in my life about my sexual assault experiences, I saw that A LOT of my friends had similar experiences and felt alone too. Even worse is that many never had never been able to label their experiences as assault until after they heard my story. 

I didn’t take large strides in my own healing until 2017 when I got into therapy and began volunteering with a music industry-based nonprofit. I set up a table at events, pass out resources, and was present. I was able to show up for people and tell them that they’re not alone and somebody cared WITHOUT exposing my own scars and story. It felt revolutionary in many ways. 

I also took to discussing consent issues in music via my online press, Perfect Harmony, at this time. With the de-platforming of Nahko, Bassnectar, Rhyme Sayers, and Space Jesus in 2020, there were stories that needed to be told in a way that centered the victims’/survivors’ experiences. 

I was a HUGE fan of Wookiefoot, Nahko, and Bassnectar. Just like a lot of you, I lost a piece of myself when I lost the illusion that those artists gave a shit. I wrote those articles and interviews with a bleeding heart. 

My independent journalism lead to conversations with BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone. Segments of my Bassnecter interview can be found in the official criminal complaint filed against him. For some of these victims/survivors, I was the only press they agreed to speak to. I was integrated into a task force to ask Nahko and Wookiefoot for accountability. People began to hear my voice.  My journalism allowed me to, again, show folks they weren’t alone in their experience without exposing my own scars and story.

Full-time at a nonprofit
Fast forward to 2021 and I am offered a position with a SA crisis center in Minneapolis. I answered a 24/7 hotline, provided 1 on 1 counseling for victims/survivors, accompanied them to police reports and civil court hearings, and wrote restraining orders. I never reported my own assaulter, but I accompanied many victims/survivors to report theirs. 

Two days a week, I worked in the Minneapolis Police Department’s Sex Crime Unit alongside a team going through old police reports and DNA associated with the 2,000 untested Rape Kits.** I read countless police reports from untested Rape Kits. I helped execute victim-centered approaches to contact these victims/survivors and provided them with alternative resources.

I witnessed firsthand how horrendous our legal system is for victims/survivors to navigate. I was able to show up and make a BIG difference without exposing my own story and scars, but I couldn’t sustain myself. 

It was a constant uphill battle against the system and the nonprofit. Many 8-hour days were followed by 2-3 hours of decompression. I had to shake off the horror of what I had heard that day…and don’t get me started on the days I intercepted an “inappropriate caller” to the hotline. 

I made $19.23 an hour. When I advocated for a raise for myself and my coworkers at the nonprofit I was called “hostile” and told that it was “just the way it is.”  I was constantly told that I lacked boundaries, despite never bringing work home. It was much easier (and cheaper) to tell me to care less. 

The care we provided was what these victims/survivors deserved. The profit was there, but the nonprofit didn’t want to pay us appropriately to provide it. So, I quit and so did over half of the non-profit’s team. 

Free emotional labor
Before I quit, I was asked by a company in the music industry to build a safety program and provide guidance around gender-based issues. This would be unpaid work to get it off the ground. I made it clear that if they wanted my support the whole team needed to be on board and ready to do things differently. My experience with MPD showed me how difficult it was to work in a system that needed abolition or reform and I needed the whole team behind me.

Almost simultaneously, I was offered a paid position with a new nonprofit. They offered me higher pay than the first nonprofit and would help support my safety program with the company.

Guess what? The whole company wasn’t ready to do the hard work! I was micromanaged and expected to take on all the emotional labor. When I shared that I experienced pushback from one team member, in particular, I was invalidated and told that it was “just the way they are.” I could not build a legitimate safety program for a company that fought me every step of the way.

Things got bad and the nonprofit quickly started to feel very cold/distant toward me in relation to the safety program too. I didn’t feel like I was truly a part of the company’s team or the nonprofit’s team–pushed away by both. 

I didn’t receive any validation or recognition from the nonprofit that I was also harmed by the company’s actions. I chalked up the nonprofit’s distance towards me as all in my head due to my sensitivity around rejection and confidentiality. But, I felt very alone in the experience. 

Beginning of the end
So, I left the company’s safety program and gave the nonprofit the benefit of the doubt. They had applied for a grant that would pay me a living wage and guaranteed 20-30 hours of work a week. I continued to work a few hours a week for the new nonprofit and a few side gigs until we found out about the grant. I did not look for more full-time employment because I thought that I had job security.

I so desperately wanted to be on a team and be paid a living wage, so I began to brush aside red flags. They stressed the importance of work/life balance, but I got work-related phone calls outside of my office hours and emails in the middle of the night. It was rarely clear which projects or requests from the nonprofit were to be prioritized—they were all labeled as “urgent.” Yet, it didn’t seem urgent to them to follow up on many of their requests in a way that honored my time. 

They paid me in the beginning, but I did not press when they stopped. I assumed there were no more funds until we got approved for the grant. When we did get approval for the grant, I began to work more hours and ask when I could expect to get paid. The topic was dodged, I was sent $100-ish dollars with no invoice, or I was directed to somebody else in the nonprofit.

Lack of communication
We had a fundraiser at the end of the first grant month that I would need to travel for and they still had not paid me. I was then threatened with “disciplinary action” when I told them I might not be able to attend our fundraiser due to how little money I had. 

The trip was rough.  I was completely dependent on people who were spread too thin and did not clearly communicate expectations with me. I agreed to some paid work for the nonprofit and some work trade on this trip. I worked WAY more hours under the work trade than verbally agreed upon. This gave me less time to do work that I was to be paid for on this trip and diminished the value of my end of the trade.

Upon completion of the trip, I asked when I could expect to be paid and reimbursed for my expenses. My question was dodged, I asked again and was finally told it could be another month or longer until the grant funding came through. This is when I learned that when you get approved for grant funding, you don’t get it right away. There is a gap. This was not relayed to me any of the previous times I asked to be paid. 

I went off the map for the next month-ish. They didn’t attempt to make contact with me either. I felt exploited all over again. I had no more interest in doing any emotional labor for anyone until I was paid and my work acknowledged.

So, the nonprofit finally reached out and it’s about the company I had attempted to help create a safety program for. I expressed my boundary to the non-profit and was told that I should have had a better response because of all the time they gave me to process. My response was wrong. It was not the response they wanted.

Time to process? I felt like I had fought for my life the past few months as I waited to get paid! I worked every odd job that I could get my hands on. I was dependent on my roomies for groceries and my partner’s vehicle for transportation. I didn’t want to ask my parents for any more money as I had assured them it would all be okay when the nonprofit got approved for the grant. I felt hopeless, like a burden on everyone, and had suicidal ideation. I had begun to fall behind on rent and bills. I had to cancel insurance on my car and my school bus–my precious school bus. 

When all was said and done, I was 3 months behind on EVERYTHING and the nonprofit owed me over $3,000. 

They said they wouldn’t pay me until I wrote a “reflection” about the company with the failed safety program alongside other administration tasks. It was never previously discussed that I had to share my reflections on the company in order to be paid. Some of the administration tasks had never been expressed to me before, edits were on things I sent months ago, and others were projects I did not continue after the fundraiser because I had not been paid. It felt like they were doing everything they could to make me feel like it was my fault that I did not get paid. They had hour-by-hour documentation of most of my hours in a shared google doc. I didn’t get these “edits” done fast enough and I was locked out of my email and then fired.

When they fired me, I was informed that I was never an employee and only a contractor. They said they would not pay me at the agreed-upon higher rate because I did not turn in my reflections. I was up a creek because I had never signed employment contracts and all our conversations about my rate were over the phone. I still didn’t receive back pay and reimbursement until a month after they fired me. 

I felt exploited yet again. I felt like I couldn’t say anything about my mistreatment by the non-profit industrial complex. Why would someone, believe me, an individual, speak about nonprofits that help victims/survivors take action? Will they use their platforms to try and discredit me the same way high-profile abusers use their platforms to discredit their victims/survivors? I never shared my own story of SA due to fear of being invalidated. I don’t know if I can handle this experience being invalidated as well. 

Reflection of reality
I keep telling myself that this is all for the better because I can now apply my knowledge and experience directly to my local music scene, but I’m burnt out. I’m still trying to heal the wounds of my own victimization and now I’m trying to heal the wounds of the exploitation of my victimization. 

I’ve spent the last two years learning from WOC and indigenous communities*** about accountability processes that center on the victims’/survivors’ experiences. They present approaches that create lasting change, address microaggressions and recognize that you can’t fix harm with more harm. 

And do you know what you need to make these processes successful? 

Community. 

I don’t feel appreciated in my scene for my anti-gender-based violence work except by people who have also been victimized. The times I am acknowledged by non-victim/non-survivors is when I’m asked to do emotional labor on their behalf.

I feel like half of my local music scene doesn’t want to collaborate with me because I’m a woman with strong convictions. The other half expects me to be strong every time someone shares about harm/abuse. 

I’m chastised when I act in a way that doesn’t involve public callouts or isn’t seen as urgent enough. Yet, I’m offered very little support. 

I feel held to a higher standard than the folks who have caused direct harm as many of you continue to work with them and never with me. I do not feel acknowledged or validated as a journalist or fellow creative in this scene. 

Recently, I’ve been very quiet in terms of problematic behavior within the Minnesota scene. I am sorry to those who have been hurt by my silence. It’s not because I don’t care. I have been quiet because I’m burnt out and I can’t carry this torch alone. Victims/Survivors can’t carry this torch alone. 

It’s because I’ve seen firsthand the harassment of those who identify as victims/survivors, women or nonbinary who have spoken out. I’ve seen how it’s caused those people to feel pushed out of our scene. I feel pushed out of the scene. These are not isolated or unique experiences.

The callouts cue vague posts from local brands referring to themselves as a “safe space” with a generic, “we don’t tolerate this type of behavior.” It lacks breadth. It lacks follow-through. 

Being a “safe space” for women, nonbinary people, and POC is not a feeling that you have. It’s an action that you take. You don’t get to claim the title of “ally” or “safe space” The title is given when you show up consistently for those who have been harmed. You will need to learn how to crawl before you can walk.

Inevitably, when all has died down and it’s no longer trending on EDM Twitter, nobody except the victims/survivors will still care. We will be more burnt out than before and passed back the torch. 

I need my community to be less performative. I need my emotional labor to be seen as valuable. I need my scene to partake in bystander intervention training. I need the men in my community to quit being so goddamn defensive when someone says that you hurt them. 

I need y’all to quit waiting for a SA story “bad enough” to believe that your homie’s questionable actions are actually precursors to deeper harm done behind closed doors. 

Promoters, I encourage you to have an anti-harassment policy and clearly post said anti-harassment policy. Train security teams in crisis de-escalation & bystander intervention. Hire more women and nonbinary people for your security teams.

Book more women, nonbinary, and people of color for your lineups and give them leadership positions that are not based on emotional labor. Then, compensate them equally. Remember that they may have a smaller resume than their male counterparts because they have been given fewer opportunities.

Add light to dark areas and corners and practice responsible service of alcohol. Have a temporary ban list and communicate it with the harm-doer, team, and security. Listen and believe women, nonbinary, and people of color when they share their experiences, but do not expect them to educate you on how to do better.

I need everyone to listen to the experts, read the data, have tough conversations, and believe in everyone’s ability to do better.

I need y’all to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. 

🔑: 

*I use ” gender-based violence” in place of “sexual violence” as it is an emerging title for the same movement and acknowledges the micro-aggressions that lead up to SA.

**Rape Kits are free DNA tests a victim/survivor can complete at a hospital (up to 2 weeks) after their assault.

***Resources and References: 

• We Will not Cacel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice by Adrienne Maree Brown.
• Anything by Mariame Kaba, but here is an interview with her titled Rethinking Accountability in the Age of Abolition. 
• Thinking About Perpetrator Accountability, first published on Rolling Thunder.
• Aint No Human Resources in Hip Hop by Psalms One. This is an account of her experience as an LGBTQ2S WOC with RhymeSayers. I would like to 

 

If you would like to show me some appreciation for my emotional labor, I will accept:

• A copy of Psalms One’s recent book, Her Word Is Bond: Navigating Hip Hop and Relationships in a Culture of Mysogony. 
• Donations to my school bus build via my Venmo: @doobsteprincess
• A one-time or monthly donation to this publication via Paypal.  
• Share or comment on this article.
• Invitations to create content at your events.