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On Cookies and being an Ally
Jan. 22nd, 2009 08:36 amLast year, there was the Women of Color Beauty Carnival, in which several women, and a few male allies wrote about WoC, what is beauty, and the issues therein. My particular contribution was picked up by Racialicous and passed along, quoted heavily, while several pieces by the actual women of color were marginalized.
Along comes a storm of "that's so great, that's so great", and the first thing I did, was go over there and remind them that it was the WOC Beauty carnival, and that it was deeply problematic to put the male allies voices above the women in their own carnival.
They didn't really understand the point of that, because, I was refusing cookies. For some reason, they imagined my "objection" was that I didn't want my piece linked and quoted, and not the deeper problem of raisng men above women in their own damn carnival.
Allies do not step back and go, "Oh, I wash my hands of it, this is what other people are doing, I have nothing to do with it". Allies remind people who matters and, instead of taking the space to say the words, step aside and let the people who it's about say it for themselves.
Alliance begins when you can say, "It's not -about- me, but it is my responsibility to help you, in the ways that you need, to have the space to say what you need to say and do what you need to do."
You don't have to do the oppression yourself, you can just stand by and say nothing while it happens. The only way to wash your hands of it is to fight it. The status quo don't change by us sitting on our asses.
But allies know that already.
Along comes a storm of "that's so great, that's so great", and the first thing I did, was go over there and remind them that it was the WOC Beauty carnival, and that it was deeply problematic to put the male allies voices above the women in their own carnival.
They didn't really understand the point of that, because, I was refusing cookies. For some reason, they imagined my "objection" was that I didn't want my piece linked and quoted, and not the deeper problem of raisng men above women in their own damn carnival.
Allies do not step back and go, "Oh, I wash my hands of it, this is what other people are doing, I have nothing to do with it". Allies remind people who matters and, instead of taking the space to say the words, step aside and let the people who it's about say it for themselves.
Alliance begins when you can say, "It's not -about- me, but it is my responsibility to help you, in the ways that you need, to have the space to say what you need to say and do what you need to do."
You don't have to do the oppression yourself, you can just stand by and say nothing while it happens. The only way to wash your hands of it is to fight it. The status quo don't change by us sitting on our asses.
But allies know that already.
