1. to focus on sexual violence outside of the context of state violence (ie., the genocidal settler state) is to presume the legitimacy of state violence

There are many organizations that address violence directed at communities (e.g., police brutality, racism, economic exploitation, colonialism, and so on).  There are also many organizations that address violence within communities (e.g., sexual/domestic violence).  But there are very few organizations that address violence on both fronts simultaneously.  The challenge women of color face in combatting personal and state violence is to develop strategies for ending violence that do assure safety for survivors of sexual/ domestic violence and do not strengthen our oppressive criminal justice apparatus.  Our approaches must always challenge the violence perpetrated through multinational capitalism and the state.

Color of Violence, pp. 1-2

2.  note: the woman in question is not a woman of color, per se.  that’s arguable.  but to look at the situation from the point of view of placing at the center women of color’s experiential and theoretical knowledge allows us to see the intersections of personal and collective violence.  

when we shift the center to women of color, the importance of addressing state violence becomes evident.  This perspective then benefits not only women of color, but all peoples, because it is becoming increasingly clear that the criminal justice system is not effectively ending violence for anyone.

Color of Violence, p. 4

3.  accusations of rape (in the U.S. historically leading to lynching), charges of sexual deviance, and sexual violence against men and women have been and continue to central to state violence, including colonization, slavery, genocide, militarism and warfare

4.  on defining rape as this and that and engaging with legal decisions, i take caution.  to paraphrase Andrea Smith, the law for colonized people has never been the vehicle of justice but the means of oppression.  law and treaty, even those honored, have dispossessed people of resources and self-determination and criminalize the range of activities that people of color and poor people engage in to survive.