Am I An Ally? — Story Time

Yesterday I was part of a peaceful protest that was one of the greatest honors of my life. It was a giant love bomb that dropped into our town and filled our hearts with unity, solidarity and peace.

I was asked by my friends, Zo Daniels and Khari Miller to answer three questions in response to Zo’s “Am I An Ally” challenge on social media. Zo is a complete powerhouse of a woman, a real force for change, and I will always try to support her.

Am I an ally? What makes me an ally? How can I be a better ally?

I feel like I can answer all three questions in one story:

Almost a decade ago I found myself in a race workshop in New York, where I was living at the time. I was there with my friends who were both black. We’d been watching a play and were unaware of the workshop that followed on straight after.

The host started by asking some questions on the subject then asked us to stand and split into groups based on who we identified with the most. I immediately got up and followed my friends into their group. Everyone was looking at me.

The whole room was segregated into groups based on skin color. I looked at the two white people who looked boring, I knew I was supposed to go stand with them but I refused. I moved closer to my friends but I felt they didn’t want me there. They couldn’t identify with me.

I thought the host was trying to reinforce divide, I couldn’t see that there was a point to the exercise, that his goal was to create deeper connection through understanding.

I became visibly freaked out and the host asked why.

I said: “I don’t want to stand with the white people, I don’t identify with them”/ “I love people based on their personalities not their skin color”/ “I have everything in common with my friends.” and a lot of other things that basically amounted to “all lives matter.”

My friends said nothing. I became so furious and embarrassed about the idea of being categorized with the other two sheepish white people, and I made such a scene that the host ended up cancelling the rest of the workshop.

In the year that followed I noticed things: One friend was stopped and searched in a humiliating matter, I didn’t have to worry about that kind of thing happening to me. My actress friend struggled to get interesting roles but the lead role auditions for white women were endless. I became aware of the subtle and not so subtle ways in which we were treated differently.

As a white person I had the luxury of buying into black culture, I still wear clothes designed for black people, listen to their music and watch their films, but that does not give me ownership of their experience.

That day at the workshop, I refused to look at my race because it made me feel ashamed. I didn’t want to see myself as an oppressor. But I slowly realized that without acknowledging my race I couldn’t accept my privilege. And without that, I was a friend but not an ally.

In the workshop I had pushed into my friends, using their black bodies and my friendly nature to hide and avoid a difficult conversation. I had reacted out of the need to protect my ego, but black people need protection more than our egos do.

After a year I tracked down the host of the workshop to apologize for how I had reacted before. I said I hadn’t understood but I was starting to. He was really gracious and said he had faith that beyond my discomfort I’d find somewhere fertile. He included me in his online work and often sent me things to read. He began my education as an ally. His name is Russel G Jones and he still runs a project in NYC called The Blind Spot.

Acknowledging race and privilege is uncomfortable, if you look close it often brings up feelings of shame and guilt. If you have these feelings I urge you to sit in the discomfort and ask yourself questions, don’t shout and make everyone uncomfortable like I did. Don’t deny the thing that could be your key to lifting up others.

That was a long time ago, now I live in Hastings which feels much less diverse. We talk about race a lot at home, my husband is brown (of mexican descent) and he calls me out on things I’ve done or said that are offensive or short sighted. I am always grateful when he does this because I’m still learning. We have open discussions with our daughters and try to navigate ideas of race together.

The thing I’m working on the most is the same thing as that day in NY, to react less and listen more.

Being an ally, is challenging. It means having difficult conversations with the people in my life that are casually racist or xenophobic, the type of slow unconscious hate that means my calm words are often met with angry denial and most often has them shouting at me, “I’m not a racist!”, then naming a brown person in their life. It’s the verbal version of what I did in NY. At those times I am working on showing the people at the start of their journeys the grace and non judgement that Russel showed me. At the moment I’m not quite there.

For me being an ally is being in unknown territory. It means constantly questioning my own actions and words. It means checking that I’m not still hiding behind a relationship, or a slogan, or an Instagram share. It means accepting and listening when I make mistakes, then using the information to try to grow. It means checking in with my intentions.

It means often being unsure, but in writing this I realized maybe that’s no bad thing. Maybe this is what Russel meant when he said “somewhere fertile”, a place where my mind can expand. It’s uncomfortable but it’s important because the racism you see on your screens in the US, lets not forget, was born here on European soil.

Im trying to be part of this change and I think Zoe’s questions are a great start. I think of Russel as someone who created a rip tide in my universe and I’m grateful.

I thought, if I didn’t pay attention to race I couldn’t be a racist. But that’s not the case because racism is systemic and we all have to be actively anti-racist.

I am bonded with the team at Hastings Against Racism Rally for life. Yesterday my heart burst with love for you all, and this is just the beginning.