Welcome to the White Noise Collective Podcast! This is our second episode, interviewing long time collective member, healer and organizer Alex Marterre exploring tactics and stories to alchemize white shame for the sake of fortifying movements for racial justice.

 

I’m Jay Tzvia Helfand and I’m Zara Zimbardo. White Noise collective is a volunteer anti racist feminist collective. Since 2010. We’ve offered spaces for deep reflection, dialogue and political education to amplify racial justice action in our movements and our lives. Our work focuses on the patterns of interaction between white racial privilege, and gender marginalization. Our core collective is made up of white trans non binary folks and cis women dedicated to growing movements for collective liberation. We are located in and recording this podcast on Chochenyo Ohlone land in Oakland, California, you can go to conspireforchange.org to learn more. In this time of transformation, this podcast shares the voices of longtime movement builders for racial justice, with a focus on the roles and possibilities of white people in solidarity. We welcome you to join us in this experiment as we practice growing our width to hold complexity, deepening our strategy and honoring legacies of resistance. Thank you for joining us.

 

Alex (they/them) is a lmft in a queer and trans centered practice based in oakland, ca. They are queer, trans and white. Alex has been involved for almost 7 years with wnc. They are invested in abolition with a focus on how it relates to mental health crisis care. If you want to learn more about their therapy practice, go to www.alexmarterretherapy.com link in show notes.

 

Welcome, Alex, we are delighted, full of joy to be here with you today. And this is a conversation about shame, as a portal shame, as many other words and descriptors and to begin just wondering what you want to offer to us, to our listeners about who you are to ground us in this conversation.

 

Thank you.

Like such a big question, I’m still figuring that out and plan to for the rest of my life. Who I am right now. I yeah, I feel really dedicated to building relationships, and to finding healing, finding balance finding the right relationship. And I feel really committed to figuring out how to make the work that I want to do sustainable, and the structures that we exist within. And by the work that I want to do, I mean, yeah, healing, and also creating a world worth living in.

And how tied that is to what healing looks like for me. And also, like how to navigate that when I don’t have hope. That’s like been a big part of figuring out who I am, is looking at my connection and commitment to collective liberation. When I, when it’s just coming from a place of like, I want to be able to say that I did all that I could, instead of like, I feel really hopeful about the potential impact of the work that I’m doing, like having on the collective. So that’s what comes up as he asked that question. And, and I am a practicing therapist in the Bay Area as a lmft. And private practice work right now. Supporting queer and trans clients mostly.Yeah, just really feeling nourished, and

humbled and grounded and expansive, and at work right now. And that feels like such a privilege to actually love the work that I’m doing, and feel supported. And yeah.

 

Thank you for sharing this, Alex. And we can check in periodically for the rest of your life. Thank you, I would appreciate it. And would you share a little bit like with your background as a healer, as a therapist, were involved with community mental health, a facilitator?

How can you share a little bit about your journey as a white person into racial justice work? Yeah.

About what brought you in to this?

What does that look like for you?

 

Um,

it was a clunky start.

I don’t know, I’m imagining a lot of white people might feel that way.

You know, I grew up trying to understand the segregated environment. I was in, like growing up in North Carolina.

And like the 90s.

And then I was like, kind of like living my little privileged white life, sort of,like, imposed upon by any other thoughts or ideas about the world not being just and it wasn’t really until moving to the Bay area that I started to come into contact with more like specific work around racial justice. And

Like, honestly, it was just a lot of like grueling conversations of like, I don’t understand why can’t I have

A dream catcher, I’m pretty sure I’m part Cherokee, you know, and like having those. And then like, finally starting to break down those outer layers of protection around like my whiteness and my privilege and like starting to understand just how toxic it was for me, as well as for other people and then starting to realize, like, I don’t want to participate in this.

 

And I would say that, like, a moment that feels really significant to me, even though it’s really a collection of so many moments, like there was this culmination point where I was doing like, 10 hours of group therapy a day, at this, like, four day retreat to start my grad school program. And I just kind of feel that my psyche was broken down a certain level, I was tired, I was like, psychologically, emotionally, socially tired, and taxed and overwhelmed. And we watched a lemon law film called The color of fear, and, and all of a sudden, this like, very intellectual process, like landed into my, my body, and my heart and my spirit in this really profound way. And I just remember, like, leaving the building, where we were supposed to have like a discussion and just like sobbing, and like, what came up for me was like, I almost felt like I was connected to the blood in the soil that I was standing on. And I was, like, so many lives have been lost here. Because of white supremacy, and because of colonialism. And like, I just like I just wailed and that. And so I would say that was the start of my, like, emotional journey, in terms of like actually being receptive and fully open to receiving the

Yeah, just how intense it is. to reconcile with, like, our histories and our present day.

 

Yeah, what you’re describing sounds immense. To have it really land and also after that many hours also, of, of being in a therapeutic space with other people. And I know that you and I, and czar, and many other people have been in these inquiries together, have been in spaces of action together across years. And just appreciating, getting to be here with you now and getting to also receive a part of that journey.And also, when it gets to make possible to feel in that way, for all of us and for all the people you work with. Yeah.

And part of the impetus for this conversation was us feeling very intrigued by this language. We’ve heard you describe unfurling shame, or shame as portal. Yeah. And just curious to hear a little more from you about what that means to you any stories, and particularly for us as white racial justice organizers?

What that might offer?

 

And just add to that, I know that none of us would i would self identify as an expert on shame. Right. So that’s not the place that we’re coming from having this conversation with each other.

But we are all immersed in this inquiry, personally, politically, right, like on very intimate, interpersonal and also collective levels. And, you know, I’ll just want to acknowledge like, Alex, what you just said, in your own journey, and how truly transformative that was these understandings landing deep in the body, like rearranging, coming into the present in a different way.

That feels like a microcosm of what’s going on right now nationally, of like,

When you just said of like, reconciling histories with the present day, and just the tremendous white conservative backlash towards looking at history, yeah, towards really reckoning with systemic racism and colonialism, in part saying that it makes white kids feel shame, or feel distress or feel bad about themselves or their country.

So it’s just incredibly poignant to be having this conversation as this.

Just real battle around education, and race and national identity is going on right now. Yes.

 

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And just in relation to what Jay just was asking around, like, your views that we’re so curious about, about shame? How could it be medicinal at times? How can it be a portal, just to name that, oftentimes, we can feel ashamed about feeling shame, because we’re told like, there’s no value or utility to it. And for white folks engaged in anti racism work, or racial justice, like, your shame is bad and gets in the way, so do away with it. And so we want to look at different dimensions. Yeah.

 

Oh, I love that. Yeah. So, um, thank you for bringing those pieces together. And for reminding, like, Oh, yeah, I don’t have to be an expert here that feels so relieving. I like felt my self organizing, even with the intention of not felt myself organizing to, like, try to produce that.

And, yeah, I genuinely come to this conversation. Just in an active learner student. Yeah, just getting my hands dirty. figuring it out as I go.

And I love like, I love how you’re kind of, like, expanding out, like, into the macrocosm of what’s happening in the us right now. Especially because, like, grounded in the question that Jay just asked, like, it’s, it’s a terrible loss for white people to not have access to the portal that I’ve experienced, at least, like when confronting my white shame.

And like any portal, it’s terrifying.

Like, it is a new paradigm, it is a new universe, it is, like it is, it is the unknown.

And that’s what I’ve felt in the moments of experiencing shame as a portal, and I could not have done it alone. In fact, I tried to do it alone, it didn’t work. I totally shut down for like a year.

 

But being in relationship to someone who has gone through the portal, and who can guide me through that, like I was allowed,

I was allowed the Honestly, I feel like I borrowed their trust that I would make it through to the other side, and that I would be okay.

That I would survive it that and even just like the love in their eyes, like telling me I would not only survive it, but I would be better for it. And I would be even closer to the core of myself.

And so, kind of what that looks like, or what that looks like for me was being in grad school and actually working with us are in the Student Alliance group called aware, which stood for awakening to whiteness and racism everywhere.

I, I just went like full throttle, like, okay, I had this emotional awakening to whiteness and white shame. And I’m gonna fix this joke, like, arguably a shame response. But like I went hard, you know, I was like reading everything that I could. I was attending meetings of like many different racial justice organizations in the Bay Area. I was trying to facilitate a group for other white students at the school

I just kept running into shame. And I kept witnessing people get stuck there. And I was like this, there’s something to this, this is really juicy. And I met someone who has an MFA program, who was like, have you ever, like, tried co counsel? And I was like, Oh, yeah, I have a little exposure to that. And they were like, have you tried it in the specific context of like working through white shame. It’s like, no, but you look like, you know what you’re talking about. And we started meeting once a week or something like that I can’t remember, it’s years ago, but we would find an empty room and cis. And

we would do like, depending on the time that we had, we would do 10 to 20 minute sessions each. And there’s cocao counseling partner would allow me to go first, and would essentially model for me what it looks like to support someone through the process. And I just had this distinct memory of like, laying on really gross old carpet, it smelled awful.

And holding their hand, and like, tapping into the depths of my shame, and like, convulsing and crying, and like you know, at times, just like expressing what the like all of the restrictive areas of my body that were like holding the shame in, like, I was just trying to move it through like different somatic practices that are encouraged and co counseling. And I just had never before experienced such intense shame. sitting right next to such intense love and acceptance, and warmth. And there is something about those two, meeting each other within my body. And within my experience, like really started to loosen.

 

Honestly, what felt like just kind of it’s weird, the word that wants to come up ish chains.

 

And it felt like, it felt like something that was like really keeping me very, like confined and rigid. And this like particular shapes that would allow me to, like, perform white supremacy better. And it was like breaking that down. And like allowing me to come into contact with my own humanity, another person’s humanity. And like, actually take a more organic sheep, and one that one that moves freely, and one that, like, can take many different forms. And yeah, that felt like a portal to me that felt like

that felt like it felt like being ushered into a new way of being in the world.

Like being ushered into a new relationship with my body and with my mind and my spirit.

And it feels foundational to me, being able to move through shame, that comes up more effectively. And I think there are many perspectives on this, and I think you name some of them as are but like, I, I really do to my own lived experience, feel committed to working through shame as opposed to trying to compartmentalize it and set it aside.

It actually has felt fundamental to my unlearning of white supremacy.

And as grueling as it sounds, I would highly recommend white and racial justice organizers. Yeah.This is something that I know we’re all really curious about. practices, that support movement.

 

Right.

 

within social movements, and within the particular roles that white people can play in movements for racial justice. And I really appreciated what you said it just I heard, like a number of distinctions and juxtapositions. There’s shame that can shut us down. make us feel closed off.

And then there’s a way of engaging with shame that it can help us open up. Yeah. And is perhaps like a doorway into feeling what we were not able to feel through the conditioning of whiteness.

Shame that can lead to a breakdown of like paradigms, worldview sense of self, you know, personal familial national identity. And then also like moving not staying there. But that being like a breakdown that leads to a breakthrough, with there being a loving, supportive presence, right of someone else being there. And this just feels so essential

in terms of being with learning from and moving through. And I’m wondering if you could share a bit more about that, in terms of what practices are like orientations. help with that.

You know, it’s also just really interesting to me, as someone who’s not a therapist, that therapy worlds have so much to offer around shame. And yet, that doesn’t always bridge to looking at White racial shame. When there’s like a world of resources and capacity and sensitivity and like, what helps folks regulate what helps people move and and learn from potentially?

And again, not talking as like, expert prescriptive, but sure, from what we’ve witnessed and ourselves and others, including what hasn’t worked? You know, I think it’s all Yes. All good.

 

I would say. And what’s interesting is that what keeps coming into my mind, as I’m listening to your question, is like, I totally fumbled with this just like, two months ago, you know, like, in a conversation with someone I’m dating. Like, I wasn’t tracking that they were, like, trying to ask for my support or

guidance in addressing, like, racist behavior, and one of their white friends. And I was like,

I actually like it, I think I embodied like, a certain amount of shame. Like, you should be ashamed of yourself that you didn’t do this. And I, you didn’t do more that you didn’t like, immediately, you know, tell them that what they were doing was wrong, right. Like, you know, I kind of like,

and look, looking back, I’m not sure how much of that was mine, how much of that was theirs? I definitely had my own judgments like, within that space.

And, you know, we talked about it afterward. And they were just like, that was so unhelpful. Seeing the look on your face, I did not feel like I could, like I could talk to you further about it. I did not feel that that was helpful for me. And there’s just a way that I like really lost track of how vulnerable it is to like, come to another person and be like, I don’t know how to handle this. And I’m not sure if I handled it well. And I’m not even sure quite what I’m asking for.

And so, I would say that, in my experience, like an essential part of moving through shame is like creating a really intentional container around it. This was kind of like, casually brought up over dinner, I wasn’t prepared, you know, and I at least I’m someone who likes to be prepared. So I’m someone who likes to know, okay, like what, what is my role in this conversation? Like, what are you needing for me? What, like, Where are we? Where do we want to land? Like, like, I need structure to show up? Well, sometimes, or at least to feel like I know within myself

who I want to be and like, I require some preparation for that. I require some like grounding.

And I’m not sure everyone does. But I would say that, for me, like that structure is really supportive and useful. I’d also say that

It feels so counterintuitive, but like reaching out is the right thing to do. Like when experiencing shame, like I’m recalling a time that I really shut down and didn’t know who to ask for support. And so I didn’t reach out.

And I just kind of like, collapsed into my own white shame. For months, not knowing what to do, how to move through it. I was no longer in contact with some of the folks who had I had been doing more explicit, like somatic work with around shame.

And I think I also kind of started to buy my own like white shame narrative of like, I shouldn’t be experiencing shame. So like the meta shame that you talked about earlier, Zahra, like I’m ashamed that I’m ashamed. And like that trap was real bad. don’t recommend.

And, and so then I also think about how do we practice like, supporting others and like tracking the like, one of our comrades is like in that space, because it can feel impossible to reach out from that space.

And then, yeah, I would, like I’m really, I’m really engaged.

Really just like enlivened right now in my engagement with somatic therapy, and allowing the body to move the way it wants to move and express the way it wants to express, like, creating support around that.

So some of that is just like mindfulness, like right now in this moment, like, what am I noticing, you know, in the body? And then what does that sensation or absence of sensation? Like? What is it long for? What does it want? What is it need?

Is there a tension that needs support from the outside so that it can move? And is there tension that needs to like, kind of be shook out? Or like, kicked out? Or, you know, stomped out or run out? Like, is there some movement? Is there some?

Yeah, something that the body is desiring and needing, and like, very intuitively knowing it needs to allow for an emotional process to kind of like, unfold. And and then I would also say that,

you know, the body can be a tricky place to navigate, we experienced trauma through the body. So

really having like, adequate support around somatic work, I think it’s really important, because we can unlock things that we’re not able to support on our own. That can be really scary. And and then the last thing that’s coming to mind is just like, I think, first and foremost, we each need to learn how we orient to shame. And then the many ways that that might show up or kind of the

castle, calcified patterns that show up, you know, like some people

you know, I think, like, quote, unquote, white womens tears is an example of a shame response. And that can look like, you know, crying in a classroom, about not knowing what to do, because you can’t change the fact that you’re white. And you just said something harmful to people of color, and like, and yet you’re requiring everyone’s attention and care. Or it can look like you know, some of what I see on Instagram, which is like somebody in a Victoria’s Secret who has been called out for racism and is like, responding as if their life is under threat. And you know, like crawling for for cover and screaming and wailing and asking for help.

So that’s like one example. Another would be getting really angry. Some people get really angry because they’d rather feel empowered by anger, then feel shut down and disempowered by shame.

I’ve also witnessed like just within myself I’m kind of this like sneaky pirate who’s like, oh, we’re just gonna cover this up, we’re gonna make it look like we’re okay. And we’re going to go hide, and we’re not going to tell anybody about.

Like, I have to track that voice for myself, you know, like, Oh, I see what you’re trying to do. And,

and, you know, I’m sure there are even more iterations of how people try to protect against shame. But I would say getting to know yourself. And learning the shapes that you take in response to shame, learning in relationship to shame is going to give you insight into like how you need to move through it. And I would recommend different things for somebody who, you know, like cries and needs, attention and care,

versus somebody who’s yelling and wanting to fight or, you know, engage in some kind of altercation versus somebody who’s like, I’m just gonna, gonna hide this away now. And not tell anyone. Yeah, that’s what comes to mind.

 

Thank you so much for all of those pieces, and the thoughtfulness and care there. And just acknowledging the complexity of what it means to notice our own patterns.

And what that can also reveal about the legacies we’ve inherited, for those of us who are wait inside of our other identities and what gets to be transformed, so that more can be possible for us. And, also, of course, for all people in our world.

And one of my friends, Jonah, I’ve heard them say, the past and the future, live and breathe inside of us.

And as a somatic therapist, myself, I’m just really loving the ways you’re naming the ways our body, many of us is a part of this can be a part of this, and also the ways that kind of contraction, or stuckness shows up in so many different ways related to what we’ve survived and also what we’ve inherited. Yeah, you know.

And yeah, I just I mentioned, after a recent talk with both of us about shame, another one of my teachers belief base to train, I’ve heard them say, shame likes to hide, and they were encouraging me when I was feeling so much shame. They’re like, make an altar to your shame. Yeah, wow, about being a therapist in my case, and let it serve and sing. And it just something about that pivot to make space to even honor perhaps not always, but like such a reframe of that impulse of mine to collapse to get small.And that it can be so hard, like you said, to do that reaching out. Yeah.

And I wonder in that moment, where you start out that co counselling with this person that sounds so transformative, do you have a sense of what the kernel was of like, what moved you towards that rather than away?

 

There was an assuredness that I felt from that person that like this was a really viable way to,

to, like, re engage parts of myself that were so frozen, and so locked into contort contorted shapes, like I just like, I saw this kind of like, sparkle in there. I was like, I was like, you know, something you you’ve lived through something.

And I think just how available they made themselves to me, I felt really touched by that. I felt really honored. that someone would offer and also have a practice, you know, like, like this was something that they practiced regularly, and I could feel that in what they were offering.

And there was just like, There’s just like an I got you. I just felt like they had me, you know. And that’s not something I’ve ever experienced in relationship to shame of any kind. Before, you know, most people are like, oh, get that away or hide that or like, yeah, you need to go feel that on your own. Or

Yeah, no one had ever kind of like come in toward it.

Right is like, let’s, let’s do a thing that I know how to do that could really open something up and make something new possible. And there was something really cool about like, wow, you seem like you know what you’re doing? Like you, you have lived through something that I haven’t, I would like to experience that.

 

I’m hearing so much alchemy, and then like the bringing together of those. Yeah, kernels, ingredients, conditions, intentions and thinking of in this somatic base curriculum that we’ve developed, called antidotes to white fragility. One, you know, we ask folks to arrive with a story of fragility, right. So usually, that is something around shame, where there’s been a lot of contraction, a lot of hiding.

And opening exercise, people are in pairs, and are sharing about this story and doing an active listening process and reflecting back. And especially back in the day, when we could be in rooms together, you could just feel this palpable energy in the room of just energy getting liberated from that contracted hiding place to be like, Oh, actually, this is something that can this experience is going to teach me, it can be actually a place of connection, an object of inquiry, and curiosity.

And, you know, there’s a lot of shame to learn from.

And so just to shift that stance, it would be remarkable, yeah, to feel that energy in the room, and just also just the empathy that gets unfrozen that this is something we can look at, and, you know, be in a different relationship with, with ourselves and with each other and, right, that’s in a context of a workshop, which is trying to bring these different practices to reduce harmful reactivity. Yeah.

Right, that bipoc folks are constantly needing to engage when white people are acting from acting out in all kinds of defensive ways. Yeah. Right. And so that feels like this important piece towards different practices related with everything you’re saying of like getting to know ourselves. So that in part, we can just stay? Yeah, stay present, stay present with what’s heated and charged and uncomfortable or what might feel like you said, like, unsurvivable emotions. And have Yeah, allies practices, you know,

in part so that we’re not acting out in harmful ways. And so, you know, also that white folks are not getting demobilized. Yeah. And I’m thinking of

 

you mind if I jump in? 

 

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. 

 

Yeah, I just wanted to also in that curriculum, you reference are the antidotes to white fragility give a special shout out to our comrade Kat Roubos, who created that as a part of their thesis for their master’s in social work? Back to you.

 

Thank you for naming Kats work? Yeah, absolutely. Which then we curriculum ified and experiential and and the workshop actually came out of part of an experiment, like an experiment with curriculum and like a focus group was part of the research itself to pick up where Robyn D’Angelo and her original essay on white fragility left off, saying like, knowing all this, about the phenomena, this phenomenon and how harmful it is, let’s design our interventions accordingly. And so this was like, let’s do that. And let’s explore that. And I’m thinking of outside of what you said also, like when

a white person who were in some kind of relationship with is really in a shame swamp.

Know how to reach out

to them and just to name that that can be so difficult within white anti racist culture where there can be so much shame landscape, you know that even like, Oh, am I going to reach out to someone who actually I want to distance myself from or don’t want to be associated with, you know, or is this contagious? Or the different white people who we feel ashamed of through proximity?