Practices for Challenging Racism and White Supremacy

our writing on this theme

Vent Diagrams for White Racial Justice Practitioners

Anti-racism Practice, Reflection, Therapy, Healing, and Whiteness

Vent Diagrams for White Racial Justice Practitioners

We are big fans of vent diagrams: move from the overlaps – a phenomenal participatory art project, which was started by educator E.M./Elana Eisen-Markowitz and artist Rachel Schragis. In their words: “We define a “vent diagram” as a diagram of the overlap of two statements that appear to be true and appear to be contradictory. We purposefully don’t label the overlapping middle. Making vent diagrams as a practice helps us recognize and reckon with contradictions and keep imagining and acting from the intersections and overlaps. Venting is an emotional release, an outlet for our anger, frustration, […]

Showing up and Honoring the #BlackLivesMatter Movement

Anti-racism Practice, Reflection, State Violence

Showing up and Honoring the #BlackLivesMatter Movement

The #BlackLivesMatter movement is expanding and deepening across the nation, and spreading around the globe. This sign, hashtag and rallying cry are filling streets, newsfeeds, imaginations and institutions. And white-identified folks eager to engage, enraged by injustice, and inspired by the movement are showing up in large numbers and in different ways. As white allies act, and reflect on action, it is key to understand what is being asked for by Black leadership, what is useful, powerful, and what is detrimental. Many brilliant Black organizers have commented on the ways white folks have co-opted or […]

Five Lessons From the Past and Present of Racial Justice Organizing

Anti-racism Practice, Hate Groups, Labor and Work

Five Lessons From the Past and Present of Racial Justice Organizing

Written by Julie Quiroz, Senior Fellow, Movement Strategy Center. Originally posted for Philanthropic Institute for Racial Equity The years of fighting racism have taught us many lessons, perhaps the greatest of which is the recognition that we have to be clear about the type of racism we intend to confront. If we take a narrow view of racism as a set of stereotypes or personal beliefs, then educational efforts aimed at individuals have some impact. But taking on structural racism requires entirely different approaches. As scholar Eduardo Bonilla-Silva asserts, “Social systems and their supports must […]

Police Brutality Action Kit (Created by Showing Up for Racial Justice – SURJ)

Police Brutality Action Kit, cross posted with permission from: showingupforracialjustice.org/archives/2016 Created by Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Click here for a PDF version of this toolkit. By Tes One Artwork used with permission. Showing up for Racial Justice(SURJ) was formed in 2009 by white people from across the US to respond to the significant increase of targeting and violence against people of color in the aftermath of the election of Barack Obama. The killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO; Eric Garner on Staten Island, NY; Ezell Ford in Los Angeles, CA; and John Crawford in Beavercreek, […]

Curriculum Offerings

"White Womanhood", Allyship and Solidarity, Anti-racism Practice, Cultural Appropriation, Privilege Systems

Curriculum Offerings

As part of our organizational sunsetting process, we lovingly offer selections of our workshop curriculum to you and to your communities. Like dandelion seeds taking flight on the wind, we hope these educational tools serve you and take on new, emergent lives. The workshops below are a handful among many others we offered in the dozen years of White Noise. We have lightly polished them up in the hopes they are available (and legible!) for use for both newer and more seasoned facilitators. We welcome you to adjust and shift what we’ve offered to meet your […]

Reaching Out, Calling In, Building Up, Rooting Down

Allyship and Solidarity, Anti-racism Practice, Privilege Systems

Reaching Out, Calling In, Building Up, Rooting Down

For white folks who have been on this journey of anti-racism and for folks who are joining now, wherever we may be there are always new learning curves, ways to show up, opportunities to grow our capacities to support racial justice movements, inner and outer work to meet the transformative demands of this time. Here are some incredibly helpful pieces to take in, take to heart, share with other white people, and use as compasses for accountable action, real solidarity, strategic intervention and courageous self-reflection. Dear White People, This is What We Want You to […]

The Future of Solidarity: How White People Can Support the Movement for Black Lives

Anti-racism Practice, Labor and Work

The Future of Solidarity: How White People Can Support the Movement for Black Lives

This is to express our gratitude to everyone who showed up at The Future of Solidarity, organized livestream viewings across the country, helped share the event, and made the evening so powerful through your deep presence, open hearts and warm connections. With over 600 people gathered, it was the most amazing turnout we could have hoped for! We also want to say a huge thank you to the 35 person volunteer team that donated time, energy and great care to making the venue more accessible, and the entire evening run smoothly. Here is the transcript of […]

I Am Not Trayvon Martin, but I sure look like the jury. Reflections on racism, the Zimmerman verdict and white women jurors.

"White Womanhood", Anti-racism Practice, Reflection, State Violence

I Am Not Trayvon Martin, but I sure look like the jury. Reflections on racism, the Zimmerman verdict and white women jurors.

As we collectively mourn for Trayvon Martin and feel outrage for him, his family and all people who live in fear of a criminal (in)justice system which is designed to entrap and persecute them or their loved ones, we must reflect on the dynamics of racism and fear in our culture that not only allowed, but encouraged, Travon’s murder. From the We Are Not Trayvon Martin tumblr: The Trayvon Martin case isn’t about an isolated incident but about a pattern of behavior. It’s assumed that racism some how magically ended in the 1960’s. Instead, we’ve slapped a […]

Moving into Radical Self-Worth to Better Support our Movements — part 1 in a series

"White Womanhood", Anti-racism Practice, Hate Groups, Labor and Work, Patriarchal Violence, Reflection

Moving into Radical Self-Worth to Better Support our Movements — part 1 in a series

In our struggles to take down white supremacy and patriarchy, we must each heal the ways we have internalized these systems of oppression. Otherwise, we end up recreating them — even in our liberation movements. This healing means different things to different people. We write this piece in particular for those of us who identify at what we often call the intersection of race privilege and gender(ed) oppression. The two primary authors of this piece identify as white, queer women (though those labels never seem sufficient), but we recognize that people invested in this conversation […]

The Charleston Imperative: Why Feminism & Antiracism Must Be Linked

White Noise has signed this powerful statement currently circulating, which speaks to our deepest commitments and reasons for existence as a collective. Click Here to sign the statement Posted from The African American Policy Forum (AAPF): The Charleston Imperative: Why Feminism & Antiracism Must Be Linked As we grieve for the nine African Americans who were murdered in their house of worship on June 17 2015, those of us who answer the call of feminism and antiracism must confront anew how the evils of racism and patriarchy continue to endanger all Black bodies, regardless of […]

Southerners on New Ground: On the role of white people in the movement at this time

We are excited by the recent post from SONG (Southerners on New Ground): THERE IS HONOR IN STRUGGLE THERE IS HONOR IN THE WORK SONG ON THE ROLE OF WHITE PEOPLE IN THE MOVEMENT AT THIS TIME It opens with a powerful quote: “White people are taught that racism is a personal attribute, an attitude, maybe a set of habits. Anti-racist whites invest too much energy worrying about getting it right; about not slipping up and revealing their racial socialization; about saying the right things and knowing when to say nothing. It’s not about that. […]

Action and support opportunities this week!

Anti-racism Practice, State Violence

Action and support opportunities this week!

WNC Community, Please see below for several actions and support requests this coming week: 1) Monday, June 19 at 6 pm – TURN OUT to Oakland’s City Council Meeting to support the #DefundOPD Campaign. 2) Support Black Land Liberation on Juneteenth (Monday) 3) Tuesday 6/20: All Out to Berkeley to Stop Urban Shield MORE DETAILS: 1) From APTP: First off, thank you to EVERYONE for participating in the #DefundOPD Campaign. Your actions have clearly influenced the City’s decisionmaking process when it comes to allocating money to the Oakland Police Department. That fight is not over! City Council plans to announce and vote on its […]

Strategies to Engage White People Around (Im)migrant Justice

Anti-racism Practice, Gender Identity, Labor and Work, Monthly Dialogues, Reflection

Strategies to Engage White People Around (Im)migrant Justice

In our June dialogue, we convened white female and gender minority racial justice activists to examine personal and political histories of immigration to this country, and to generate steps for action, engagement and dialogue with other white people towards contributing to the inspiring momentum of the immigrant justice movement. It was fantastic for the White Noise Collective to be joined by special guest, organizer and facilitator extraordinaire Dara Silverman of SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice), who led us through a three-part process of familial exploration on a timeline of US history, expression of values […]

We need to lock arms amidst all of this.

These are just a few of the insights put forth by Paul Brandeis Raushenbush in a recent article on the Huffington Post, What White People Can Do About the Killing of Black Men in America: "There are a lot of events vying to occupy the American mind these days such as Gaza, Iraq, Ukraine, the immigration crisis, hate crimes against Sikhs, Ebola, and Robin Williams' death. But in one way, the ability to switch among these traumas is a white person's 'luxury.'... "Black Americans are rightfully outraged, but it will require all Americans to be mobilized before the racism that undergirds these killings will end and the deaths along with it. White Americans like me have to stop channel surfing all the outrageously bad news from around the world and focus on the death that is happening in our own cities to our fellow Americans...

I Support the #BaltimoreUprising

Anti-racism Practice, Reflection, State Violence

I Support the #BaltimoreUprising

Cross-posted with permission from Catalyst Project: “This is not just Baltimore’s problem, like it wasn’t just Ferguson. This is racism in America.” Dear Friend, I’m from a majority Black and highly segregated city near Baltimore. Wilmington, Delaware had the longest domestic military occupation since the Civil War when the National Guard occupied the city for 9 months in 1968 after Dr. King was assassinated– the longest occupation until New Orleans post-Katrina, that is. Old money white wealth stays across town from row homes in impoverished Black neighborhoods cut through with the interstate. Wilmington’s not at […]

HUNGER FOR JUSTICE – 7/31 Day of Solidarity with Hunger Strikers

Anti-racism Practice, Labor and Work, State Violence

HUNGER FOR JUSTICE – 7/31 Day of Solidarity with Hunger Strikers

The White Noise Collective has added our name to the list of organizations that support and endorse the California Prisoner Hunger Strikers. We do this as an act of solidarity and to stand in opposition to the structural racism of the prison industry. As part of that endorsement, we are sharing this announcement about an upcoming way for all of us to show support and solidarity. Please join us in making a call to Gov. Brown and encouraging him and the CDCR to negotiate. -the WNC — Hunger for Justice On Wednesday July 31st, people […]

2 Mini-zines for MLK Weekend

Anti-racism Practice, Reflection

2 Mini-zines for MLK Weekend

Two mini-zines made by White Noise and friends for a Black Lives Matter march and the Reclaiming Dr. King’s Radical Legacy march last year are available to download and print – a small way to contribute to the waves of organized actions this weekend. Please take and share these tiny folded pieces packed with quotes and food for thought for white allies: Showing Up for Black Lives Matter Reclaiming King’s Legacy Short guide to folding 8-page mini-zine This weekend will be the 2nd annual Reclaim MLK’s Radical Legacy – 96 hours of disrupting the status […]

White Noise Collective Is Sunsetting After 12 Years of Love & Praxis

"White Womanhood", Allyship and Solidarity, Anti-racism Practice, Gender Identity, Monthly Dialogues, Reflection

White Noise Collective Is Sunsetting After 12 Years of Love & Praxis

To our friends, comrades and community, We miss you! And, we have major news to share: after a long, rocky period of deliberation, our core has made the difficult decision to sunset our organization. Ultimately we have determined that we do not have capacity to move forward together in the form of White Noise Collective. We trust that this vehicle of White Noise over the past twelve years has been a part of the collective work to break the spells of white supremacist cisheteropatriarchy. As we reflect on this formal ending, we acknowledge that it, […]

Showing Up for Love, Justice & Dignity

Below is a statement from SURJ’s (Showing Up for Racial Justice) leadership in light of the 136 murders of Black people by police this year and the shooting in Dallas last night. SURJ condemns loss of life, no matter who is dead. As an organization committed to organizing white people to dismantle a criminal justice system brutalizing communities of color across the nation, SURJ condemns violence against the police and mourns the injuries and deaths of police officers killed in Dallas. A system that brutalizes people of color communities and destroys the lives even of those who […]

Join us for our next Workshop!

"White Womanhood", Anti-racism Practice

Join us for our next Workshop!

Sunday, March 10 – Exploring the Intersection of White Privilege and Gender Oppression in the Work for Racial Justice. 10am-12:30pm, Near 12th St BART in Oakland. $35-50 sliding scale. To apply for registration, click here. How have our experiences of gender oppression impacted our work in challenging white supremacy? What patterns are common among people socialized as both white and female? How do they show up or limit our anti-racist work? In this highly interactive workshop, led by members of the White Noise Collective, we will explore how internalized sexism and heterosexism influences our work […]

District Attorney O’Malley: Which Side Are You On?

Anti-racism Practice, Reflection, State Violence

District Attorney O’Malley: Which Side Are You On?

Dear District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, This Friday we will mark the one-year anniversary of the Black Friday 14 non-violent direct action at the West Oakland BART station — an action inspired by a growing national movement to expose the painful legacy of police brutality and demand an end to police violence in our country. Since Black Friday 2014, we have collectively mourned the loss of at least 290 black lives in officer-involved shootings in the United States — at least seven in Alameda County alone. This tragic fact demonstrates that this movement is not over […]

dialogue notes on this topic

Though many of the themes from the monthly dialogues are represented in our blog posts, those posts rarely include all of what was discussed. Find the notes here from each dialogue raw and uncut. We share them (with names omitted) in an effort to be accountable and transparent to our larger community, accessible for those who are not able to attend, and saved as archive to return to and draw from.

December 2021: Generating liberatory belonging in white anti-racist cultural spaces

Description/Guiding Questions: “If America is to grow out of white-body supremacy, the transformation must largely be led by white Americans. This transformation cannot rely primarily on new laws, policies, procedures, standards, and strategies. We’ve already seen how these are no match for culture. For genuine transformation to take place, white Americans must acknowledge their racialized trauma, move through clean pain, and grow up.” ~Resmaa Menakem, “Whiteness without White Supremacy” from My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, p. 262 “White people in this country have quite enough to […]

May 2021: On the Abolition Path

Reflection prompts: Let’s come together to deepen our shared understandings of visionary Black-led abolition movements, expand the limits of our abolitionist imaginations, and recognize the ways that race, class and gender influence our understandings of safety and punishment. What questions are we each sitting with in the wake of the Chauvin verdict and how it relates to calls for justice and accountability? How are people defining justice and accountability in relation to police indictments? How do we reckon with the system that is guilty, that is not put on trial, that was designed to secure […]

March 2021: Reflect, Recalibrate, Recommit

While 2021 is racing out of the gates, let’s take a moment to pause. What are the lessons we want to learn from 2020, from the past 4 years of 45, from Freedom Summer, the fight to defend our decaying democracy, the many ways we’ve adapted to pandemic living, grieving and loving, what is (im)possible, dreamable, doable? Let’s take time to gather together to support critical and compassionate reflection on how we are finding our ground in shifting political landscapes, the relationship between inner and outer work, and what fortifies us for the ongoing work […]

July 2020: Solidarity with Black and Indigenous Resistance, Mass Uprising and Collective Liberation: Rooting and Rising in this Political Moment

Guiding Questions: What is unimaginable one day becomes imaginable the next, and mandatory the next. These last many months have proved that change is not only possible, but can be swift and unrelenting, including in our movements for liberation. We have demonstrated that when there is a mass will or need, major shifts are possible. We have witnessed this in recent months, with huge victories in the Movement for Black Lives, and in Indigenous organizing. It is within the realm of possibility to stop all evictions, to shut down the factories that are directly causing […]

May 2020: Navigating white saviorism and urgency in times of pandemic: revisiting themes of Tema Okun’s “White Supremacy Culture” towards collective liberation

Guiding Framing and Questions: Scholar Tema Okun’s article “White Supremacy Culture” makes conscious attitudes and behaviors in organizations and individuals that perpetuate white supremacy. As we as a collective think and feel into this moment, we are called to return to particular themes in her work to better ground us in vision and action. In particular, we are interested in considering 2 themes emerging as patterns in this time: “sense of urgency” and “white saviorism”. Whether or not you are familiar with Okun’s work, or these particular terms, we invite you into dialogue with us. […]

Nov 2019: Therapy for Whiteness

Dialogue description: Whiteness is characterized by unconsciousness, silence, extreme escapism, polarization, navel-gazing, projection, superiority/inferiority binary worldview, and protective attachments to “goodness”. The construction of whiteness is profoundly pathological and has caused immeasurable suffering, yet it is not in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). This dialogue is an invitation to spend some time together diving into the waters of whiteness, its implications in therapy, and ways that the lenses, skills, sensitivities, and capacities from therapy and anti-racist practice can mutually inform each other. Food for thought prompts: If whiteness was a client/patient, […]

June 2019 WNC Dialogue: Transforming White Fragility towards Collective Liberation

Dialogue Description: White Fragility is defined by scholar Robin DiAngelo as “A state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation (2011).” In this dialogue, we would like to grapple with the many questions alive for us about white fragility in this political moment. With the rise of this term ‘white fragility’ in popular consciousness, especially with DiAngelo’s recent book, we […]

April 2019 WNC Dialogue: Words We Use & Words That Use Us

Dialogue Description: Language is a form of power. It can create inclusion and exclusion, shared understandings and alienating activist insularity, dehumanize and (re)humanize, be used to “other” people and used as part of self-determination and self-naming. Language, whether drawing on common terms to mobilize people, subverting and reappropriating words and labels, or creating new words to name new meanings, identities and realities, is always an integral force of social change efforts. In this dialogue we will marinate in the power, liberating potentials and dangers of words we use and words that use us. What do new terms help make possible? What language are people and movements creating? What issues or discomfort arise? How do we strive to keep social justice terms alive in their meanings to connect and uplift and reframe, and work against them becoming empty or alienating jargon? Join us in dialogue as we explore these questions for ourselves individually and collectively. Some prompts for thought: I Prefer That You Say I'm "Disabled" Why you should stop saying "all lives matter" explained in 9 different ways

October 2018 WNC Dialogue: Joyful Militancy Book Club

Join us for our October dialogue, our annual book club, this year focusing on the new, visionary and creative analysis of Nick Montgomery and carla bargman in JoyfulMilitancy: “A basic premise of this book is that resistance and transformation are always in the making at the margins, while Empire is always adapting and reacting (25). …No matter what, things can be otherwise — there is always wiggle room. Uncertainty is where we need to begin, because experimentation and curiosity is part of what has been stolen from us (33).” Our dialogue will be guided by the following questions from Joyful Militancy: What […]

May 2018: Not Othering Our Ancestors

Dialogue Description: As the US grapples and often fails to meaningfully reckon with its history, what does it mean for us to reckon with our own familial and collective histories? What place do different forms of memory work have in anti-racist practice? How can we support each other to challenge the historic amnesia in the process of different European immigrant groups assimilating into whiteness and learning to uphold white supremacy? Which ancestors do we know about, from any generation – who are we ashamed of, proud of, curious about? Who do we turn away from, and […]

February 2018: Emotional Labor and Difficult Conversations Around Race and Gender

Dialogue Description: What messages have white supremacy and patriarchy directed at us about emotional labor in interpersonal relationships? Do you feel challenged navigating differences across race and gender where emotional labor is expected or warranted? Do you find yourself struggling to identify and maintain boundaries with colleagues, friends, housemates, community members, partners, or family when it comes to having difficult conversations about race, gender, and other lived experiences? Join us in dialogue as we explore these questions, and others, in an exploration of how race, gender, and emotional labor impact and complicate our lives. Some […]

September 2017: Rising to the Moment: Reflecting and Growing for the Long Haul

Dialogue Description: The political landscape is shifting quickly now, and we want our September dialogue to reflect and hold space for this movement. From the recent white supremacist mobilizations to climate injustice to DACA, this is a brutal time, an extension of the ongoing violence targeting marginalized communities and the earth. Amidst all these shifting forces, how do we stay centered and clear in our long term vision? How do we get precise with our actions, and stay connected? What pulls us away from trust and interdependence, and how do we grow our skills to move towards dignity […]

May 2017: “Ethics of All-White Racial Justice Spaces” with SF SURJ and STAND

Joint dialogue with SF Bay Area SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) and STAND (Standing Together and Nurturing Dissent) White Men for Racial, Gender and Economic Justice Dialogue Description: We know that part of overcoming white supremacy is doing away with binaries and the right/wrong dichotomy. And, still, it can feel challenging to do this and to know how to stay accountable to what can sometimes feel like opposing guidelines from the people of color and frontline movement organizers that we try to center as white- or light-skinned activists fighting for racial justice. In this […]

February 2017: Building an Intersectional Feminist Movement beyond the Pink Hat

Dialogue Description: In this movement moment when millions of white cis-women are becoming mobilized and radicalized in opposition to Trump, how can we push the movement to organize beyond white middle class cis-women issues and towards racial justice? What common and historical patterns of white feminism should we make conscious and disrupt — now and for the long haul? As a collective, we have particularly investigated how “white womanhood” is used to justify systems and patterns of harm especially against POC, while also holding space for our queer and TGNC experiences in that conversation. How […]

August 2016: Race, Gender and Workplace Power

Dialogue Description: Guided by many motivating questions, our August dialogue will explore our struggles for racial and gender justice in our workplace settings. Whether we work at an explicit racialjustice organization, a largely white, “a-racial” institution, or somewhere in between, we want to use this dialogue to examine the unique challenge of managing workplace relationships and institutional power while also struggling for workplace justice. What roles do we hold in our workplaces, and what barriers do we face to dismantling white supremacy and patriarchy within our institutions? How do the real risks of losing or […]

April 2016: Forging an Aspirational ‘White’ Identity: Reckoning with Past, Present and Future

Dialogue Description: “As long as you think you’re white, you’re irrelevant …And have brought humanity to the edge of oblivion: because they think they are white.” —James Baldwin Whiteness was forged in the fires of white supremacy, the two have never been separate. Yet a generation of white and light-skinned anti-racists are faced with the challenge of both identifying as white in order to rightfully own white privilege, while simultaneously unmooring from the whitewashed ‘white’ identity of past and present. In this dialogue we want to take up the beginnings of that challenge. If the […]

November 2015: Ancestors, Ghosts, Spirituality

Dialogue Description: As the nights get longer, let’s explore our connections to those who have come before and illuminate our life-paths and life-work. What and who lights up our commitments to social justice, our capacities for resilience, deep reflection and inspiration? How do spiritual dimensions live in our imaginations, dreams, struggles and everyday practices? As an offering, here is the partial “role models” page from our site. 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 […]

September 2015: #BLM: A Hundred Ways to Show Up

Dialogue Description: For the theme of this dialogue, we will discuss the Black Lives Matter movement. Specifically, we want to make space to discuss the varied ways we are each showing up – let’s talk about everything we’re doing, from integrating BLM material into curriculum to pushing policy change, from confronting our internalized white superiority to doorknockingin our neighborhoods, from conversations across difference to marching and locking down during direct action. Where are we feeling change, hope, and success? Where are we feeling barriers? How are we responding to challenges (including All Lives Matter rhetoric […]

May 2015: Internalized Worthlessness, Radical Self Love and How to Not Throw Each Other Under the Bus

Dialogue Description: In this dialogue we will explore the internalized feelings we may have around our white identity, specifically looking at senses of shame, worthlessness, harmfulness, awkwardness, etc alone, together or in mixed race spaces. How do we let go of the binary between being the good or bad white person? How do we tell the difference between discomfort that comes from sitting with our white privileges and self-hate for our white identity? What are the pathways to radical self-love that can better serve us and anti-racist movements? Finally we will explore how we may […]

March 2015: Safety and (Dis)comfort

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 […]

December 2014: Difficult Conversations from Ferguson to Palestine

Dialogue Description: After our first Difficult Conversations dialogue a few years back, we decided to make it an annual tradition, to support each other in a little practice and role playing before many of us head back to families and communities of origin for the holiday season. This year, we are challenging ourselves to think about how to talk about some big things with those who may think and believe in vastly different ways about police violence, occupation and racism. Check out these articles to get the conversation started: On Growing Up in Ferguson and […]

March 2014: Allyship: Critiques, Potentials and Practices

Dialogue Description: Challenges to the concept of “alliance” keep arising, in particular with regards to white antiracists. We’ll familiarize ourselves with common criticisms, dive into our own growth edges and practices, and examine the limits and possibilities of this model. We will try to balance theory and lived experience in this dialogue, so please think of a recent experience wherein you felt challenged by your role as an ally to share and possibly work through together. We’ll use a few recent blogs to inspire our discussion: GradientLair’s I Don’t Want Tim Wise As An Ally Jamie Utt’s So You […]

November 2013: Thanksgiving Mythologies

Dialogue Description: Thanksgiving/Thanks-taking is coming up, and with inherited and/or chosen family time together, it is a potent time to (re)direct attention to realities that are hidden by this holiday’s very old propaganda campaign. We’ll look at histories of this land (specifically in CA), Thanksgiving and other national bedtime stories/mythologies we tell ourselves. For additional resources on ways to subvert and shift this holiday towards social justice education and challenging historical amnesia, you may find these interesting: Thangs Taken: rethinking thanksgiving Rethinking Thanksgiving: teaching ideas and resources and Myths and Misgivings Dialogue Notes: These are […]

December 2012: Difficult Conversations (Holidays, Family and Beyond)

Dialogue Description: What communication patterns do we notice in ourselves? How does white female socialization (and other forms of socialization, cultural values, etc) factor into these patterns and how does it affect our ability to engage in meaningful and often difficult conversations with friends, family and folks with different perspectives? We will discuss these themes as well as learn and practice strategic non-defensive communication – so that as we head home for the holidays, we can make this year the one when we don’t just grit our teeth and ignore the racist or otherwise marginalizing […]

June 2012: Psychology of Racism

Dialogue Description: For our June dialogue, we will focus on material that we learned at a workshop on the psychology of racism. We’ll be watching a short video on shame and vulnerability and looking at how shame and other psychological experiences (anxiety, denial, fear, etc) challenge, support and inform our work with oppression and privilege. How can we better understand the psychological motivators of prejudice so that we know how to work with it in ourselves and in others? How can we learn to tolerate the anxiety, shame, guilt and anger that we might feel when […]

May 2011: ”White women’s tears”

Dialogue Notes only: 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. Our 3rd White Noise monthly dialogue was focused on “white woman tears” – the phenomenon of white women crying when […]

April 2011: Exploration of Ancestry

Dialogue Notes only: At our second White Noise monthly dialogue, we delved into the topic of ancestry with the intention of looking at how the histories/legacies of our (white/female) ancestors connect to the larger discussion we’ve begun. We began by checking in with affirmations about ourselves and about white women – something we committed previously to doing because we recognize how easy it can be to go instantly into denigrating ourselves and feeling over-responsible for all the problems of the world (something we, as women, have been very effectively trained to do — see the […]

suggested reading

our writing on this theme

dialogue notes on this topic