Another year has passed, and white supremacist violence and misogyny is ever-present, from white nationalist mass shootings in El Paso and New Zealand to our president’s twitter account.
Here in our small corner of the world, the White Noise Collective has continued our work to create space to unlearn systems of oppression and build embodied resilience in our movements for racial justice.… Read more
A Transcript of an Interview with White Noise Collective on Feminist Magazine Radio Show, July 2, 2019.
We use “white womanhood” as a term to capture the set of cultural messages that are widely spread through media and institutions like churches and schools about how “white women” should look, act, behave, and participate in society. These messages often result in learned behaviors that many people who identify as white women perform, or are expected to perform in order to be accepted.… Read more
As the winter solstice passes, we at White Noise Collective are engaged in the beloved tradition of taking stock of our past year, expressing gratitude for what we have made possible given all that we hold, letting go of that which no longer serves us, and making space for new ways to breathe life into our movements for racial and gender justice.… Read more
This blog post is written in response to comments and discussion generated at the February 2018 White Noise Collective dialogue, which examined the themes of “Emotional Labor and Difficult Conversations about Race and Gender”. I am grateful to the participants for their frank, vulnerable, and honest conversation. See our website for the guiding questions and suggested readings for the dialogue.… Read more
Wow, another year has passed, and a new year lies ahead. For many of us, and those of you who participated in our offerings this year, it was an exceptionally challenging and painful year. However, as we came together to reflect on 2017 and vision for 2018 and beyond, we couldn’t help but feel proud about all we — as a small, all-volunteer collective — have accomplished this year:
Carrying on our steady tradition of using dialogue as political practice, we convened eleven dialogues this year. … Read more
As part of our annual end-of-year tradition, the White Noise Collective core met in early December to reflect on 2016 — our accomplishments, failures, and growth as a collective — in order to compost old projects and germinate new ones for the year to come.
Chapters – White Noise Collective is National!… Read more
November is upon us, and this coming week will find millions of Americans gathering together with given and chosen family to celebrate the foundational myths of American settler colonialism and the ongoing erasure of indigenous peoples on this land.
This year, in the midst of one of the most powerful, visible, and spiritual resistance movements for indigenous sovereignty at Standing Rock, those of us who participate in some form of ritual at this time of year can take concrete steps to support indigenous sovereignty:
At the beginning of December the White Noise Collective core met to examine our experiences from 2015 and envision new intentions for the coming year. How quickly yet another year has passed, full of new growing edges, community building, core transitions, and ever-deepening practices. Reflecting on our intentions from our past retreat, it is powerful to witness how the past year was indeed full of manifestation of so much intention: direct action organizing, a new presence on twitter (that we are still co-evolving with), maintaining an action listserve, some beautifully juicy and complex community dialogues, a new dialogue space specifically for movement activists, and two newly developed workshops – one on the role of white women in upholding, maintaining, and subverting systems of violence and the other, that we offered twice this year on Difficult Conversations.… Read more
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.… Read more
The first weekend in December, 2014, the White Noise Collective core gathered for our second annual retreat. The weekend was full of growth, reflection, community-building, struggle, and evolution. We want to extend our gratitude to those you to those of you who offered us direct feedback through our 2014 year end survey, and let you all know what is on the horizon for the White Noise Collective in 2015.… Read more
Every year the White Noise Collective takes a moment to collect ourselves, gather feedback from our community, and reflect on our successes and opportunities to improve. The feedback we gather from our annual survey has led to substantial changes in the way the White Noise Collective interacts with our community, leading to growth such as our new dialogue policy and our experimentation with the Noisemakers. … Read more
This Halloween, the White Noise Collective conspired to take creative action to counteract the unquestioned, blatant, “it’s-just-a-joke-can’t-you-have-a-little-fun!?!” racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and cultural appropriation that parade as “costumes” in consumerist capitalist culture. Drawing on our Liberate Halloween Action Kit from last year, this year we came up with a design-your-own creative costume station, with the intention of setting up in front of a local Spirit Halloween store (one of the most obvious corporations perpetuating oppressive stereotypes through the mass sale of highly offensive costumes). … Read more
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. … Read more