• go around, relation to this theme:
  o food justice, these issues very present, non-profitaccountability, leverage access to resources without getting fired, open to getting fired, radical insurgency, how to live in this world, straddling without polarizing, what opportunities, how to start a conversation without making people bad, expressive arts therapy, inhabiting roles with power with as much responsibility as possible, how to subvert position while being in it, come from generations of white female buffer zone workers, social work, make my living off of “helping” – is it helping – people who are in different situations, sometimes feels like band-aids without making change in overall structure, public school, trying to shake things up, what to do with the place that I’m in, create new relationships, the services I provide – are they the reason there is not an uprising, does me showing up everyday stop the revolution I want to happen, it’s hard to walk away from hurt, and if I don’t do this job someone with less analysis will, getting offered more from a working class background – now I have more to lose, coach people in their buffer zone, different class backgrounds, doing too much and “victims” of our calendars and schedules – what do we gain, hold the way we help lightly, feminization of labor seen as natural, food justice movement can invisibilize work of young white women, tenants’ rights clinic, organizational model of service and organizing in underfunded non-profit world, racial justice organizing, struggle to make a living, what are options
• Sherman Alexie: “white women are so helpful”
• History of groups being integrated into BZ professions – females and queerpeople in the military, people fought for you to be here, “making it”
• Is it possible to work for structural change from the BZ?

o rewarded for holding up system
o rare for service-provision contributing to structural change
o I tell myself there is
o Food justice, planting gardens is subversive
o I don’t think structural change possible inside or out of BZ
o If you are a big enough threat you will get cut off of funding
o The Revolution Will Not Be Funded (Incite!) – ways funding co-opts

radical organizing
o Structures built and changed through many people – social

movements – if we ask just what can I do, may be dead-end, what can

groups of radical mobilized workers do together?
o Small body of radical funders, f-ed up system to have to depend on

crumbs of 1%, but there is a small sector
o What is looks like to build solidarity to change structures, movements

are constantly bubbling, everyone can contribute
o White-dominated patriarchy relies a lot on capitalism – exciting how

people are reclaiming commons, mutual aid, Berkeley land project, growing food highlighting system

o Part of white socialized identity to ask the question of how can I fix everything

o 5th generation – what today can prepare for something to happen later that we may not or will not see

o helping profession titles – I use that power in City Hall meetings, wield it – dressed in office wear treated differently, everybody’s here and we’re looking at you – using all of it to create space for others

o feels problematic to identify as a social worker
o prison work, use power and valuable privilege to get guards to treat

better and allow me to go through
o as a woman want to feel good about what I do and not always second-

guess myself
o try to advocate home-schooling and others can do it without a

credential
o New Age movement of empowerment, “sisterhood” without any

analysis (except for sexism) culturally appropriative
o sounds like missionization, and first/second wave feminism
o Pampers commercial
o Missionary work
o White savior industrial complex – male and female
o empowering people – communities deserve high quality service,

naming expertise, coming with respect
o allowing for exchange – reciprocal, honoring and naming that, others

have skill and power
o everyone is the expert of what they need, take my cue from them –

balance
o goal to get out of neighborhood – invisible walls urban ghetto, so

many housing projects always a hope for housing, even if can take bus to ocean or park noone does, how to build skills to question norms of daily life – little revolutions

o get you out of here vs. transform here – how can this place become more healthy, see that it could be different

o relationships are discounted female skills, but they are fundamental, finding ways for reciprocity, owning value of relationships is way to fight a lot of the different power oppressions

o Pedagogy of the Oppressed
o Longer-term vision, radicalize people within own community –

allyship program, it’s important to make time for what I love with supporting and organizing peers to think critically about their position in food justice, how much time to devote

o In practice what would it look like to value our relationships, within our workplaces, to get more resource and time, make space to build relationships, conversations beyond the direct service, breakdown of hierarchy

o Time-crunch of so focused on service providing – 30 minute session is up!

o So insidious about non-profit complex to meet deliverables, to overwork, or to think i could do it if I go above and beyond, will work 12 hour day because I care enough – the structure allows us to feel like we get enough but can’t do more

o Always another task, endless
o Being in place of privilege and fear to lose it
o Hide what you do if it’s good – don’t tell management you have extra

time
o Spreading myself too thin – vantage point of BZ to see how fucked up

things are and the system that is maintaining it – overworking to

point of breaking down, what is the radical pivot
o Important to put boundaries around time – “I have to do everything”

is part of white girl socialization
o Burn-out is not liberatory – reproduces social relationship
o Boundary-setting is tricky – it can sometimes compromise our own

values as limited capacity sometimes means
o Overextending ourselves perpetuates against ourselves the same

violence the system does against us – it burns us out and takes away the energy we might have left over to be a part of change – and relationship-building

o These jobs take a lot of our mental/emotional strength
o Also looking at the economic traps – like rent/housing – that keep us

stuck in the system.
o We have access to people, stories, lives – we don’t have the energy to

think creatively to think about ways
o Creativity is a muscle we don’t exercise in our BZ work
o The “real work” happens outside of the BZ
o Hard to attend the actual places even when we’re “theoretically there” o Privileged to stay in BZ and privileged to leave it
o Coming to terms with our relationship to our privilege: “wearing it”
o There’s no getting rid of our privilege so harness it. “Who more better

to occupy a house than a bunch of white ladies? In suits.”
o Legitimizing power for the “theater” in order to not get dismissed o How to not use our “theater” to undermine true community work. o “The most optimal place is to problematize the position [of power]

and point towards reciprocity.”
o Tactics for amplifying work in a sustainable way?
o Subversive to shine a light on our roles! How do we make public the

questions we are asking ourselves. Worthy but not always possible to disrupt the usual narrative of “white women’s work.” Use your voice to respond to people’s assumptions or accusations.

o “Burn-Out: The Cost of Caring”
o Caring can be exploited because it’s “natural” for females, or because

of our desire to be “true activists/radicals.” Our important listening/caring skills get exploited so that we work for free or continue to support outside systems/the BZ.

o Sacred desire to connect and support people marred by our white supremacist culture…we get so efficient that we lose the sacred element of our work.

o Lorian (?) in Vice Magazine wrote about money management, objectifying her clients. Article got pulled.

o Our sphere of influence is our peers in the BZ.
o Creating “awkward moments” is hard for us when we’ve learned “to

be nice at all costs.” It also takes a lot of skill to talk about anti-bias and not come across as crazy….desire for more discussion and practice of “difficult conversations.”

o Subversive to think about “costuming”…roles of power are masks. o “You won’t be needed by the movement until you understand that

you’re not needed by the movement.”

• Closing goals:
Being kind to myself

Speak up at work
Accepting that we aren’t needed and need to take care of ourselves Explore the relationship of reinforcing our power
Taking care of myself
Do what I can, and only that
Using painting practice to create propaganda
Take the “Burn-Out Inventory” Maslach
Looking at the relationship between privilege and spreading ourselves too thin
Protecting ourselves is a radical act for sustaining the movement Taking up opportunities to disrupt and make things awkward, as well as inviting conversation
Using people’s practical examples
Making things awkward/shining the flashlight
Making the space for creative movement time
Setting personal boundaries in order to have more creative time Collaborate with people
Read more
Do everything
Empathize- work because we need the work, not because we are needed
Do what makes me feel alive
Opening the gate…temper my skepticism about the potential to work from the BZ
Make visible what I see specifically in work from buffer zone vantage point of how the systems operate, paying attention to alliances with women of color who do the same work
Learning to be dispensable
Coming from a place of love, including self-acceptance