Dialogue Description:

In February, we looked at more external issues related to safety, especially the concepts of violence vs nonviolence, movement tactics, and racialized and gendered expectations as they relate to state violence/protection.
In March, we turn our attention to our internal beliefs about safety and particularly tonotions about safety “as the absence of discomfort” that can happen at the intersection of white (or passing) privilege and gender(ed) oppression. How does this socialization affect what we expect in order to feel safe? How does it shape, and sometimes race and gender, safer spaces? How might it perpetuate institutionalized white supremacy? What does it mean to learn to be uncomfortable? What does it actually mean to be unsafe?

Dialogue Notes:

These are rough, uncut, unfiltered, and anonymous notes taken at the dialogue. We get that these may not be very readable to those who were not in attendance at the dialogue, and, honestly, sometimes even to those of us who were. We still feel it is important to keep them available as part of our accountability process and for archiving and reference purposes.  Some of these notes have been digested/transformed into blogs.

Check-in Themes:

  • Poignant tie into conversations about power and racism, how to be aware ofwhite fragility and use it to navigate conversations with other white folks
  • Want greater understanding what we’re putting out there
  • Unpack Catholic socialization – “do something wrong, go and get forgivenand go to heaven” – learning how to fuck up and who does the forgiving? –

    noticing desire to be absolved of racism

  • Noticing myself being impatient of white fragility in others – “I don’t havetime for you”
  • Also raised Catholic, led to doing “bad things” repeatedly due to beingabsolved every time
  • Get a lot of grief from family for putting myself in “unsafe” situations – alwaystrying to explain my choices – how to balance my fear of aggressive behavior

    and the truth of racist callouts that happen

  • Shock from friends when I bring something up that makes them feel fragile –need to learn tips on how to bring it up without unneeded tension
  • Partner moved to Bayview – unpacking how I react to Black masculinity –how to balance feeling unsafe on the street as a woman with consequences of

    the ways we portray Black men as unsafe

  • Pushing up against white fragility in organizing spaces – tend more towardsguilt than other reactive emotions
  • Often serve as mediator with POC and white men to navigate white fragilityresponses and helping people put aside feelings to understand internalized white supremacy – also calling in Black men around gender issues when there are differentials in education as well as race/gender
  • White women’s tears – different relationships to vulnerability – how to manage white fragility without shaming our experience of emotions
  • White people defend their individuality but generalize others
  • Wanting to challenge reactive emotions of my whiteness but also respect thatas a woman who is socialized to be constantly doubting feelings
  • Strategies
  • Want folks to “turn towards” instead of recoil from discussions of racism
  • “Trigger warnings” – how to acknowledge trauma and respect it whileencouraging responsibility for self and not holding up fragility Discussion
  • Tension between wanting to reflect critically on our socialized white supremacy as it relates to our socialization as women to constantly question our emotions
  • Valuable to name feeling, validate it, then commit to working through it
  • Emotionally advanced to expect someone to step into difficult emotions –requires commitment to maintaining relationship
  • POC experience of structural racism is traumatic, what does it feel to have anembodied/somatic sense of safety and de-escalate internal experience – manage fight/flight/freeze/dissociate part of brain to relax instead of freaking out – responsible for
  • Don’t have much faith in my Bay Area communities that I can fuck up and that folks will work through it with me
  • Experience of feeling disposable – angry at the ways we were called out and organization disintegrated because we didn’t have the relationships – never worked through it
  • Not comfortable with “messy” and “awkward” conversations – conditioned to just get though it – have to counter that
  • When talking to others about racism – not just about transmitting knowledge, but supporting their somatic/emotional experience – how to do that in situations where there isn’t deep emotional relationships (work, etc)- loop that reinforces itself – why are we ever in situations in which we aren’t responsible for each other’s wellness?
  • Need to create spaces of somatic healing and emotional transformation geared to healing itself (UNtraining, EBMC, named as examples that are happening – one person doing co-counseling with peer and therapeutic T- group focused on expelling trauma and racism)
  • This work really came alive for me when I was able to connect with emotional experience – learning to trust that I am still lovable despite my conditioning – don’t want to come at this work from a place of shame
  • I have become very analytical and cut off from emotions to fight stereotype of femininity of being emotional – how easy it is for me to override emotional path, as a way to adapt to organizing spaces and idea of “good” anti-racist – hard to com out of that and function
  • Performativity of anti-racism – disembodied
  • Feel appreciative when racism is pointed out – I can handle it. Harder when Iget called in for being patronizing. How to handle dominant white supremacist system (Tema Okun) ie when POC colleagues didn’t like how I interacted with him – reminding him about things, then I apologized, didn’t do it and he forgot something and it messed things up. Frustrating.
  • Let’s be human – I felt upset. Hard to do that when I am constantly questioning my white supremacy and my own authentic self. Can’t separate authentic self and race/gender socialization – leads to spiral of doubt.
  • Relationship between perfectionism and fear – why are we so punitive and policing each other – making us irredeemable. Good and bad projection/dichotomy – we cannot afford to fracture this movement – the

movement needs to be more important than my desire to distance myself

from “bad whiteness” – we’re all human, and we’re gonna screw up.

  • Not surprising that it’s hard – came to conversations about racism later thanother things in our lives. But applying same standards of perfection that we

    apply to other areas of our lives

  • As you age, it becomes easier to be kind to self. “Finally fine.”
  • Speak. Act. Make mistakes. Learn. Speak. Act.
  • Feels like people’s lives depend on us not fucking up. Putting too muchimportance on my choices. Not rational. Sense of urgency.
  • Chant: “Keep on fighting until we get it right.”
  • What hope is there? Feeling hopeless about my affect on the world when Icommit microaggressions, etc. Feels like it will never get better.
  • Monarch Butterflies – takes 4 generations to make one migration – we are onshoulders, we are on trajectory, we will get to where we are going. If we are

    doing the work, we are part of the solution. Also, they are endangered.

  • No guarantees that they will progress.Strategies/Difficult conversations
  • How to keep the other person engaged, how to challenge the belief systembut not the person
  • Hard to not get defensive when things get personal/polarized
  • Fragility makes us shut down
  • How to invite curiosity, break down our mythologies
  • How to not be condescending, where is my learning edge around not thinking“I know better” – don’t want to be acting like a puppet-master
  • Feels impossible to have pure curiosity with white people, but have it withPOC – even when they say the same thing
  • Hard to feel empathy for folks who have really defensive reactions, since Inever had them.
  • Hard when you are getting called out for violence, which is part of racism
  • Experienced a huge class buffer in my learning about privilege
  • Fragility isn’t around defensiveness, it’s when we’re ignored/put down.
  • Introverted – extra difficult to discuss with others who take upspace/opinionated/stuck in their ways – not that curious – want them to

    stop and be curious sometimes

  • Role playing is useful
  • Calling in white folks in front of POC – what is it to take space in that way?Performativity of white savior or not making space for POC to speak for selves, vs not expecting POC to always have to hold that space – not saying something is consent
  • Technique: Teacher that says thank you for that clear crystallization of racism in our culture – oppression has got you – like a possessionStrategies/addressing own discomfort and safety

• My own mindfulness practice has helped me sit in discomfort – draw on

internal resources

  • NVC to identify own feelings – unpack situation, before acting
  • Give self some space
  • Remembering everything is practice, as framing, as antidote to perfectionism
  • Why do we hold ourselves to such different standards with differentpractices
  • Develop other parts of the fabric of our lives and have genuine relationshipsso that we know we will still be loved

    Closing

  • Tag street harassment as a future topic to return to and dive deeper
  • Where are you comfortably invisible in your communities? Feedsperfectionism. If I don’t take space, I won’t be called out. Where are you

    hiding? Connected to embodied leadership training.

  • Staying connected to when I was not awake to this and feel grateful to thosewho held me – how can I be patient and loving?
  • How little of my community is not politicized that I’m not practicing theseskills – want to recommit to learning what it means to be new to these

    conversations

  • Not about not fucking up, actually about opening to amazing and realrelationships (I use the stick more than the carrot)
  • Acknowledge privilege of choosing to be in all white spaces – different carethan when in multi-racial spaces – what is my discomfort in this?
  • Remember strong emotions are not just tears, honor anger
  • Replacing safe spaces with brave spaces
  • Reframing invisibility as positive – avoidant style of conversations as a wayto create spaciousness and develop perspective