As far as racism, sexism, homophobia and harassment goes my experience is as follows:
There is racism, sexism, homophobia and harassment perpetrated by customers every Friday and most Saturday nights. This will always happen in a public bar in city centre. The problem is that the atmosphere and previous experiences in ACU makes customers feel they should not stand up against this behaviour. This was said to me about every 2nd week by someone else when I still came into ACU and offered support to people who got discriminated or harassed in ACU. (As a male I only get harassed once a year in ACU, there has never been support.)
There has been racist slurs between volunteers, this does not happen on a regular basis, but when people state that they don't like being described in racist terms they get ridiculed and ignored. The people who use racist slurs claim they are perfectly fine, because they are "accurate descriptions".
Before talking about harassment I will explain when I use the word Harassment in this text. When I say harassment I mean deliberate touching of intimate body parts, cornering people to force intimacy upon them, or not excepting "NO" for an answer unless there is al thorough and rational explanation for the refusal.
Harassment between volunteers does happen at least on a monthly basis. (This claim is both based on personal observation and people telling their experiences in convidence.) The rare cases of harassment between volunteers which are discussed at the meetings are ridiculed and even when there are several witnesses the perpetrator is believed and the victim encounters a lot of disbelieve and hostility of the collective.
How much homophobia and other discrimination is perpetrated by ACU-volunteers is unclear to me, I only know about it through hearsay, but I fear the worst.
As far as racism, sexism,
As far as racism, sexism, homophobia and harassment goes my experience is as follows:
There is racism, sexism, homophobia and harassment perpetrated by customers every Friday and most Saturday nights. This will always happen in a public bar in city centre. The problem is that the atmosphere and previous experiences in ACU makes customers feel they should not stand up against this behaviour. This was said to me about every 2nd week by someone else when I still came into ACU and offered support to people who got discriminated or harassed in ACU. (As a male I only get harassed once a year in ACU, there has never been support.)
There has been racist slurs between volunteers, this does not happen on a regular basis, but when people state that they don't like being described in racist terms they get ridiculed and ignored. The people who use racist slurs claim they are perfectly fine, because they are "accurate descriptions".
Before talking about harassment I will explain when I use the word Harassment in this text. When I say harassment I mean deliberate touching of intimate body parts, cornering people to force intimacy upon them, or not excepting "NO" for an answer unless there is al thorough and rational explanation for the refusal.
Harassment between volunteers does happen at least on a monthly basis. (This claim is both based on personal observation and people telling their experiences in convidence.) The rare cases of harassment between volunteers which are discussed at the meetings are ridiculed and even when there are several witnesses the perpetrator is believed and the victim encounters a lot of disbelieve and hostility of the collective.
How much homophobia and other discrimination is perpetrated by ACU-volunteers is unclear to me, I only know about it through hearsay, but I fear the worst.