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.

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why you should not call the cops

Cross-posted from Catalyst Project:

Dear Friends,

Trump called himself the ‘law and order candidate’. He’s vocally supported “stop & frisk” policies that target Black and brown communities. His ‘first 100 days’ plan includes expanding federal funding for local police, federal law enforcement, and federal prosecutors.  And he’s promised to have the Attorney General investigate Black Lives Matter protestors for criminal charges.Read more

White Women’s Tears and the Men Who Love Them

There has been much critique lately of “white tears.” This term refers to all of the ways, both literally and metaphorically, that white people cry about how hard racism is on us. In my work, I consistently encounter these tears in their various forms, and many writers have provided excellent critiques. Here, I want to address one specific manifestation of white tears: those shed by white women in cross-racial settings.

White Women, Patriarchy and White Superiority

This piece is by longtime educator and social justice practitioner Tilman Smith, published on Dr. Shakti Butler’s World Trust site (a phenomenal resource for racial justice educators). Her articulation of the intersection of whiteness and femaleness deeply resonates with White Noise in this ongoing work to critically examine and courageously shake up the ways in which, as Smith so clearly expresses,

It is in those moments when I feel most challenged around my oppressed identity as a woman that I call on my areas of internalized superiority.

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I Don’t Want to Be an Excuse for Racist Violence Anymore: White women’s passive role in racist attacks like Charleston

This insightful article is cross-posted from New Republic:

By

We cannot talk about the violence that Dylann Roof perpetrated at Emanuel AME last Wednesday night without talking about whiteness, and specifically, about white womanhood and its role in racist violence. We have to talk about those things, because Roof himself did.

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On Rachel Dolezal, White Privilege, and White Shame

Rachel Dolezal Isn’t the Most Important Race Story in Spokane.

But she does seem to be an unraveling puzzle that continues to elicit curiosity, outrage, and comment. From Mia McKenzie’s discussion of Blackness and Blackface, to Kai M Green’s willingness to give Rachel a little more benefit of the doubt in discussing the similarities of race and gender constructs, to Lisa Marie Rollins’ explanation of what transracial actually means, plenty has been said already.… Read more

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...

Creating “Safe” Neighborhoods: A reflection on my neighborhood’s private patrol — and what to do with my disapproval

Like many Oakland progressives, my political alarm went off last year in response to the trend towards middle income and affluent neighborhoods hiring private security guards. For Oakland at least, the private patrol debate is relatively new, but it raises many familiar concerns about racial profiling and the feeding of racialized fears by misrepresenting the dangers of city life. Here I reflect on my learning from engaging in the patrol debate in my own mostly white, mostly home-owning neighborhood.

Narratives of White Women Used to Uphold Racism and Patriarchy: A Partial Timeline

This is a timeline we use in White Noise workshops to help make visible dominant representations of white women that have historically served to reinforce, normalize and naturalize forms of racist violence and patriarchal oppression.  How do these narratives of white female sexuality and identity (re)appear in the present? How do they continue to live in our imaginations, bodies, dreams, media, collective consciousness, politics?… Read more