To Be an Ally

The Angry Black Woman called a carnival of bloggers to address being an ally against a form of oppression – racism as well as other –isms.

http://theangryblackwoman.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/allies-talking/

That’s reason enough to engage the question of what it means to be an ally, but the topic happens to run along with the last couple of posts, so there’s reason number two. But it’s reason number three that gets me off my duff and onto the keyboard: I want to sit back and read the responses. I don’t want to write, because I don’t want to expose my limited understanding; I don’t want to be imperfect. Perfectionism, of course, being one of the better ways whiteness has of paralyzing white people and keeping them out of the fray. (“If I talk about racism, my racism will show.” Does that fear ever go away?)

Back to ABW: she asks some good questions and wonders some good wonders. For instance, do white people listen less defensively to other white people talking about racism, compared to the defensiveness that crops up with people of color?

In my experience, the answer is there may be less defensiveness, but not much less. And there is often less listening. It’s almost like some white folks don’t want to listen to other white folks talk about racism, as if we can’t know what we’re talking about. The white person wants to hear about it from a person of color. Maybe sometimes there is more defensiveness, because the white person who wants information resents that there are white people who “get it.” And I’m well aware that my own response to another white person can shape the interchange; if I come across as “more anti-racist than thou,” I am not doing anyone any good.

Then ABW wondered, “Is it easier to understand oppression, to move past guilt and on to useful dialogue, etc., if the person explaining these things to you in-depth is a person like yourself? White or male or straight or Christian or whatever?”

I think the shapers of the quality of dialogue on such issues has more to do with the incoming attitude of those in dialogue, rather than the similarity of the persons in dialogue. If the person seeking information has an honest and humble seeking, and the person sharing information has an honest and humble sharing, with everyone understanding that the goal is the process of learning and growth. Otto Maduro describes knowledge as a "fragmentary, partisan, conjectural, and provisional reconstruction of reality." Our processes of learning are going to be equally fragmentary, partisan, conjectural, and provisional. We may as well accept that reality and stop trying to be whole-unto-ourselves, objective, certain for all time.

On the topic of guilt, I actually find guilt – like anger – useful, once you decide to engage its utility. Anger is a compass; it tells me when something is wrong. When I am mindful, it can point the way to what needs to be attended to. Guilt functions the same way. The feeling of guilt arises when I have done something that transgresses my value system. It tells me I have done something wrong. And, as with anger, when I am mindful, it can point the way to what needs to be attended to. The problem is we (white folks) often become paralyzed when we feel guilt; it is like we have stumbled into an emotional minefield. We are afraid to move, because we are afraid of doing something else wrong; every direction looks threatening. It is not uncommon for white people to live in relative isolation, without a community to help engage and examine the guilt; when this is the case, we have no one to learn with, and we do not learn, and we do not grow.

Another issue with guilt is that we white people can be afraid that if we admit to doing something wrong, we will have to change, either because we feel we must, or because whoever has perceived our guiltiness will tell us we have to. And our fear of the need to change means that, once again, our ability to learn and grow is stymied.

ABW asks us to engage “why this or that oppression and prejudice is wrong. Why they are allies. Why the usual excuses are not good enough. I figure allies probably know full well all the many and various arguments people throw up to make prejudice and oppression okay. Things that someone on the other side of the fence may not hear. Address those things and more besides.”

The primary “wrong” for me is racism, in part because I am white, I live in a racist society, and I don’t want to be racist; and in part because racism broke my heart when I was a child growing up in South Texas. Accordingly, I understand myself to be a white ally against racism, and for me this stance of being a white anti-racist is commingled with my identity as a Christian. Racism warps the identities of white people and people of color, and – as do other forms of oppression – defaces the image of God we are each created to embody. I believe God’s intent for humanity is that we are each to be able to live into fullness of life; racism mars our ability to live into that fullness of life. It privileges white people, some more than others, and oppresses people of color. In Christian terms, this dehumanization is sin: to be unearthed, eradicated, resisted, and ended.

There are personal considerations, too: the people of color I know and love, who can perhaps feel my love as more than just talk, because I try to walk the walk, and because I listen when they call me on my stuff … the deep appreciation I have for what I learn from people of color, in real life and in the academy, and the way it feels to struggle to do justice to/with what I learn, as opposed to appropriating outside of ethical relationship … the way my life is grounded by knowing the history of my family and of white people in South Texas, and the specifics of the legacy I am trying to undo. There’s more to this, but it's enough for now to say it boils down to love, honesty, respect, for what is real.

ABW clarifies that when she says allies, she’s “talking about any and every type. PoC can be (and should be) allies to other PoC, or to LGBTQ people if they are straight, or any number of other combinations.”

This relates to an interesting point for me: some people have asked me why my primary focus is not feminism or homophobia, given that I’m a lesbian. For some reason, the calling on my heart is much more about understanding how I am complicit in the oppression of others, and my whiteness (along with my US location and citizenship) is the primary means by which I am continually tempted into or labeled as being the oppressor. So, my focus is on moving from racist to anti-racist, and trying to understand this notion of being liberated from oppressing.

I don’t want to be an oppressor, in reality or by association; some of the ways I've learned to get closer to being liberated from being an oppressor is to (1) claim a just stance – in this case, being anti-racist, (2) and understand how oppression is constructed – through history, economics, culture – so that I can (3) do my part to deconstruct and end it.

I figure whatever I learn about stopping oppression is going to stand me in good stand if some man or straight person says to me, “I want to be an ally to the process of your liberation, because my liberation is tied up with yours.” (With thanks to my friend and fellow white ally, Sue Eagle, who ends her emails with this signature: “If you have come here to help us, you are wasting your time ... But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” -- Lilla Watson, Indigenous Australian activist)

There’s more to say; but that’s enough for an imperfect, fragmented, partisan, conjectural, and provisional construction of thought about being an ally. ;)