Bay Area

Bay Area Wake Up

We are a community of white people working together to confront white supremacy from the inside out. We meet twice a month on Zoom (first and third Mondays). Our meetings are facilitated on a volunteer basis by members of our group. We engage in group discussions, dyads, and collective exercises for grounding, healing, and community building. We invite you to join us in our fight to dismantle white supremacy, starting with each one of us. Our group is open to everyone and the content is particularly geared toward white-identified folx looking for ways to engage in the ongoing practice of dismantling white supremacy.

How it works

Wake Up Bay Area hosts meet-ups on Zoom on the first and third Mondays on each month. On the rare month that has five Mondays, we do not host a meeting. There is no fee for our meet-ups though we do ask for a $20-$40 (or more) donation per session, 100% of which will be distributed to Holistic Resistance or another black-led organizations doing the work. Our meeting times are Mondays from 6-8 pm PST on Zoom. Reach out to us for details.

GROUP AGREEMENTS

Confidentiality and Respect.
What happens here stays here. Ask permission to share.

Active Listening.
Listen with compassion and practice non-judgment. Stay present in each moment instead of planning ahead what you are going to say.

Encourage Brave Space.
Support each other in digging deeper and allowing ourselves to get messy. Vulnerability is encouraged. Practice being brave in this space so we can be more skillful and courageous outside this space.

Take Space, Give Space.
Self check-ins around taking up space and giving space for others.

Choice to Participate.
Participation is always your choice. We strive to create an environment where you can
realistically participate according to where you are at in each moment.

Mindful Engagement.
Both/And concepts; avoid rigid, binary ways of thinking (i.e., right/wrong). Try to speak in first person and from your personal experience.

Facilitators

Jennie Pearl

Dylan Wilder Quinn

Jennifer Meek

Kimber Simpkins

Cathy Dew

Sally Dew

Organizations we love and support

Ella Baker Center for Human Rights

We are named after Ella Baker, a brilliant, black hero of the civil rights movement. Following in her footsteps, we organize with Black, Brown, and low-income people to shift resources away from prisons and punishment, and towards opportunities that make our communities safe, healthy, and strong. Get involved.

Essie Justice Group

Essie Justice Group is a non profit organization of women with incarcerated loved ones taking on the rampant injustices created by mass incarceration. Get Involved.

Holistic Resistance

Holistic Resistance believes that deep connection is one of the most powerful tools one can use in dismantling racism. Speaking, teaching, singing, photography, filmmaking, and minimalism are tools used to create intimacy and promote closeness to blackness as a primary means to that end. Get involved.

Initiate Justice

We fight mass incarceration by activating the power of the people it has directly impacted. Get involved.

Legal Services for Prisoners with Children

LSPC organizes communities impacted by the criminal justice system and advocates to release incarcerated people, to restore human and civil rights and to reunify families and communities. We build public awareness of structural racism in policing, the courts and prison system and we advance racial and gender justice in all our work. Get Involved.

SURJ Bay Area

SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice), Bay Area chapter, is part of a national network of groups and individuals organizing white people for racial justice. Get involved. Check out the new SURJ Marin.