Dialogue Description:

Challenges to the concept of “alliance” keep arising, in particular with regards to white antiracists. We’ll familiarize ourselves with common criticisms, dive into our own growth edges and practices, and examine the limits and possibilities of this model. We will try to balance theory and lived experience in this dialogue, so please think of a recent experience wherein you felt challenged by your role as an ally to share and possibly work through together. We’ll use a few recent blogs to inspire our discussion:

Dialogue Notes:

These are rough, uncut, unfiltered, and anonymous notes taken at the dialogue. We get that these may not be very readable to those who were not in attendance at the dialogue, and, honestly, sometimes even to those of us who were. We still feel it is important to keep them available as part of our accountability process and for archiving and reference purposes.  Some of these notes have been digested/transformed into blogs.

Topics:

  • Head of the class white people: interrupting, taking up too much space, I don’t want to be like that I just want to do the work (don’t want to be the white anti-racist in every organizing context)—I like how these readings bring the self and identity formation
  • Identity formation: ally action vs noun—how do you show up vs how do you portray yourself
  • In role as teacher and facilitator: label will make you stop thinking, take away label and leave curiosity and pushing edges
  • Doing the work for our own white humanity.. or not
  • If its not called allyship then what is it called
  • You don’t get to decide youre an ally
  • Solidarity work vs allyship
  • Ally is a war term
  • Doing the work because we feel affected by injustices: how complicated that is
  • Is it a contradiction to be accountable to POC in all accounts and that its not the responsibility of POC to educate white people AND organize as white people
  • White invasion
  • Rigidity of rules: never ask a POC about racism, etc.
  • Contentiousness, trolling
  • Other types of allyship: a time when someone was an ally to me, their ally work is positively affecting me, my community, my family
  • On 10 step how to be an ally list: Fucking up is a given, how do you celebrate it , get around shame and guilt, and move forward
  • Decentering/recentering whiteness
  • Standards we hold ourselves to/others hold us to: do we hold others to those same standards of perfection
  • Social justice becoming the new organic (talk not walk!)
  • Ships in the Night havoc around a multi racial group trying to create a forum on anti-black racism at ships via facebook
    • Not the job of POC to educate white people
    • Request that only white people deeply engaged in allyship work attend party—question of “how would I ever identify in a way im comfy going to this party”
  • Twitter blowup around panel for women of color? : internet world is complete lack of trust and accountability
    • Trust goes a long way, rules are much less rigid when you know and trust somebody
  • Takes a shit ton of personal work when you aren’t hitting loved ones with a ton of microaggressions while youre working through your stuff
  • Intersectionality piece: if we aren’t cognizant of all the ways we hold power and privilege, we have varying degrees of impact, i.e. all the ways tim wise has been critiqued for the last 10 years, heteroprivilege, ablism, his work excludes so much, he isn’t actually in community where intersections are happening
  • Tim wise interview by kamau bell on totally biased: build up to tim wise’s tantrum
    • W kamau was very generous
  • Intense culture of criticism
    • Constantly talking about the 20% we’re fucking up instead of the 80% we do well
    • He isn’t rush Limbaugh, he could be doing way more explicitly racist and horrible things all the time
    • Jared leto playing a trans woman
    • Culture of calling out
  • A touching thing of: you have people who are close to you who will and can check you
    • Im going to do what I need and want to do, check in with people I know and love who are about being in integrity and are in the community im a part of, and then I will do it, not stop myself based on haters on facebook or whatever
  • Gender socialization around approval seeking, vs accountability when you need other people to be telling you if what youre saying is ok
  • Contradiction in taking any one person’s word in being the law about if something is ok or not, don’t want to be asking an individual to be speaking for their entire group
  • Idea of: at least Tim Wise isn’t Rush Limbaugh
    • Does this just let us off the hook
    • Rush Limbaugh isn’t solidifying his income and identity on anti-racist image
    • Almost more destructive than Rush Limbaugh
    • Comes back to this trust thing, if we don’t trust each other we cant call each other in
    • In same case of Jared Leto, a lot of calling out is on point, and also the fault of many people, he seems like he did it from a good place and wants to be called in on it, how do we build cultures of trust where we can give feedback and build relationships
    • Amount of love it takes to “call in” – divisiveness within our movement is pretty crushing, could people trolling give holistic picture—thanks and criticism
    • Trolling is often about battle of egos, who is an activist, who gets to be right
  • Anti-racist work itself is as white supremacist as anything else in this society
    • Even as we’re undoing all this, we’re doing it
  • Feeling of: its impossible to live in this world in line with my values ( I live in a capitalist world every day and I think capitalism is totally wrong)
    • To not honor and recognize the things I have attempted to do that are not perfect— doing those things gives my life some meaning
    • What if the standard I set is not actually possible for me in this world
    • Something inherently puritanical in concept of always doing better, striving towards perfection and white supremacist
  • Generation of people younger than me who feel entirely defeated about being white people in POC led movements, burnt out bc of negative feedback loop, cant get it right
    • Feeling of just being in a movement together isn’t enough if we aren’t having these politicized, self flagellation conversations, POC who will check me politically
  • Tema okun’s work: perfectionist all or nothing mentality
    • Difference between demanding that standard in yourself, and knowing better is possible
    • I know im not where I want to be but im calling myself in on it
    • But what ive seen is people doing an action, then being immensely criticized
    • We are all angry and traumatized people
  • Disengaging is being marketed as the most political option:
    • “POC need to be leaders, no role for me a white person living in west Oakland so I will check out”
    • not a lot of room to make mistakes in west oakland where things are so serious
    • a trend ive seen in the past 7 years in organizing: feeling of we aren’t doing anything, this is depressing, white youth in a punk house
    • organizing is super difficult and add another layer of checking yourself and inserting yourself and supporting
    • politicized stuff happening in a white liberal college setting, intellectual battle around deep painful shit, but not a loving or caring place to do it contributes to this situation
  • movement work replicating corporate structures
    • seems unbalanced maybe for people to work so hard on being different and not knowing what we’re fighting for
  • college students jumping on the bandwagon of activism is part of the college experience
  • performing or reading coolness that are meant to say heres all the stuff about my identity
    • importance of affinity groups
    • inclusive groups for the purpose of learning and growing
    • sense of going into a space not trusting and expecting trust to be earned, from others , also sense of not belonging
    • feeling of a thick wall, or someone else’s club
    • how do you do work that makes you feel vulnerable
    • missing in bay area environments, places for people to get involved and make mistakes, no entry level organizing
  • private security issues can be good places to enter
  • value of being interracial spaces
  • also value of educating other white folks
  • in the beginnings of identity process, where is the place for you
  • what about each one teach one
  • non profit industrial complex is working against us, green corps wtf! , learning to organize in a text book, there are many space for people to get involved, in non-profit industry, not a lot of anti-racist ed going on in non-profit orgs, privilege of volunteering
    • maybe people don’t understand what the grassroots are, white folks
    • green corps, no heart there, paid to be an organizer, this is rampant in the US
  • during dot com boom, white people moved to SF, part of a multiracial movement, now that isn’t happening, now its important to organize in SF in a way that allows white people to get involved
  • whiteness getting recentered in gentrification again
  • layers: we’re 20 years into gentrification in the bay, people getting evicted now are the original gentrifiers
    • were these original people ally communities or not?
    • Wins out of this organizing is it just protecting white middle class families
  • Can we get an example of a time someone was an ally to you?
  • Examples of other isms, or a time when an alliance worked well
  • At work, management is white, coworkers are people of color, we’ve done wkshps on microaggressions at work
    • Difficulty in getting management to show up, feeling lack of agency
    • 3rd annual supervision: do I want to get to be a promotion and be a team leader of my POC team, and I said no.
    • do I tell my coworkers
    • this felt like a push against
  • more ally behavior: one of my friends got fucked over by a guy, shes a woman of color, bad situation.
    • Many people stepped back from situation, we don’t want to blacklist anybody
    • Friend got mad because no one brought in community accountability
    • So I sent some scathing emails that she read over first, didn’t attend a bunch of trainings
    • I checked in with her, is this ok with you what I want to do to respond, and im not participating in anything with this org until they set things straight with my friend
    • Fine line between ally behavior and tokenizing, what is the difference between friendship behavior and ally behavior
  • I give myself agency, Oakland is my home, I feel fine doing what I do in my city, especially around police accountability
    • Not on fuck the police as much as im on I love my community I don’t want my community beaten by the police
    • I feel connected to anybody in the city of Oakland, I feel scared to do copwatch in other cities
  • Ally concept is condescending,
  • A time someone was an ally to me, elder women loving me and supporting me in my growth
  • What about shifting of allyship: a way to shake up or dismantle privilege you benefit from
  • A story: grew up in suburban Minnesota, no gay straight alliance, my mother going around asking neighbors to put up rainbow flags in their law as an expression of support, neighbors bought flags and started spreading. Not perfect activism, but still amazing. Mom is ally, even in imperfection. She had an entry point, her neighbors, her child, her community
  • Another story: in terms of gender and sexism, a lot of fierce male feminist voices in my classes. Students listen a different way, a particular powerful role in hearing men say sexism and violence isn’t a womens problem. A light go on, or a shift when this is done well. can blend into recentering after being subversive.
  • Another story: working in a racial justice research center. Different kinds of power, hierarchy, degrees, age. Supervisor is patriarchal at times, overvalues degrees. On a walk with a fellow woman of color coworker, what do you see in these dynamics? Am I having a blind spot that this seems messed up to me? Friend says, no I don’t think youre being a fucked up white person, I think this situation is a problem we all experience those things.
  • Other terms: “currently acting in solidarity with…” Loving friend…lol
  • Can I perform acts of love in proximity to you…… consensually.??
  • Love is the answer
  • Alliance: white anti-racist clowns
  • How do we hold onto those moments of what we want, even if theyre fleeting, to remind us of the vision that we are all working for

Takeaways: 

  • really valuing this group, being able to have these conversations. I feel like I belong in this group. Even though im not sure here I am.
  • Curious about generosity of spirit, when we’re learning something new or unlearning something new, staying with the learning process
  • Appreciate this dialogue, listening, bring convos to other spaces
  • Appreciate perspective, intergenerationally, after this many years of self policing, I know how to police myself, I want to not stop doing the work and not burn out, simple things of self love and being present with people, make more space for people who aren’t perfectly politicized
  • How we used language, what are concrete examples of what we talked about, feeling confused about things like “movement building, spaces, etc”
  • Sense of urgency and counteract that so wehave time to build relationships, so much of this stuff is so hard wired in
  • How petrified I am when these conversations start, oh god smart white women, appreciating my guard coming down over the 3 hours
  • Tema okun white supremacy culture is a great tool to observe ourselves
  • Making mistakes, forgiving myself, could that be a political culture, a lightness to that, would be a big shift to bring that front and center, this cultural stuff is hard—organizing culture, friendship culture
  • Something I didn’t follow through on, I know theres something wrong with how im thinking about that, making me look at it again and do something different
  • Reflect on the terms: some aren’t my favorite but theyre also important to have a shared language, but they need to be able to make more sense to more people