I had a bad day. This is a rant disguised as a post. Feel free to continue in the comments, since this list is short and vague.
Here are twenty things I’ve learned one should do in order to be an “ally”:
1. Announce yourself as an ally, verbally or through your many awareness wristbands, in case anyone forgets.
2. Have nothing to do with any member of the oppressed group with whom you are “allied”, as you just don’t know where to find them, or don’t have the time.
3. Feel guilty about your particular privilege, then tell members of the oppressed group you’re an “ally” of how guilty you feel and demand they help you work through your guilt.
4. Use the phrase, “but the [marginalized] people I know don’t find anything wrong with it…” because no one associated with you could ever be off-base with anything.
5. Give your input on everything so that the oppressed group will reap the benefits of your enlightenment.
6. Use the phrases “not always” and “that’s not what I meant” when someone has challenged you, because they don’t understand what your real intention was and you shouldn’t bother learning what was problematic with what you did say, misspoke or not.
7. Tell people to respect your separate identity as an ally, since you are giving up a lot of your time an energy just to be an ally.
8. Point out that everyone should engage with each other in a “respectful” manner, and not get angry, so that everyone will learn, but in the event you get angry, your anger is always justified.
9. Ask oppressed people to educate you on basics of their “lifestyle” firsthand. Make sure you do it when they are talking about something important.
10. Say that you’re “still” learning as your personal disclaimer for any fuckups you will most certainly commit. That way no one can call you offensive since your “intent” was not there.
11. Assume you’ve learned all there is to know about oppression and privilege, seeing as how you read a book about it. (Use it simultaneously with #10 for a total knock out!)
12. Whenever the situation arises, distance yourself from real ___ists/___phobes, in case anyone forgets that you’re an awesome person.
13. Remind everyone that you’re dating a member of the oppressed group, since your ally status has been granted to you by osmosis.
14. Don’t critique any of your behaviours as a part of a system of oppression, because you are only appreciating, not appropriating.
15. When someone of the oppressed group tells you to check yourself, or asks how you negotiate your identity, tell the entire oppressed group they are silencing your voice, which never ever gets heard anywhere else.
16. Use “previously” offensive words (towards your “allied” oppressed group) in a reclaimatory sense, because you know that words only have as much power as we give them.
17. Ask marginalized people to source their statements or give proof because they could be tricking you into feeling guilt.
18. Make sure everyone knows that content is important, but adherence to grammatical and linguistic standards/norms are necessary, otherwise the message cannot be conveyed properly (i.e. “Once you look past the butchering of the English language, I guess you can see a point!”).
19. Agree with everything different members of the same oppressed group says, even if they are in disagreement, because a) your opinion matters so much for their validation, and b) you won’t lose any of your ally cred.
20. Remember that you’re only doing the oppressed group a favour, and the only way they can get out of oppression is if they help themselves. Tell them that.
If you’ve done any of these things, you’ve successfully behaved as an “ally.”
I did 6 today. :(
But I’m trying to do better- ah, darnit.
This list is deadly accurate, though. I love it.
SO completely bang on! People use that ally card like a get out of jail card. I am really becoming sick of the term because it is used to blanket so many false ideas. You keep blogging, every post you write is a winner, damn. Inspirational.
This is great. I’ve never liked the word “ally” – something about it seems to imply that you’re doing the oppressed group you “ally” to such a *favour* and they should be so *grateful* – if you see what I mean. It seems kind of condescending to me – but that’s probably just me. Great list.
Debs, real quote from somewhere (I can’t link it though):
And what he was saying was that in order for him to be an ally to marginalized people, he should get something for it. We’re not grateful enough.
I think I’m guilty of #2 simply because I almost never leave my house. I really need to get out anyway, but I still have fear issues of coming off exactly like the rest of the 20, which sucks. I realized a few years ago that I sorta had the martyr/savior attitude, and I’ve been working on it since then, but I still catch myself saddling up my horse to lead a charge, when it’s not my charge to lead.
I want to help, and I don’t want to presume, but I’m also a bit afraid of venturing into work to help groups other than my own because I’m pretty sure I don’t know enough to not do stupid obnoxious things. In some ways I’ll never know enough, but I think I’ve got a long way to go in reading and thinking about how I handle myself and my day to day interactions before I feel right attempting to participate in work dealing with something which is not my experience.
Polerin, I’m going to be a bit mean,
I think I see shades of 3 and 10 in that comment. I don’t want to speak for people of color at all here, but I think that those statements serve as barriers to doing the work. Especially not interacting, when it’s possible that the best way to get over both of your concerns is to interact with real people. It’d be too easy to continue justifying People make mistakes all the time, and the important part isn’t to guard yourself against ever making a mistake (although not making them is really desirable), but rather to abandon any defensiveness when you make one and are called on it.
If someone said that to me about working with trans people, I’d probably not take them that seriously.
“too easy to continue using those reasons to justify not moving on. People make mistakes all the time,”
@Polerin
Personally I find the whole I don’t want to make a mistake thing to be a cop out. In any other situation you would expect to make mistakes because as the saying goes to err is human. This is more about retaining your pride and your privilege than it is about fear of making a mistake.
Both of you are right, it’s a cop out and a dodge, but I’m also just starting on the path. Up until about 2 weeks ago when I was bored and decided to take a peek at the trans blogs, I had never really thought about what my privilege in the framework of supporting others. I realized that I’d done many more of the things that were mentioned than I was comfortable with, and the only reason I wasn’t doing them right that second is because I had withdrawn from the world to transition and try to straighten out my life a little. The whole idea is fairly new to me right this second. That being said, Renee, it is about privilege and pride, but the fear is tied up in that.
My self perception that I wanted to world a better place for others, and that I strove to treat people with respect and honesty is the one thing that I liked about myself during my teens and early twenties. I had barely graduated highschool (due to depression and anger issues), been fired from a tech job after the tech-bubble to work in a gas station, was hiding my internal struggle about being trans from my wife and others close to me. But I was a “Good Person” ™
Or so I thought. Realizing that the one thing that got you through years of your life has a whole bunch of problems takes a little bit of digesting. That’s where I am. I’m afraid of loosing that image of myself by hurting the people I’m working with. I am not trying to defend myself by any of these posts, so much as acknowledge that I’m wrong. and I know I still have issues with playing the savior/martyr and of hijacking to my experiences. It’s wrong and don’t want to do it, and until two weeks ago I thought I had it beat. I don’t. and I need to work on it because right now #5 is my biggest problem.
It’s not just in “ally” situations, I do it in other places as well… It’s why I ended up a director at a hacker con, and any number of other things. I have a really hard time with not saying something on every blog post I read, and I’m pretty sure that it would carry over into real life. Right now I’m just practicing listening, and I’ve realized that I’m far from good at it. If I was trying to do it in person, I’d have both feet planted firmly in my mouth and would still be trying to walk. To be honest, I probably have more than a big toe in as it is ;P
Wow that post is full of weird grammatical mistakes from going back and editing while on a conference call. Sorry if it’s hard to read :/
Ooh, adding to the list:
* Get into a long-term relationship with a member of a marginalized group, and then claim that this means that this group’s identity is also your own. Speak for your partner whenever possible.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Debs: It is not just you. It definitely comes across as condescending when it’s taken up as a unique identity.
When I had first heard the term, it was only meant to be used in an organization manner (if that’s even the phrase I mean), with regards to who was welcome in a space, but also making sure that the focus was kept on the oppressed group (i.e. event is for women; queer + trans positive, wheelchair accessible, allies welcome to sit in).
Somehow it morphed into a different meaning in even my own lexicon, that I was an Ally(tm) to other groups, despite my own frustrations with people who were supposedly my allies.
yeah, that. I had always thought of it as a situational use–this is a meeting for ___ and also supporters, i.e. it’s not closed, but hi it’s a given that you’re there primarily to -support the people the meeting (or whatever) is for. – I hadn’t thought of it as a
per polerin:
yeah, I was going to say: you know, yes to what everyone is saying in general but also: actually, some people -do- kind of freeze for fear of making a mistake in any other situation, to the point of rarely leaving the house (for example). this is kind of orthogonal to how one deals specifically in situations of being relatively privileged to any particular group. it doesn’t change a whole lot in terms of that specifically, but just, on the “intersections” tip: yeah, sometimes there’s also other shit going on. I mean that’s true for the people who’re the “allied with,” also, okay, which is why asking for special…specialness for a would-be ally isn’t viewed very patiently.
but if one’s talking about general fears…well, I guess one thing I’d say is, I do think wrt “having to do with” members of any given oppressed/unfamiliar group, online “counts.” I mean if you think online matters at all, then it should do. maud knows there are plenty of Big Blogging Personalities who don’t venture far from their usual reading circuit, and do the whole “could you read it for me?” when confronted with their own lack of ___ 101. I mean to say, I don’t necessarily think any of this necessitates being a social butterfly in RL space.
oops, cut myself off there apparently; something like “I hadn’t thought of it as a global…um, thing.” yeah, real eloquent tonight…
here’s one:
Member of oppressed group x asks you to check yourself on something very specific you said or did, in a very specific context. Immediately change the subject to your own membership in oppressed group y, and how you are GLOBALLY uniquely misunderstood or silenced because of it. This is most effective when used in combination with 8 and 15.
Bonus points if someone(s) else points out that sie’s a member of both groups x and y and is still finding what you said very problematic; you can either ignore them altogether, dismiss them with something about how they’re not -as- y as you, and/or yes BUT you’re -also- the only member of oppressed group Z, how about THAT, huh?
and from there, right back into 3, 6, 9, 10, 14, 16…
also: tears.
Another: related to #3 and probably a manifestation of same, engage with a bunch of other folks with your same privilege in a “confess-fest”, in the presence of members of the oppressed group.
“Yeah, I was really __ist when I …”
“I know! Leik the time I ….”
“Well, I can top that! I was really bad when …”
I cop to this (and most of the other items).
Scary true, UBW. Scary true.
I don’t understand ‘ally cred.’ I thought the whole point of privilege and the passive benefits of it is that it’s not about what you look like to others, it’s not about how people perceive you or how you perceive yourself… how anti-racist you are but it’s about what you do, what your reality is and how that reality impinges on, has impinged on, and reflects a racist hierarchy that shifts with every new situation. So ‘ally cred’ shouldn’t even exist and people should really stop trying to make themselves feel good and like they’ve uncomplicated things by not calling folk racist epithets.
I mean that’s where the whole idea of privilege comes from, and the idea that you can passively benefit from privilege as well as use it to actively deny others opportunities or voice. Clearly it’s aaaaalllll about what people see and not what reality is. O_o
The other thing I wanted to comment on it… I dunno. If someone asks me how I benefit the oppressed people in the room by being there I usually feel like… I don’t necessarily benefit them by contributing aloud, or even by ‘being there’ which seems a little predatory, but by listening in and then making changes in my own life and wrongheadedness and seeing their experiences of oppression from a new angle (theirs, not mine). But I recognize that their meeting and coming together isn’t done for my observational benefit, it’s done for their livelihood and well being.
I mean I like the idea of -coalition-. I think “allying” is important in the sense of, look, we’re -not- all just out for number one or even for our own “tribe”/affinity group/whatever. At the same time, though, I think it’s important to realize: the reason “cookies” are irrelevant is because the “reward” is something else that’s more important. What affects you affects me. Pastor Niemuller, what you will.
Also, hey, being -interested- in other people for its own sake has its own rewards. I mean, it’s not like this grim duty, you know? Make new friends, learn shit. Make mistakes, realize your place in the world is not what you thought it was and it’s humbling, deal with it, keep going.
I think you make a nice point here. If you’re legitimately interacting with members of x and y group and your own group on a regular basis, you won’t need to identify yourself as an ally.
It’s the organizational interaction that makes it iffy. If you show up at a gathering of x people, and you show up out of the blue just to “support the cause,” you come off as awfully condescending. Like in univ when everyone in my “international” house was required to attend one event each trimester hosted by a group we didn’t belong to. Everyone knew why we were there and it was nasty all-around. On the other hand, if we voluntarily went to things with people we knew, or were genuinely interested (and not just because it was exotic to us), things went much better.