Our beloved collective has made the difficult decision to sunset our organization this year (2023/2024), and to make space for other expressions of our work to continue to grow and iterate out in our movements in our lives. As a part of honoring our legacy, we are proud to share this interview with close collaborator Alex Marterre (they/them) and core member Jay Tzvia Helfand (they/them). Alex and Jay reflect on the impact of WNC, situated in the political moment of mid-October 2023.
To learn more about Alex and their offerings, check out: https://www.alexmarterretherapy.com/
To learn more about Jay and their therapy offerings, check out:
https://www.therapywithjaytzvia.space/
Our beloved collective has made the difficult decision to sunset our organization this year (2023/2024), and to make space for other expressions of our work to continue to grow and iterate out in our movements in our lives. As a part of honoring our legacy, we are proud to share this interview with close collaborator Alex Marterre (they/them) and core member Jay Tzvia Helfand (they/them). Alex and Jay reflect on the impact of WNC, situated in the political moment of mid-October 2023.
To learn more about Alex and their offerings, check out: https://www.alexmarterretherapy.com/
To learn more about Jay and their therapy offerings, check out:
https://www.therapywithjaytzvia.space/
Okay. You ready for this one? I wonder, do you want to start,
or do you want me to start? Yes. Yeah. Here we go.
Hello listeners and welcome to the White Noise Collective podcast. This is Jay sharing an update.
Our beloved Collective has made the difficult decision to sunset our organization this year and to make space for other expressions. expressions of our work to continue to grow and iterate out in our movements and in our lives.
As a part of honoring our legacy, we are proud to share this conversation, part of an archival series featuring our core collective members, close friends, and comrades.
Here we share our stories, history, and context for our work, including our learnings and questions, knowing that some of what has emerged for us could also likely be of use for other movement organizations both now and in the future.
If you're interested in reading our full statement detailing more about our sun setting, please check out conspireforchange .org. We are grateful for all the ways you and so many have shaped and brought us together.
the vehicle of White Noise Collective to life. This is Jay,
so be a health and they /them pronouns. 35, 34 actually. Just got nervous, 34. 34. Not to turn 35.
Based in Huichin, also known as Oakland, California, we are recording an archival podcast that honors the White Noise Collective and our legacy.
My name is Alex Martarra. I come out of the day of the event. I am 36 years old. Yeah, I'm with you then, you're home. Finally, 12 am.
you're home. I also live here in Oakland. It'll be in your home. Yeah, glad to be here with you. It's Sunday,
midday, and the sun is shining, and we're going to begin by first just like grounding a little bit more in this moment and how we are.
So I think immediately I'm feeling a little bit of the nervous energy of the permanence in some ways of this task. I feel my heartbeat.
I feel tingling in my hands and my feet. I feel the parts of me that are like like here and entering this conversation and just how much white noise has truly transformed my life and how much deep gratitude I have to like get to honor white noise,
my pardonate, the people including you who have like been a part of that and also the parts of me that are just like with the atrocities on the ground in Palestine right now and the ways.
ways it touches our lives. You and I were talking before this about just what it means to specifically right now in this time record and really honor white noise and how to situate that amidst like what we're feeling in this time that is a time of like great violence and devastation that demands a lot of action for me especially as an anti -Zionist.
-Zionist Jew, feeling that draw and feeling the intensity. I think I'm just naming for myself, for us, and also for listeners, that for me, one of the legacies of white noise,
of also specifically learning that's come, for me, from other anti -Zionist Jewish comrades, is that anti -Zionism is anti -racism, and that our work here more focused.
in the U .S., is deeply tied to what's happening related particularly to U .S. imperialism and U .S. Zionism and militarism as it touches Palestine and that our struggles are so bound.
But my heart is like racing, I feel angry and sad and purposeful. And I'm really glad to be here with you in a real way.
I'm touching Alex's arm. - I want to thank you for starting that. - Yeah. - For me and feeling more grounded with the recordings on. I was listening to you and also just taking in the vibrancy of some of the colors in the room and I was sitting in view of the beautiful altar.
And yeah, I'm feeling some of the echoes of our conversation that preceded this recording. - Thank you. And I can also still feel the echoes of yesterday was much in downtown San Francisco.
I can hear in the occupation now. - Mm -hmm. Yeah, and I was just feeling so connected to how beautiful an opportunity it is to do a recording today in this context.
context because of how white noise has shaped me politically and socially and spiritually and how I think through my connection to this incredible organization I cannot easily find some kind of like crap.
and a groundlessness and to be more specific to this moment, you know, as a white American /U .S. citizen non -jew, it's then really stimulating and a little destabilizing to find my positions.
What is appropriate to say? What's appropriate to do? What am I being called to do in this moment? And And there's a way that being shared with you, I'm feeling more clarity in that,
getting into old space and feel into the ways that I am connected still to the political moment. We were talking a lot about complicit.
I think I was able to feel into more dimensions with that. Thank you. I wonder too, if we want to say just anything about what we look like and our identities 'cause people can't see us and that feels perhaps like an access thing as well as just like another piece of like what's here.
I'm white with dark brown short hair. I'm seated in a chair with a black sweater and very comfortable sweatpants. I'm holding a large candle as like a grounding tool.
I'm an Ashkenazi Jew. I'm trans non -binary. I am also sick and disabled and class -wise fall into a mixed class zone.
- I am also white and have short grabbing. I'm wearing this like brilliant green sweatshirt that I love.
I am... am queer and non -binary and I'm actually realizing that I'm meeting a new language to describe class,
how to articulate myself, but I hold a master's degree. I'm a practicing therapist. I don't even know what middle class means anymore. Professional class,
I think there are lots of ways to name it. Do you want to name what you're holding or is that calling you out to me? Oh, no, okay. So Jay offered me this like really incredible full jits slash ground being object.
It is a glitter wand. It looks like a unicorn horn basically. It's clear plastic and it has pink glitter specs and these like little move and star big glitter butts.
And when the bubbles move in it, you got a glitter move, that's it. That wasn't anything. (laughing) And the feel was really nice.
- Thank you. And I wonder if you'd be open to answering this next question first, which is to share a little bit about what first drew you to white noise collective and your role.
- Let's see. I was living on East San Francisco so with. some pretty like radical, queer,
mostly white space by the time I was becoming more politicized, a tiny little selective house. And I was starting to understand politics for the first time in my life,
I was in my early 20s. Then I decided I wanted to become a therapist so I went to CIS and pretty immediately had that, like, for the first time an emotional experience.
landing into politics, where in my body, I felt really neat. I felt spiritual youth and emotionally moved. In part,
spurred by white guilt and shame, I was really urgently seeking a political home. And I dabbled in many different political spaces, but I really enjoy white knowing.
The most. because, first of all, no one had white dreads, a low bar, but that was like, there wasn't a lot of like gendered violence happening in the white noise space.
I think it felt more aligned with my values and I was just honestly kind of mesmerized by the leadership. It felt very much in admiration and it felt like,
oh, okay. okay, wow, I can actually learn and grow in this space in the ways that feel important to you." So that's what true me. And the dialogue spaces were just really riveting and rich.
Do you mind saying when a dialogue is, I can say to it? So for listeners who are like, "What's that?" It's a form of facilitated conversation that draws from Freire,
who's like a popular educator with the idea that through conversation, through dialogue together, we're building consciousness and growing power. And that was a big technology of white noise for many years.
What year are you to white noise? So the year is 2014. I'm going to say '25, but we can check that later. I was encouraged to go to a workshop of white noise.
noise at the time that was called, I'll do air quotes here, white women and the buffer zone with a specific lens around food justice. And it took place at an organization called People's Grocery in West Oakland,
Torrin, Elie Sheva and Nicole Wires, who are still have been white noise core for a long time. They were the facilitators and I came having been white noise core for a long time.
working at a food justice organization and coming into more and more, just like deep curiosity. I think in a way that was similarly also guilt and shame and fear and in my case,
some like perfectionism of like, how do I get it right as a white person? And I remember entering into this space and I've heard this described by other organizers and educators of that moment where you...
have that like, wow, like I'm contextualizing my own experience within a framework that's shared, that's politicized, and that helps me ground in like my whole being,
like emotionally, somatically, and politically, and it felt so containing and also inspiring. Like I remember leaving the space and being like,
fuck yeah. yeah." Like, I'm amped. And like, so wonder, amazement, gratitude, probably some shame too because,
you know, that was in the mix as well on some of the political education that was there at the time, I would say, around those subjects. And I just was really drawn in.
I was specifically encouraged to participate by other friends. and community who are largely queer radicals at the time and just kept showing up for a long time.
Yeah. Yeah. I love what you said about how you felt when you left because consistently after a white noise gatherings, I felt warm, I felt so tingly in my brain.
I felt excited. excited about connections and anything about my name. And I also felt like oh wow am I ever gonna catch up.
Yes. Which I think is where some of the like I don't know it's it's interesting what I liked about white noise is that I still felt welcome even though I wasn't quote -unquote caught up whatever that ends but to me at that time,
especially, I had very little experience in clinical spaces. I knew very little. I was pretty ignorant and like pretty heart -lit, and it felt like a space that I could still sit in and be up a lot.
And it often inspired me to want to learn more and grow more. So, I would take courses with the Center Center. Political Education.
I don't know, I was kind of all over the bay, I mean, as much as I could, 'cause I wanted any part of it. I also recognized an extreme lack up until that point.
Yeah, to me, it has always felt very Jewish, this learning as living, as culture,
as... like the sacred. And of course it's not uniquely Jewish, but that like inquiry and the like way that it is its own course of life and power.
And that I think with white noise, something we talked about before and we'll get into more later is like, what I love about white noise is it's always been very rooted in like praxis that like we're learning not just for the sake of like hoarding,
not... or being quote unquote like perfect or whatever, but like for the sake of deep relationships, for the sake of movement, and for the sake of bold risk taking and love as complicated maybe as a word on the left that feels for some people that for me there's a lot of love there that I've really been transformed by in ways I really didn't even know I needed.
Yeah, it was like a loving answer. to a loving call. - Wake up. - Yeah. - And engage in a meaningful way to fight the liberation and racial justice.
- Mm -hmm. - Yeah, I really felt the love. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And I wonder if it's worth as slippery as this is to say our roles. I joined the corps at some point later.
- Yeah. and can I name my relational understanding of your role? I would say Alex has been a very close, that you've been a very close comrade in the work and played a role of leadership,
of holding spaces of political educator with a trauma lens and also a certain like embodiment of praxis, maybe moving into appreciation. but like a teaching through like the how of what you bring.
And that you've been like a close advisor in various moments in the work and shaped workshops. And how does that, how do you characterize that?
- Yeah, I think if I were to give myself a title, I would say I am a friend of, (laughing) I guess I just feel like I, I have so much love and admiration for you and for the core member and for my time spent with you,
whether that was in the dialogue events or in workshop spaces, in more interpersonal conversations being invited on the core retreat.
I just felt like I got to be a loving, sort of adoring person, got to contribute at my pace and got to benefit greatly.
So it's still work that you did collectively and I'll say friend catch us. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we're like very smirly.
transitioning into how we appreciate white noise. I can share more about what we organized, just how there was a gentle and warm invitation all the way for me into leadership and into,
of course you can, of course you could be part of this action, of course. course, you could lead a workshop. Of course,
you could join core. There was like an of course myth about it that challenged me because I didn't feel good enough.
And that also inspired me to push myself and grow through like a process of like releasing productionism. And I just still remember leading a workshop with Torrin.
Those were my favorite workshops of all time. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh wow. Okay. I just, can I say this is how my trauma brain work,
my clearest memory was of the moment I did not know how to respond. And I was like, I am up at the front of this room. Something's happening.
I mean, I, have no idea what to do, what to sing. But watch me try. It just felt like I got to try. And it was, I think you know that donut metaphor?
Oh yeah, the comfort. - Donut of discomfort. - Donut of discomfort. So the center is like, you're totally comfortable. You're not growing, but you're super safe. And then there's the next one.
concentric circle ring where you're in the donut. And that's where you're a little uncomfortable and you're learning and you're growing. And then there's the outside of the donut,
which is you're too uncomfortable to learn or grow. I felt so nestled in the donut of the little uncomfortable, but growing.
And that was just cute. Would you mind sharing the piece you shared when we talked earlier about like some of your shaping around like the sort of oscillation of like, is it okay to be in leadership?
- Yes, at that point I had put together that I felt so comfortable leading. Like I felt so comfortable as the captain of the cheerleading squad,
as the captain of the rowing team, as the president of this club because because of all of my privileges. And at the time that I was taking those leadership roles,
I didn't have that analysis. And so I quickly learned, oh, there are actually so many capable competent leaders. And you might have kind of an inflated sense of your leadership capacity.
So I was really taken aback seat because I hadn't yet found. the nuance in that understanding. And I was like, better safe than sorry, let me move back in the move up,
move back framework, move back because I've been taken up a lot of space. And so, this really challenged me into, okay, but what about in an all -white space?
What about in a moment where you're being called up? on to take a stand or even just hold a momentary leadership?
I think white noise supported me in finding more complexity and dimensions in what leadership can be, which allowed me to move more freely in and out of that role and it kept me from just hanging out in the back,
nevermind. nevermind. I'm like throwing my hands up, I'm like, "I don't belong." And it helped me move back into more engagement and more action at least. Yeah.
I just feel like for me and I think for a lot of people who, especially those of us who are white, and also bring our own trauma histories and different identities,
I just feel like there can often be this question of like, "How and where do I plug in?" in and what is enough and also like grappling with the different parts of who we are the tensions of like the impulse to dominate and control and at the same time like for both of us is trans people both of us is queer people like how to hold all these different pieces as they like shape shift relationally in different
circumstances like how we're perceived or what our role should or could be. And I feel like one thing I appreciate about white noise is like echoing what you said.
I feel like it's, I'm not sure if this language feels ableist, so I like welcome feedback from future listeners. I feel like it's given me like actually more of like a backbone.
Like it's like instead of like the rigidity or the collapse in terms of like sort of white anti -racist culture and broader like leftist culture, I feel like I feel my dignity more in a way that's more right sized maybe for lack of a better term.
And like it's really like truly supported me to like be braver and tolerate being messy and to enter spaces both more. spaces,
relationships, both movement and personal, and the combination with more courage and more trust that, like, I'm not alone and that there's a place for me and for us and a necessity for us actually to,
like, enter. Of course, I don't feel that all the time. I still feel myself as sort of like the lifelong learner shape and the preference also. for being at the side.
And I do at the same time feel like I said this to you before, white noise like being invited into leadership and continuing to just return and return and be like the quiet guy in meetings and like feel scared and just like to keep coming back and to feel like I've learned such tangible skills.
and also like emotional and relational skills that have really transformed my life. Like I would say this is one of the longest term relationships in my life as an adult.
Like it's been almost 10 years I've met with folks as a part of white noise often many times in a month for that whole time life.
This has really been a part of the rhythms of my days and weeks and months and deeply grounded me, like you said. It's helped me contextualize what's happening in the world and to be brave,
to be brave and take action in many different expressions, whether that's having a conversation that's hard with a family member or that's being a part of it. of direct action organizing which is I think a huge contribution that I'm really proud of of white noise is like those relationships and that trust really mobilized many people into direct action in a crucial time movement -wise here in the Bay Area and also,
you know, in the other chapters to really proud of that and proud of getting to be a part of that. and to feel like my own life transformed by those opportunities and to feel like the lineage of those things.
Like it's something I've wanted for so long. White noise has been the way primarily I've accessed those things. And I'm going to miss it. Like it's a really big loss. But it's still there.
Like it's still, I feel it now in the Palestine work that's happening in the ways I know how to be. Yeah, it's been really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, like my only political home because the other spaces I was in didn't quite feel like home.
One of the core members, one of the founders of White Noise, Sarah Zimbardo, was my faculty advisor for a student organization at CIIS where I was studying to get my master's.
And that was it. the only other close thing I had to a political hall. I'm at Zara was part of Gulf of those Even without my direct Contact with white noise over the last few years.
I Still think of it as my grounding place Where I can always return and there's a way that Even in a sunset sunsetting moment and this dissolution,
I know that my bonds, friendships, and my comradeships are still very much intact. And that's a beautiful thing. Yeah.
I feel like I said this at the end of a lot of dialogues and meetings, and I feel it now. I want to say to you, I feel like I've learned so much from you over time. In white noise,
like I remember things. you said like in 2018 when you were like, I remember and like, I feel like I want a name for also the core members in particular who get to listen to this in the future.
You've heard me say this a lot. I've learned so much from each of you. And like also Rascal who is close comrade, as well as,
of course, everyone who's... like, it sounds corny, but like, I really learned also from like the whole, the collective that is greater than anyone individual and like the learning spaces that we've offered.
It's helped me rest into not having to know, which I think is part of the shape of my whiteness is like, I need to know, I need to have the answers. And it's important, of course, to be regressed around those things with an and for me that like.
like, how do we rest into also not having to know, like, alone as isolated bodies and that, like, our worthiness gets to be intact in that. I love your articulation of that because right now,
I'm resting into a place where I'm soothing the part of myself who's like, "Oh, I forgot this, oh, I didn't know that, oh, I didn't know that, I remember X, Y, Z," like,
the part of me who's tracking how I'm not perfect in this moment, I actually have a pretty strong, hard one. Yeah. A face of rest for that part of me.
And it does feel like I'm resting into the collective, I'm resting into shared values, I'm resting into relationships that we've dealt over time,
trust. memory, body memory. And there's something really important about that I think white noise has brought cultivated nurtures.
Yeah. Yeah. I think what you said about the donut of discomfort just really resonates where I'm just like, oh yeah, like right at that edge. And it's like,
if we want to like be in this brichashan for the rest of our lives, that's what's needed. Our relationships, the ability to both push the edge and also hold each other.
Yeah, and the trans one, don't put that through space and time. I had a flash in my mind of the march yesterday, how I crossed the road,
I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had
a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, I had a flash in my mind of the march, with people I
met 10 years ago, people I was in the streets with three years ago, some of my clients were there, my colleagues from CIS,
like it was just pretty wild and beautiful. The intersection of so many iterations on my own might to feel kind of a web of connections.
connections. Yes. And white noise has been such a big part of that. Yeah. And it feels like a good time way into ways that we're reflecting on the organization and some of our experiences or known experiences of others and ways that white noise needed to grow.
Did grow. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like this is a place where like my experience of white noise, we bring the rigor to like critique. And so I want to name as I entered this,
like I bring some of the like blessings of that. And also like I want to hold it with like the end of like it's coming from a place of like hoping this gets to support other people,
other orgs, listeners, and also with a deep reverence and respect for for the ways that our orgs reveal what's needed in the world,
and the growth edges, and maybe I'll say one little note. The thing I wrote down because I didn't want to forget that it says "trans leg" here is what my note says, "trans legacy" is the note.
Originally in my experience of white noise, the focus, the call for white noise to exist in like the lore. lore was that one of the founders was told by one of their comrades who I believe was a black woman in movement with them that it's time to organize the white women,
swoop them up. It's time. Yeah, it's been time. We can all agree. We thought supremacists were bringing together. It's still time. The way that looked originally was with,
I would say, less shared and experienced. articulated lens around gender that would include trans women and trans people across a range of identities.
And so, one thing I'm proud of that's like a both and moment is I really deeply feel proud that we are a white anti -racist feminist organization that is not participating in trans exclusionary radical feminism.
We are part of a powerful lineage of people who understand all women, cis women, trans women, as well as people who are on the margins in terms of gender across a range of trans identities and gender variant identities that we have a necessary place within feminism.
Yeah, so I just wanna say like, that's really important to me to be a part of that lineage and to name that. What? Yeah. Yeah. With the "and" that like, that's when in evolution I would say not that it was like a exclusionary space overtly to start,
but that the language and grapplings around how to hold who is white noise for around gender has been challenging. Yeah.
When I'm hearing of what you're naming and what I really feel residents with, it's like, we were being called on to recognize the ways that we were socialized to perpetuate white supremacy in the haze of the ways that we've also been gendered and racialized by society.
And so we're white and we've also been oppressed in our gender expression. And there's a very particular white supremacy that crops up in that embodying.
And we also deserve an organizing space as free as possible from patriarchal BS, which is part of why I loved being in white noise.
I felt I was getting mansplained at surge and I was getting like, I'm sorry, I feel like I'm like calling. - What'd it be?
(laughing) - I think so. up for racial justice does a lot of work? It's okay. I just needed a space where I could feel like I could focus on the task at hand and not be distracted so much by the micro and macro aggressions of gendered violence.
And so, as a trans person, as a non -gendered person, person, being able to look at, yes, I was socialized to be a white woman. Yes, I do embody some of these white woman tropes.
How do I look at that in a space that also honors the complexity of my gender expressions? Yeah, thank you. And I had a number of white trans women and trans feminine friends and comrades over the years.
be like, "Hey, can I come? Is this a place for me?" And I'll be honest that sometimes I was like, "I really don't know if this is going to be generative for you because the culture is largely white cis women without a lens around gender yet." I think even if someone asks and then kind of tells you,
maybe not. Right. Maybe we aren't there. Yeah. And so, like, I guess it's not an excusing that, and it's not a we're the worst,
but just a challenge and a grappling with a long history. I feel like, especially for me, I came into my transness while I was deeply involved in white noise.
And I remember when I started taking testosterone and was like receiving a lot of of messages largely from inside queer community about, I'm going to be like thoughtful about how I say this.
I think I had internalized a lot of fear that like I was going to be more dangerous or harmful by becoming for me in my gender journey more quote unquote masculine.
And I really, truly didn't know how to bring those conversations to white noise. And that was okay. I feel like. like through the networks and webs of white noise, I got to have some of those.
And also, it felt very sensitive and complex then to be in a space of largely cis women that were white, but also politically powerful at the same time to be bridging some of those elements of identity.
I think it helped really bring us into more like rigor and learning as a core, particularly in the last hours. I would say like five years, five to six years, maybe even longer. Yeah,
I wonder, are there other like grapplings or lessons you want to bring? Well, I think we touched on some of those in our previous conversation that they were important to name,
like some of the shared class experience of the mentor radio criticism. participants and the elitism.
I think there was sort of like an active awareness of it and efforts to work against that and yet we were still in spaces where people had access to like higher education on the topics we risked.
discussing could quote scholars and there was just even a way of carrying ourselves and speaking with each other that I think did feel or could have easily felt exclusionary.
Folks with less access to education or resources where like class and culture kind of blend with each other. I think the culture felt I'm short and to people.
It did to me at times. And I would just kind of like write some notes, like I'm going to Google these. - Mm -hmm, that's how I managed it. - Yeah, yeah. I think I would say like we were largely a more like people raised owning class and with class privilege,
space with substantial pockets of poor and working class, white people. with an "and" that I think we did not center white, poor, and working -class gender -expansive marginalized people in our work.
We got that feedback over the years. It was something we grappled with within the pay structure, the volunteer collective in our core, and like holding the ethics of paying ourselves ever,
period. There was so much there and I feel like I learned a lot from the sort of like spot nature of having those conversations, coming to some clarity, returning.
There was a lot of tending to them, which is important. Yeah. Yeah. And I had some friends who would attend one event and not return because also I just think there's an edge to Bay Area.
That's pretty sharp and can feel intimidating and sort of alienating for newcomers. Yeah. And I do think white noise worked on that actively.
And it was one of the most accepting spaces I found and that's in relations. Yes. Yes.
Militant. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. In a cutting way. Yeah. Cutting way. And I do find that places outside the Bay Area, at least in the U .S.,
where I've witnessed some other organizing, they're less caught up in identity politics. It's so interesting that way noise was like very identity.
Yeah. Very much. Yes. That feels like a good dovetail into like our final sort of like. like grappling that I'm live grappling with maybe forever.
It's like something I shared with you Alex before we started talking that does feel vulnerable to share in a recording but I am gonna share it is like in somatics I've learned to really think about and talk about like we're always practicing something even if it's like a default we're not aware of what are we practicing?
on purpose? And I have a lot of practice largely thanks to white noise and also the shape of political repression in the Bay Area in particular and in this political moment of largely meeting the call and the need for white people to organize ourselves.
And so my practice is largely in like building movement, community with other white people. And I notice that I'm,
I would say like feeling the practice of that. I feel more ease. I feel like my donut is a wider donut of discomfort now and that I just don't have as much practice in multiracial spaces and relationships and that's concerning.
And that is not the shape of my younger life which was a much more like multiracial. -racial younger context in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. And I feel complicated about that.
And I think it speaks to the tensions you just named around identity politics, i .e., like gathering in relationship to identities around race, gender, class,
ability, that there's benefits and there's also real challenges to that. Thank you for sharing that. I think it's not real. I feel it for myself. If not all white spaces,
I've certainly been in predominantly white space when centering racial justice works, but it feels like not where I'm growing anymore.
And I think that it was important to understand some of the ends and and outs of my whiteness in relation to other white people and in relation to the work and how we organize each other in the work.
And I definitely feel like that's become more the center of the donut. And my growth edge now is to learn how to show up in multiracial spaces for racial justice and to know the way.
I really do hope this is a useful conversation in this political moment and also in the future, like hello from right now. We're curious how you're holding this and what you're learning and what it reveals about our world.
I'm looking at the time and I'm wondering if maybe we want to start to move into impacts, impacts. I will love to hear you speak more to the positive impacts of white males online movements in communities.
Yeah, so I think I already spoke to the piece around reflection, deep relationship, inviting courage, inviting belonging, that very tangibly invited people into direct action organizing,
including myself, starting in 2014 in particular. in the movement for Black Lives here, but has been truly sustained through a lot of really powerful political moments throughout the last decade,
including Standing Rock, including like 2020 political moment. I think it's Shira Hassan that wrote or stewarded the harm reduction book that came out recently. I think it was her,
I've heard say like inch wide, a mile deep, and I feel like white noise, that's like the culture. There's so much like deep relationship and depth rather than base building.
Like we're not a surge model and that within the ecosystem, you know, I hope and grounded in our accountability partners trust that like we're fulfilling an important role in this broader system of movement.
Maybe I'll share one more thing here, which is that a big part of our structure was also moving money. We moved. a lot of money, Torrin, in their conversation. I'm imagining can highlight the most specific number,
and it's written in our sunsetting statement that's available publicly. But I am really proud of the very tangible aspects of redistribution that white noise also contributed to as like active political praxis throughout.
The big deal. I certainly note in some of my direct actions in my connection. If you know it, I still do. remember being at an action where I was just kind of like doing the lower risk merging part.
I remember seeing, I think it was Toran and Zara like chained up to something like, oh wow, if they could do it,
maybe I could do it. Hmm, there was just like a, these are the people I've been in community with. Look at them taking a risk. I didn't know was possible.
That stays with me. I still think I'm sitting on the pavement. Yeah, same my mind's eye. Yeah, I'm thinking of memories too.
Yeah, just really feeling the trust in people that like, again, like felt like to me whole greater than the sum of its parts. Like, I can be a part of this and like I can really like take bold action.
And I remember I'm thinking of one direct action that involved some like walking down and then afterwards like walking with Zara and her being like, I really want to pizza right now.
I mean, like, yeah. And just like there was a huge culture of sharing food of like having check -ins like how are you doing?
Like, I do feel like, again, like there's like a feminist praxis there that it's, of course, not just feminist, but like a deep like tending culture building that I think a lot of more kind of like classic,
more patriarchal, leftist cultural spaces leave behind largely white ones in particular. And that like white noise that's always had spirit has always had heart.
has always like deeply been about relationship and also like magic and I would say like through the theater of the oppressed stuff too like made space for silliness and play.
Which can expect to radicals work. Yeah. And to do it. Yeah. White fragility. Yeah. Are there like impacts do you want to name or like also stories that like like help ground them?
What feels important to say is that I feel parts of me come alive and work with white noise that I can feel a lot in this moment for you that allow me to feel part of something greater.
I'm not just in like a social way, but in a spiritual way and I do deeply appreciate you, white noise. they're making. I want to say like make it an alter to like,
how can we invite in all of our hearts, all of our lineages, all of our support systems, whether they're in the 3D or kind of beyond that or,
and I really felt such a strength in the collective because there was room for me to be there. more fully myself. And for,
I think, minute to be more fully human. Yes. Yes. It's like receiving that and trying to heal for white noises,
this whole entity that's us and more than us. And also, I hope our ancestors are like revolutionary inside. and descendants and there's a little bit of mystery of our impact in particular,
doing much more kind of relational work, work that has been called by some people in movement softer air quotes, work that's about emotions and about the depths.
So, yeah, I feel very humble about it. of like not knowing also about our impact. We're starting to move towards the end here,
and I wonder, like, what else? I think what's left, then, is as we dissolve, as when I dissolve,
like, where are the particles going? Where? Because there's... there's still so much alightness. - Yeah, like where are we headed, like what's next? And I think we've spoken a little bit to wanting to grow more deeply in learning how to be part multiracial spaces,
the racial justice, and then wondering like what else is like wanting and to kind of like propagate from the outside. this sunset?
Was that a question that was just like a this question or? Yeah, I think I'm just, I don't even need it answered maybe, I'm just aware that I was way dispersed so headed in directions and we might maintain some of our connection and we might kind of branch it out.
into new spaces and practices and learning. And I get a little excited. Like there's a grief,
but I think I'm actually more in touch with the excitement of life. I'm going to miss this home a lot in ways I don't think I've allowed myself to feel.
yet. I'm gonna miss the like touchstone and like the political, like just like, again to me it's like a certain kind of containment that comes with being with people I really trust to help understand things that are just like too big for one body to hold alone.
And of course, like that exists in many forms, and I would say my relationships as well. especially with many of the core and with you and with others who are just like the close orbit have been so important to me as like a rhythm in my life.
And again, like sort of orienting, understanding, taking action from that place of knowing. I think like what's left for me that like just feels sort of like an extension of the reverence you named as like.
I feel gratitude for so many of the people I've learned from and with in this formation and also for the less known lineages or less named lineages of how we all have come to form this entity like both black indigenous indigenous movements for liberation,
like scholarship, legacies of resistance, trans movements, like there's just such a long line and I feel like really I just want to extend some gratitude to like the people who are like not in individuals I can name but who have shaped the culture that we've gotten to steward and inherit.
through this work that I really see and feel continuing and seeing. I feel really thrilled for like, in particular, hearing like there's so much call right now in this building with surge around like poor working class white people gathering also are like soul into the work gathering like spirit into the work more inviting.
inviting song, inviting. And also just a hope that maybe this is the wish is like a wish for the legacy of white noise that as a group that's mostly really minimized our impact,
both individually and collectively, that whether or not that story is there for me or for me. white noise as a whole that like,
whatever, we didn't like do very much. Whether or not that is like the story that like the truth of like the impact and like the mystery of it that you named just like gets to like help continue to see the change that we need that we've that has made us possible and that people listening get to let you get to feel more possible.
possible in your contributions and that you get to trust what you know, what you don't know, to reach for other people and to feel for your belonging. And I think I'm speaking especially maybe to trans people in movement and maybe especially in this moment like Jewish anti -Zionists like we're needed,
we're not alone, there's a place for us and we also get to belong outside of our march. identities and be in trust. That's my wish. That's something I really feel like white noise has gifted me.
I keep getting these images of me getting the nests, kind of like, okay, we've got the foundational stuff you needed and it's time to disperse and venture out of a more and then always comfortable organization.
organic space, and to potentially harsh air environment and places of unforeseen growth. And I feel like we each have like our little satchel,
and if you've got some home -baked bread, some of our favorite writing aids, and like the idea of photos, a really sweet time and water,
I don't know what else is in itself sometimes, but mm -mm. like in our bodies like the body memory that we throw on the trust in our relationships that continue to live.
Yeah. And how you get to take all of that with us. And in all of those ways it's like I just sort of feel a, oh it's hard to find my language but it's it's like a finding a permanence in the impermanence.
impermanence. This happened, this existed, this dizzying, real impact in ways we know and ways we don't know, such as you were sharing. We carry that.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, you feel more sad because it feels like what you just said, really like hope.
me be in it just a little more and yeah I just I want to say thank you as we close like thank you for this conversation and for a lot of years too together in lots of different ways like I really trust it will continue our own satchel journey yes Yes.
Thank you, Jay. It's been an incredible privilege and joy now to see Kryla's process. I like you in the sadness of this and in the trust of how really meaningful connections in my life it shows,
including ours. I feel really grateful for that. Yeah, me too. Anything else,
sir? That's it. Okay. That's it. Thank you so much for listening.
To learn more, check out conspireforchange .org. Sound and editing for this episode is by Dave Pickering and music by Blue Dot Sessions.
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