Anti-Racist Ally

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © Sophie Williams 2020

Sophie Williams asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Cover design and typesetting by Rebecca Petts Davies.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Ebook Edition © October 2020 ISBN: 9780007985135

NOTE TO READERS

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 Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780007985128

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Introduction

Discussion of terms

1. Not being racist is not enough

2. Become an anti-racist ally

3. Let’s talk about intersectionality

4. What does racism look like now?

5. Allyship anxieties

6. Start with yourself

7. Become an ally in your social circle

8. Become an ally in your workplace

9. Become an ally at home and in your communities

10. Become an economic ally

11. Keep up the momentum

Further reading

Endnotes

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

Hi! Congratulations on taking your first step in becoming an anti-racist ally. I’m so glad to have you here.

This book is deliberately small and a starting point for those who want to learn to become anti-racist allies, by joining the fight for racial equality, or for those who have already made a start but don’t know what to do next, or how to keep up the momentum.

It’s a bite-sized introduction to the things you need to know to lay the best foundation in your anti-racist allyship journey. You can share it with people in your life who want to use their voices and platforms to make the world a better place but don’t know where to begin, or those with whom you want to have difficult conversations. It’s a small and accessible resource for you to refer back to along the way.

Although I’ve spent years working in and talking about social justice, I began writing this book in the wake of the series of tragic murders that shocked the world in 2020 and galvanised many who had never considered their role in anti-racism to take action in their own lives.

I want to be honest with you from the very start, allyship is not always easy – there are no shortcuts or quick wins – but it’s nowhere near as difficult as facing racism in your everyday life. You will have conversations with people who simply do not want to change the way things have always been. Speaking truth to power and saying it with your whole chest is not meant to be easy. If it were, it would have already happened. There will be a lot of times when you feel that you’re pushing against a brick wall. There will be other times when it feels like you’re making good progress, only to be told ‘no’ or be let down at the last minute. Moments like that can’t be the end of your journey, they must instead be a chance to regroup, take stock and try again, even harder than before.

The purpose of this book is to challenge the things we’ve been taught based on white supremacy, and to seek better and fairer ways to move forward. Questioning the ways by which we operate can feel threatening, or even like an attack, and our response to that can be to close ourselves off and become defensive. It’s important to remember that this is a learning process, and part of that is facing difficult truths, feeling uncomfortable and working through that. Fight the urge to pull away, and make space for discomfort.

Finally, while anti-racism is the focus of this book, the conversation about allyship is not limited to race. Each of us is an individual, made up of several facets. Our race is one of these, but so is our sexuality, gender identity, neurodiversity, class, socio-economic status, disability status, among many others. I hope some of the things we discuss here will help you to feel empowered and encouraged to be the best ally that you can be to all marginalised people.

We need you to be a part of the change.

DISCUSSION OF TERMS

I thought long and hard about the terms to use in this book about anti-racist allyship. I am a Black woman, and so my instinct is to focus on Blackness, as that is where the majority of my research and the entirety of my lived experience lies. However, we all know that Black people are not the only group marginalised due to the colour of our skin in Western society, so to exclude all other marginalised groups doesn’t feel right.

On the other hand, I do not like the terms BIPOC, BAME or POC. That’s right, I said it. The reason I don’t like them is that I believe, despite these being terms used to refer to non-white people, every one of them centres on whiteness. BIPOC, BAME and POC all split people into just two groups – white and other.

In each case, whiteness is a group on its own, distinct from all else. Whiteness stands alone as the status quo against which all other ethnic groups are defined. Everyone who isn’t white is lumped together through terms like BAME, POC and BIPOC without thought for their individual experiences. In this way white becomes a binary – white or not white – and all of the subtlety, richness and variety of different groups is whitewashed away.

After much internal deliberation I have decided to say ‘marginalised groups’ or just ‘marginalised’ so far as possible, rather than to use a term I find difficult, or to focus on Blackness at the expense of other marginalised racial groups. On occasions where, for one reason or another, this isn’t possible, I will use BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour – a term that’s mostly used in America and puts those who are most impacted by racism in that society front and centre) and BAME (Black, Asian, Ethnic Minority) as used by researchers whose work I’m referencing.

When I say ‘society’ I am speaking about Western society, and I appreciate that the nuances of race and racism are not universally similar.

I originally wrote this book with the spelling ‘womxn’ throughout in order to be inclusive. However, this spelling has since become a term co-opted by those who want to deny the true womanhood of trans and non-binary women. So instead I have used ‘women’, but please know that when I say women I mean all who identify as such, and that all women are real women.

1.

NOT BEING RACIST IS NOT ENOUGH

‘I’m not racist’ is a good place to start, and I presume if you’re reading this you’re not a racist person, which is great. But I’m sorry to say, this really is the absolute bare minimum.

When people say they’re not racist, they’re usually thinking something along the lines of, ‘I see everyone the same, and I would never discriminate against someone based on the colour of their skin’.

But what they’re not thinking about is being actively anti-racist.

Not being racist is the right foundation, but it’s a passive state. It’s not allyship. To be an effective anti-racist ally, we all need to be actively anti-racist.

WHAT IS ANTI-RACISM?

Anti-racism is not about seeing and treating everyone in exactly the same way. Instead it’s about understanding the different experiences, perspectives and (dis)advantages of people from different groups, and working to overcome them.

Anti-racism doesn’t gloss over our differences or whitewash the experiences of others.

Anti-racism is about refusing to turn a blind eye when we see discrimination. It’s about taking an active stance in our daily lives, calling out every joke, offhand comment, and act of injustice.

Anti-racism is not about self-improvement: being a better person is not the end goal. It’s about creating a fairer society for marginalised people, which is a better world for us all.

Anti-racism, and working towards being an anti-racist ally, isn’t easy, and it can be uncomfortable or even scary, but it’s the only way we’re going to make progress.

So let’s get going.

RACISTS ARE BAD PEOPLE. I’M NOT A RACIST

The conversation around racism that most of us have heard since childhood is usually pretty one-dimensional.

Very black and white.

Racism is bad.

People who are racist are bad people.

And you are a good person, so you are not racist.

Since childhood we have been building up our personal mental images of ‘a racist’ – someone who is uncaring, violent, dangerous, hateful. You’d know one if you saw one and you’d definitely never be one.

But it doesn’t quite work like that in practice.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s not true that racism is bad (I can’t believe I just had to say that), but I’m also saying that the conversation is more nuanced than that simple good/bad binary leaves space for.

Instead of helping marginalised groups, this good/bad, black/white binary has made it really difficult for us to find the grey when we come to examine our own lives, actions and the systems that have benefited us along the way.

ISN’T RACISM OVER?

The reassuring thing about the idea of racist people being 80s skinheads or members of the KKK dressed in white robes is that they’re easy to spot. If you find yourself burning a cross in a white hood one day, you might have accidentally become ‘a racist’. If you beat up people from other races in the street or refuse to hire someone because of the colour of their skin then, uh oh, you got racist.

The reality is, that’s just not what the majority of racist actions really look like in 2020.

Culture and society have both changed, and that means so have people’s expectations and views of what is socially acceptable. In response, racism has had to find new, more coded and less overt ways to exist.

Being less overt doesn’t mean it’s less bad, it just means that it’s more slippery, harder to identify, harder to report and harder to point to.

Modern racism is still dangerous, systemic and structural. It still kills people, takes away their rights, their dignity and their chance of having a fair shot at the lives we all deserve and that many take for granted.

I’M COLOUR BLIND, I TREAT EVERYONE THE SAME

Maybe you’re not actively anti-racist, but you’re not racist. In fact, you’d go as far as to call yourself colour-blind. You treat everyone exactly the same, just like everyone else should.

When people claim ‘colour-blindness’ or that they treat everyone the same, it’s usually from a place of good intentions. However, this is generally something people from marginalised ethnic groups don’t say because they know that though individuals might strive for this, the reality is simply that society as a whole does not do this.

A one-size-fits-all, ‘colour-blind’, ‘I treat everyone exactly the same way’ approach overlooks an important factor: intersectionality. (See here to learn more about intersectionality and why it matters.) Let’s be honest with ourselves, structures were not built with equality for everyone in mind.

This means that, in practice, treating everyone the same leads less to equality and more to erasure, as we often leave the most marginalised people vulnerable to falling through the cracks.

A more inclusive approach is to recognise people’s differences, to be good allies to them and to understand them as whole people.

I DON’T REALLY THINK ABOUT RACE VERY OFTEN

Going through life without thinking about, or being made aware of your race, is a privilege.

Marginalised people are aware of their race every day in a huge number of different ways.

 We have grown up with societal images of beauty that don’t reflect us.

 We are reminded of our race by others when security guards follow us around shops for the crime of being a customer.

 We research places that we want to travel to, taking into consideration whether we will be safe and treated with respect.

 We are aware that if we call the police to protect us, we risk putting ourselves in more danger.

I CAN’T BE RACIST. MY WIFE/HUSBAND/BOSS/BEST FRIEND/DENTIST IS BLACK

‘I can’t be racist because this or that person I know is Black’ is something I’ve heard time and time again.

Let me be clear here: your proximity to non-whiteness does not give you a free pass.

It never has, and it never will.

People from marginalised backgrounds are not accessories that can be used or pointed at ‘prove’ your anti-racism. We understand that misogynists date and marry women, and have other women in their lives who they care about, maybe even love and respect. This doesn’t mean they’re not misogynistic.

The same is true for racism.

You can have marginalised people who are close in your life and still be racist.

The only thing that can show your anti-racism is the active anti-racism work that you do and the stands that you take.

2.

BECOME AN ANTI-RACIST ALLY

Not being racist isn’t allyship.

But being actively anti-racist, fighting for a cause that you really believe in?

That’s more like it.

Be an anti-racist ally.

ALLIES VS WHITE SAVIOURS

To break it down into its simplest possible terms: being an ally is good, being a white saviour is not.

But what’s the difference?

White saviours are not what we’re looking for, because rather than listening to, respecting and being led by the voices of marginalised people and communities, they instead put themselves at the centre of the issue and, as a result, dehumanise those who they are claiming to help. An easy example of this is people who post pictures of themselves on social media surrounded by Black faces at an orphanage they taught at or helped to build or visited last summer. They are smiling among a sea of Black children, signalling to their online audience that they are, indisputably, a good person.

The bodies of marginalised people become props in the furthering of the Look How Well I’m Doing narrative of the saviour.

In examples like this, those people can be accused of using those images, those people’s bodies and their struggles to signal their own virtuousness.

These one-off actions might be helpful, to an extent, if researched and approached well and carefully. But they’re not allyship, and they often lack the research and investment to make them impactful and meaningful.

WHAT IS ALLYSHIP?

Allyship is what you do, not what you believe.

Allyship is speaking up, standing up; it’s joining the fight and struggle to achieve equality for all.

Allyship leads from behind. It’s not making it all about you or looking for praise or credit for your work, especially from marginalised people, but about listening to voices that too often go unheard and seeking to uplift and amplify them and their messages.

As an ally, your job is to make change.

Your job is to push past comfort and politeness and challenge the structures and norms that we’ve all grown up taking for granted, and be a part of creating the society you want to live in.

Even when it’s difficult.

Especially when it’s difficult.

It’s still easier than facing racism and discrimination on a daily basis.

Allyship is not just fighting for those people you know or to whom you feel a connection, but for everyone, simply because it’s the right thing to do.

BEING SHOCKED IS NOT ALLYSHIP

Being shocked is not allyship.

Saying, ‘I can’t believe it’ is not allyship.

Feeling sympathy is not allyship.

Thinking that someone should do something is not allyship.

Taking on these issues as your own and fighting for them consistently, consciously, is allyship.

Feeling the injustice on your skin and in your stomach – and then turning those feelings into actions for the benefit of others. That’s allyship.

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