In late January 2014, for the first time since our birth in 2009, the entire current White Noise Collective core met for a full weekend retreat in coastal Northern California. The blissful sunshine, gentle wind, and migrating whales inspired a weekend of tough questions, deep introspection, big dreams, new plans, and renewed commitments. We hope this post, which summarizes the growth we underwent at our retreat, serves to put our intentions to the world, makes transparent our commitments, and increases our accountability to those of you who provided valuable feedback on our 2014 survey. On the survey we sought general feedback, and also asked you all:
1. In your wildest dreams, what would you like the White Noise Collective to do in 2014?
2. More specifically, which of the following would you like us to do or provide in 2014?
- More Dialogues
- More Workshops
- More Resources
- More fb postings
- More Blogging
- Training and allyship with organizations
- Other (explain)
Our retreat began with a jam-packed agenda, and along with it a conscious commitment to maintain flexibility so that our ambitious agenda didn’t interfere with the opportunities to have deep, necessary, and potentially transformative conversations. Those conversations were ever-present, and while much was completed, not every agenda item was checked off.
We initiated our retreat with the motivating question: how do we want the world to change because of our work (in one year? in 500 years?). Through powerful dialogue we arrived at our shared vision, which we now host in our “About us” section. We share a vision of working toward a world in which:
- All people who experience gendered oppression and white/light skin privilege will feel inspired, empowered, and equipped to act up and be fiercely and creatively committed to social justice and racial justice movements, especially those led by people of color
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All people who experience gendered oppression and white/light skin privilege will feel connected to a supportive community in order to foster self-awareness, self-reflection, responsibility, shared power and the literacy and skills necessary to actively dismantle oppressive structures of power
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“White feminist” movements, people in helping and buffer zone professions and all people will recognize and stop perpetuating colonial and racist practices
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We will experience a world free of white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity and other oppressive ideologies
From this discussion three powerful values arose: connecting everyone engaged in radical liberation movements (and particularly individuals who identify with whiteness and femaleness within these movements), building our collective consciousness about oppression and injustice, and moving ourselves and our communities toward action. We examined the work we currently do–and the work we hope to do in the future–and explored how it all relates to these three values.
We explored our individual and collective capacities, asking ourselves how to remain humble in our work while choosing projects that recognize our availabilities and limitations.
Given our clarified vision, values, and capacity, we reviewed feedback from the survey and made a few plans for the coming year. This year, we commit to:
- Continue to offer free, monthly dialogues February through July and September through December
- Create a new opportunity for longer-term engagement in dialogues that move dialogue participants toward action. We are affectionately calling this opportunity the White Noisemakers.
- Host three sliding scale fee workshops this year to grow our community, with thematic focuses on Cultural Appropriation, Theater of the Oppressed, & White Female Socialization in the Buffer Zone
- Explore and refine our values around money and financing the White Noise Collective
- Explore accountability and a possible advising group
- Continue to write individually and collectively around topics that move us and publish our writings on our blog
- Creating curriculum and teaching tools
- Engage in creative collaborative projects
2014 is an adventure in waiting. We hope you can join us.
