A Test for White Allyship
It’s a lifestyle choice, not a trendy thing to do for a while
Lots of us White folks are struggling with ways to support our Black fellows, and I have read and pondered a lot of articles about this. Some awfully smart (smarter than I am, thanks) Black folks have offered a lot of advice, and while I am most certainly not Black, I have what I hope might be a reasonable take.
I was out hiking at 5 am today, and as the sun rose I had thoughts about the management and leadership courses I’ve taught. Combined with the interview I heard last night on NPR, which brought up a lot of pain for me:
Dr. Michelle Harper tells a story about a white resident- who worked for her- who went over her head and tried to discredit a decision that Dr. Harper made in the ER. The police were demanding that a perfectly competent Black patient that be examined without his permission. She refused. The (White chick)resident, her junior, is the perfect example of how White folks undermine Black Excellence. Not only was Dr. Harper absolutely right in her decision (it’s the law, not an opinion, as the white chick found out), but that kind of undermining is precisely the kind of racist Gatekeeping of which so many of us are guilty.
She gives more heartbreaking examples, which is only one reason that there aren’t enough Black physicians in America. They are increasingly necessary because the Black community requires people who can understand and speak to the environmental and emotional conditions of their lives, which have a huge impact on their health.
That interview gave me some additional ways to frame this article. Kindly I am well aware of how challenging these topics are but I am not going to shrink from them, because exploring what we can do and what that might look like is part of what changing the conversation might look like.
Next Tuesday, I am going to be on a conference call ( assuming all goes well) with a vice president of a very, very large Fortune 100 corporation and a Black woman I met here on Medium. I set that up, because I think that they need to meet. I see potential between them, and the way I see it, both may well benefit.
It is entirely possible, if not likely, that my client will choose to use my friend instead of me for consulting work. She has considerably more credentials than I do. Which is precisely why I am introducing them.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the acid tests of allyship.
Are you willing to open doors for your Black friends, allies, and coworkers?
Are you willing to promote people who might get the plum job that you’d like because they have better qualifications, buy hey, you’re White?
Are you willing to hire, support and amplify Black folks into your organization, men and women who are smarter and better than you are, because it’s good for the company (but maybe not for your ego?)
Many of us struggle with these questions even when those we are considering are White folks. Too many are so fearful that we don’t have the courage to hire smarter and better than we are. We lose sight of the fact that the single biggest responsibility we have to our companies is to replace ourselves with better people.
Do you possess the moral courage to eventually replace yourself with better Black and Brown (and Red and Yellow) people, assuming you have those candidates?
Even more importantly, do you have the moral courage to push those folks in front of you for notice, recognition, promotion as is their due, rather than see that as competition, or as a threat?
While I certainly recognize that these are hard issues without the elements of race, you can see how color can compound them.
As a manager, a leader, are you willing to go to bat for those Black folks whom you know clearly deserve promotion? Including over your head, which may well make them your boss?
Perhaps more importantly, as I’ve written elsewhere, can you even see excellence embodied in bodies other than White? Because if you can’t, then whether or not you like it or want to admit it, this is entrenched bias.
Instead of worrying that my Black friend will get contracts I want, perhaps it makes a lot more sense to consider the value that I am bringing the Fortune 100 company by introducing Black Excellence as a resource. That makes me valuable, not only because I’m happy to introduce good people, but also because I’m not willing to shut someone better than I am out of the way because of a fundamental belief in scarcity.
Or worse, and more common, I believe that my skin color (despite lesser qualifications) means I should get the work. This is where you and I get to check our shit at the door.
In Dr. Harper’s interview, she speaks of applying for a job, being turned down only to find out that a White male nurse-not a doctor, which she is- got the position. Her boss asked her to say on to “continue the fight.” He clearly wasn‘t willing to fight for her. So she left.
Allyship wears a lot of faces. This article (from 2018, but so relevant right now) speaks to how we White women can be appallingly tone deaf and even worse, utter allies with White supremacy often without realizing or taking responsibility for it:
Being an ally is not about walking the streets with a placard. I am repeating what others have said, but kindly, this is also what I’ve been doing for many decades: promote, amplify, include, introduce, and open doors for our Black brothers and sisters.
Allyship is personal. It’s an investment of skin in the game. Folks gonna dump you and berate you and call you names. Can’t take the heat, get on out of the way. I’ve already had people mute me for what I write about BLM. It gets a lot worse than that. I’ve had a bad neighbor threaten me (That Asshole Jerry) when my beloved Black friend Sonja lived with me for two years.
You do not fucking insult or threaten my Black friends.
I introduced Sonja to a White woman I’d known for years, as an excellent resource to create a fashion show. Nobody in all of Denver is better-suited, and who had the very specific expertise said friend needed. Said friend treated my beloved Sonja like the fucking help and was insulted that Sonja asked to be paid. Said friend got dumped like a hot potato, and was told why. But wait, there’s more. It wasn’t just the dumping. I pulled any and all future support, promotion, and engagement and introductions to movers and shakers that I had discussed with said friend.
That is economic impact.
I open doors for people. But you show up as a racist and I will slam the door on your White racist face so fast your nose will break. It wasn’t just that Sonja is a friend. It was this woman’s supercilious, condescending attitude that a woman of color could be that competent. How dare she asked to get paid for weeks of work. Sonja was calm about it. I wasn’t.
This isn’t about White Savior. This is linking arms.
You want to be an ally, then you create negative economic impact for bad behavior. You walk away from racist friends. You take a stand with your hiring, firing, promoting and development of talent. You put your body, your reputation, your integrity into the line of fire. Black folks have been doing that for four centuries.
Allyship is a lifestyle choice.
Like healthy living. You make sacrifices. You do the right thing because it’s the right thing, not because it’s fashionable or trendy or makes you look good. You ensure that the next generation does not struggle with the concept of Black Excellence. That’s your job in your family, not theirs.
Allyship as a lifestyle choice- and here I am repeating some of what my Black Medium peeps have suggested- means integrating your kids’ and your friends. Your kids’ and your bookshelves and movie choices. Your family getaways. All of it. Ensuring that Black Excellence is normalized by exposing yourself and your kids to Black professionals of all kinds, from those who provide health care to those who teach and coach your kids.
Scary? Maybe. Some folks may walk on you. If they do, I question who they are, and if you want their influence on you and your family. And yes, that also means your family members.
Here’s the much larger point, the 35,000 foot view. By 2040, this country will be majority Black/Brown. Nobody cares how you and I might feel about it. Birth rates dictate who is going to be the majority. America already has multiple large metropolitan areas which have already passed the tipping point. Lol..
By the middle of this century, whether you and I like it or not, the people in office, running America’s largest corporations, the many many businesses and teaching in academia are not going to be White. Your kids/grandkids are likely to be working for/with people of color. That trend has already begun.
If that horrifies or scares you, kindly, that’s feedback.
I think at some level White folks are terrified that it might turn out that Black and Brown folks can run this country a lot better than they did. But, that’s another article (a fun one, for my part).
So I have to ask you. Would you prefer to socialize your kids now? Or would you prefer to have them suffer as racists in a world where they are a minority? You may not be able to envision that future, but it is coming.
Would you prefer to ensure, let me say that again, ENSURE that the doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, politicians et.al. who are going to be the professionals of the mid-century onward are the best they can possibly be, to ensure YOUR grand kids’ future?
They will be people of color.
Because if you do care about these things, then the conditions that Black and Brown folks are living with now have got to change. Those conditions are not going to ensure that kind of future. Any more than abusing, caging and attacking immigrants is a good move, for those immigrants, if you will forgive my frankness, are about the only folks willing to change our dirty diapers and put up with our stinky, cranky, angry old selves at a nursing home. They already are.
Even if all you cared about was a good future for your kid’s kids and their kids, you can’t sidestep being an ally. Because the behavior you model is what teaches your kids. In America’s future, being a racist isn’t a good career move.
Increasingly, it isn’t now. Corporations have begun to catch on to the reality that having an avowed racist employed isn’t a good PR move.
I can’t speak for you or anyone else. Being an ally has often meant excruciating moments of self-reflection. But in those moments is the kind of grace offered to anyone who wants to own their shit and rise above it.
There is a whole other kind of movement afoot. I really and truly hope that you and I have the courage to walk with it.
