Illustration by Daniel Rey
Moving Towards Allyship
A reflection on a trajectory of questioning what it means to be an ally.
Apr 16, 2017
I became aware of the term ally because of an argument. What does the A in LGBTQIA+ stand for? Some will say it stands for ally. As a young queer kid, however, that meant that there was no place in the queer community for asexuality. It may seem like a fairly trivial argument. What does it matter what the A stands for; isn’t the Q and the + enough of an umbrella to catch anything that doesn’t fit into the acronym? That argument turned pretty bitter. In effect, people that were there to stand with me and protect me were kicking me out of the only community I felt accepted in.
Those interactions left a bitter taste in my mouth and for many years, I was not keen on the idea of allies. I realize that my views were and are a bit on the extreme side, but bear with me as I outline how my thinking on allyship has evolved over time through the various positions I have found myself in. I began my time as the head of Anchorage at NYU Abu Dhabi thinking, mostly privately but occasionally publicly, that I didn’t have the time or the space for people in my organization that just want to pat themselves on the back. The people that claim to be my allies were often those that told me that I am pushing for too much too soon, when all I saw was myself simply asking to be treated the same way that you would treat a straight white cisgender U.S. American man. The feeling of distrust for allies goes back to the same question raised by what the A stands for. Are allies part of a community or outside but in solidarity with it?
Allyship is hard and it does not come with many rewards. For the amount of effort it requires, there is very little credit. I tend to believe there shouldn’t be a lot of credit. Being marginalized is exhausting, so why should it be my responsibility to make an ally feel good about themselves? After all, an ally does little more than treat every person they encounter with dignity and is invested in creating a system in which dignity and equal opportunity are the default and not something to be praised. The system as it stands now, however, is full of injustice. It is hard to work on the side of those that are angry at you and yet marginalized people have the right to be angry, if not at their allies, then certainly at the system that their allies benefit from. The anger might be displaced, but it is still justified. In many cases in order to be an ally, you have to be invested in dismantling a system that you benefit from.
This is an obvious conflict of interest, and so I have, in my life, tended to view my allies with suspicion. Why are they here? What do they hope to gain from this? Sometimes it is brownie points. Sometimes positive feelings. Sometimes it is something more. That fear is humorously summarized in a recent SNL skit, (Girl at a Bar)[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTMow_7H47Q]. The sad fact is that allies are particularly well positioned to exploit the community that they are supposed to be standing in solidarity with. An old high school friend, Fiona Chamness, put it this way in a recent Facebook status:
“Because this is a sad sorry-ass world, allies are well-positioned to be predators, both in the global & personal senses of the word. In the personal sense, I don't use ‘ally’, I don't use ‘accomplice’, I don't use anything. If I do right, I'm helping, [and] if I do wrong, I'm not. I've done both [and] will do both some more … In the places where I'm marginalized, I [want] people to be helping. I want to believe people are doing their best [and] that their best is enough … That want I have is dangerous. I don't mean dangerous like suddenly hearing someone say ____ed-up shit [and] being extremely disappointed, although of course that's happened. I can deal with that, although I respect people who don't [and] respect myself when I can't. I mean dangerous like abuse [and] assault [and] life-&-soul-threatening exploitation. That's why I don't get mad when people lose trust in me after I say or do something ____ed-up even though I know I'm going to incorporate [and] internalize [and] learn - because people are practicing trusting themselves, [and] that's [good].”
While I tend to agree with everything she has written, she essentially advocates for not trusting allies, a position that those who want to see themselves as allies get understandably defensive about. It is hard to admit that you are part of the problem, especially when you have created an identity for yourself that depends on not being part of the problem. And while I may have the best intentions in situations where I try to stand in solidarity to a group, there are others that use the leverage that the position of ally gets them to their advantage. Like I said at the beginning, there is little to gain from being an ally and a lot to lose, so it is hard to trust that anyone would willingly take that risk.
Even as I was not too fond of the people that claimed to be allies to me, I began to encounter more media produced by marginalized groups. I am an avid podcast listener. Podcasts like Another Round, Good Muslim/Bad Muslim, See Something Say Something, and NPR’s Codeswitch, let me listen to frank conversations by communities that, due to race or religion, I am not a part of. I would listen to their problems with safety-pin solidarity and hear echoed many of my own problems with LGBTQIA+ allies, except this time, I was in the ally position. Even as I have been raised in a racist patriarchal society, every day I attempt to be the kind of person that treats everyone with dignity and respect. There are days when I succeed in recognizing and working on my biases and days when I utterly fail.
So what does effective allyship look like? In the run-up to ally week, through Anchorage, I asked members of our community to tell me what they were looking for in Allies. That piece was published on April 9. One of the people I spoke to for that was Nafisatou Mounkaila. In an email, she wrote to me,
So what does effective allyship look like? In the run-up to ally week, through Anchorage, I asked members of our community to tell me what they were looking for in Allies. That piece was published on April 9. One of the people I spoke to for that was Nafisatou Mounkaila. In an email, she wrote to me,
“The best allies I've ever encountered are people that are ready and willing to listen first and foremost. I think these days solidarity becomes synonymous with expertise. I've never wanted an ally to be an expert on whatever cause we were fighting for, and quite frankly it is often impossible for an ally to be the "expert" considering the fact that they do not have the same experience as I do. I'm not even an expert! Sometimes I can see the pressure crushing an ally, as they try to over expand themselves because of a fear of not delivering. Other times, I see allies think that just because they have a grasp on the cause they are choosing to fight for or even just be aware of, they feel like they can now do things like make racist jokes. It gets to the point where they are bringing more attention to my blackness than anyone else in the room. Shallow ‘wokeness’ does not cut it. Both instances are not pretty sights to see. As allies, we have to understand that we are outside but standing by. Once we realize that we are more listeners and helpers, we can definitely contribute to creating safe spaces for anyone and everyone.
My perspective on allyship changed in the wake of the last U.S. election. After Nov. 4, I was approached every day by students and faculty who felt incredibly hopeless, on the verge of despair, but also motivated to do whatever they could. A cynical way to view all of this is to say that the recent U.S. election shocked people into realizing that they were already at risk. It may be cynical, but even if it is true, it is moving us in the right direction. I tend to believe that it has just made even more obvious how everyone suffers from an oppressive system, even those that seem like they are benefiting. Through all being at risk, it feels to me like we are moving to a place where everyone is understanding that the system we live in is broken.
As I have spent more time thinking about allyship, I have come to believe that it inherently comes with some sort of risk. Being marginalized in any sort of way means living with risk. While my risk as an upper-middle class white cisgendered German-American is on the fairly low side, by being queer I am at higher risk for sexual assault and other violence. My risk of course does not compare to that of others. I’ve been thinking about this a great deal lately. In a recent talk for Anchorage, Professors Debra Levine and Gayatri Gopinath summarized risk this way: by targeting our actions to the most marginalized, we effectively catch everyone. In the U.S. context, by aiming our efforts at health care for incarcerated black trans women, we reach everyone that is in a better place.
That task is, however, incredibly overwhelming. Do we instead content ourselves with reaching as many people as possible? It is the classic question: do we build up from the bottom, or trickle down from the top? I don’t know, but I find it comforting in those moments to remember that I don’t have to do it alone and that I have allies. That there are those that stand in solidarity with me and with whom my particular sub-identities — woman, queer, etc. — are in coalition.
After the U.S. elections, I can see those coalitions form, but I have to remind myself to stay aware. When we are afraid, it is tempting to grab what we can, protect the advancements we’ve made and forget that divide and concur is oppression 101. The only way I know to combat that is to keep educating myself. I keep reading. I listen to those writers and thinkers I respect. I try not to get defensive when I get called out for messing up when I stand in solidarity to groups more marginalized than those I am a part of. And I keep at the work, whether that means listening to others, educating the groups I am a part of or taking care of myself so that I can rebuild the energy I need to keep building a more just system, from the bottom up.
Laura Waltje is a contributing writer. Email her at feedback@thegazelle.org.
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