Don’t Be An Amy Cooper — Accountable Allyship Tips

We are firm believers that understanding historical context is vital to understand where we are at today. This is especially true when we talk about white womxn allyship. To show up authentically as white womxn allies, we need to first engage in an honest reflection of our nation’s and of our individual histories, to process through that influence and reshape how we show up now.

Being an ally is a lifelong process of building relationships based on trust, consistency, and accountability with marginalized individuals and groups of people. It is not self-defined; efforts must be recognized by the people we seek to ally with.

Through efforts of learning to ground into our personal power, white womxn can use their positions in gatekeeping roles to serve racial equity amongst all different levels of inclusion. We have to have an understanding at each and every level in order to make subsequent changes at all stages, whether that be internalized (beliefs within individuals, stereotypes), interpersonal (bigotry and simplicity bias between individuals), institutional (bias in polices and practices in a school, agency, etc), and/or structural (dynamic, cumulative among institutions, durable).

This process begins with reflection. We’re talking honest and raw reflection.

It’s important to understand our historical narrative around how white womxn have been coddled and oppressed, specifically around the gender binary because sexism and patriarchy set up white womxn to collude in racism.

There is a lot wrapped up in the socialization within the gender binary.

The socialization of what it means to be a “woman” has placed a lot of worth on being seen as good, or helpful, or perfect, or doing things in “Type A” manner. While those may not inherently sound “bad”, these very things wrap themselves around gender socialization to make us vulnerable to enacting white supremacy. Because, who got the right to vote first? White women. Why were womxn of color not included in that? Part of that answer lies in the proximity of white womxn to white male privilege.

Sexism is the glue that holds these things together because of the dynamics between white men and white womxn. As a result of the intersection of sexism and white privilege, “white women, who enjoy proximal power form their association with white men, have often served as the white patriarchy’s most eager foot soldiers” @rtraister (twitter).

While it can be easy to read that and instantly distance yourself from this image of that woman, the important question to ask is “when have I been her?”

It’s really easy to see when other people are being that way but, moving closer to the white womxn you want to distance yourself from, brings you closer to liberating yourself from your implicit racial bias.

While white womxn continue to deny their relationship or commonality with this womxn, they continue to perpetuate their pain and suffering onto others through their access point of privilege: racism. We call that WHAMS or “what about me” syndrome. It’s the tendency for white womxn to ask, “what about my pain? What about my suffering?”

Where white womxn stand on the White womxn’s intersectionality between the receiving end of sexism and then on the perpetrating end of racism, needs to be peeled apart so they may show up distinctly and powerfully. White womxn need to heal around sexism and patriarchy so they can fully show up in their efforts towards allyship. This begins by thoughtful analysis of our past because all oppressions are connected. From there, we can realign our definition and actions of feminism. Intersectional feminism must be centered; focusing on racial equity implicitly, but not exclusively, so that we may still hold intersectionality.

White dominate culture is pervasive: no white person escaped it. We’ve all swallowed this socialization because whiteness is rampant. This culture is so pervasive it’s danced around and not even named. It’s slippery. The cognitive dissonance of “but I’m a good person” is keeping allies in denial of their privilege. When you distance yourself from this rhetoric or self identity of the white womxn with WHAMS, you only perpetuate that syndrome further. When you lean into humility, and honor when you have been “like that”, that’s what breaks the cycle.

The question is not “am I racist?” but, “what does my racism look like?”

Having this honest self reflection of your mistakes is how we move forward. It’s not helpful to distance yourself. It’s useful to acknowledge where and when this happened for you, that you are working on it, and apologizing. This looks like owning your accountability and making amends. And to be clear, a real apology includes changed behavior; accountability feels like an attack when you’re not ready to acknowledge how your behavior harms others. Anchor into humility around the ways in which you are showing up around this.

From there, we being our roles as active allies. And here are the tangible ways to do so:

4 Strategies For White People With Other White People

1. Connection vs correction
2. Power in naming, paired with information
3. Intersectionality
4. Listen, and listen some more

Instead of wanting to distance yourself from someone who said something stupid, your motivation should be to connect to give information. Connection, not correction. You may be embarrassed or ashamed of what another white person did, but the truth is you made mistakes too. So rather than operating out of that emotion, give them information and explain in a way they can hear and understand as well. Hold intersectionality in mind — for example, age is a different frame of reference! Consider what else you know about them. And remember, you can’t talk someone out of a position but you can listen them into a new understanding. While many of these examples are interpersonal, these all apply at institutional and systems levels.

4 Strategies For With People With People Of Color

1. Center POC voices
2. Follow POC lead
3. Lead from humility, make mistakes gracefully
4. Move money to move power

Honor POC expertise and voices. Make suggestions but validate their expertise and follow their lead. You hear a lot of “I’m afraid to say the wrong thing” but in an attempt to not take up space, we have a tendency to drop back into silence. But it’s important for people to understand know what you think and stand. Make mistakes and be open to feedback that comes your way. The more we lead from humility, we grow ourselves and we’re more authentic, honest, and transparent with our learning. Think about the exchange of money and power and your influence there — from where you donate, to how and who you hire, what kind of policies you’re making and how they are being enforced.

Requests From Womxn Of Color

• Amplify our voices
• Support our leadership
• Promote our involvement or ventures
• Do not downplay someone’s race, or trivialize their culture
• Acknowledge mistakes/missteps; grounded humility keep learning
• Name racism and sexism when it happens (in the moment, or as soon as possible)
• Invest in WOC company or communities

You can watch the full webinar recording here on our YouTube channel.

This post was adapted from our webinar lesson with Fleur Larsen, founder of Fleur Larsen Facilitation. Fleur’s work as a Seattle-based facilitator is focused on equity, social justice, diversity and inclusion, team building, emotional intelligence, experiential education and community development.