Talking About…Performative Allyship, part 1

In this series of conversations, Maggie and Sarita talk about our ongoing journeys shifting from “not racist” to “anti-racist.” This conversation is from mid-June, 2020.

Maggie: Sarita, It’s really nice to talk to you again. I love our ongoing conversation.

Sarita: I’m really grateful to have such frank conversations with you. There’s no doubt that there’s more that I don’t know than I do know, so exploring this with you is helping me grow.

Maggie: I feel the same way. The key for me is to be willing to talk about it and willing to think and listen, and learn. These conversations are really important to my own ongoing education and my own ongoing evolution.

Today, We wanted to talk about the concept of performative allyship. Would you lead us off?

Sarita: My thinking about performative allyship started with the “Blackout Tuesday” movement in early June on social media. I was struck that, over and over, I saw these proclamations on Instagram about Black Lives Matter and anti-racism.

These posts are a way to be clear about what’s important to you and a way to show support — and those are important. But the question in my mind was: Does it give a sense of having done something? Does it give a sense of adding meaningful value?

Then that question became more marked for me when, a few days later, my neighborhood organized a march followed by a stage of speakers.

For context, the neighborhood march was a startling contrast to a protest I’d attended the week before, close to 38th and Chicago where George Floyd was killed. At the George Floyd site, one of the speakers was a black woman whose son had been shot and killed by the police in St. Paul. (We talked about her message in one of our prior chats.) Her grief and rage were deep— we all felt intense, visceral, physical responses to her grief — she was a captivating speaker talking about a heart wrenching topic. And she didn’t mince words — she pointed to a cluster of white people and said, “If this is your first march, where have you been? If you’re just here today and you’re not coming back, go on home ’cause we don’t need you. Shame. Shame.” As I stood there and saw it, I knew that, in many ways, I was an extension of that group — like where have I been? I felt that very deeply: a lot of shame and sadness.

So, fast forward to my neighborhood march a week later. It was a very different experience. The crowd was mostly white, mostly affluent. The organizers asked people from the audience to come up and speak. Most of the speakers were from the neighborhood, most shared their own experience of how the protests were impacting their perspectives. It was challenging for me to watch, because on the one hand, I felt that they were brave to share what they were feeling. But on the other hand, the tone felt self-congratulatory and prematurely victorious, I felt the irony that every speaker spoke about the value of listening, and yet, here they were on stage, doing the opposite. After, maybe ten white speakers, a black woman came up to the stage. She shared her experiences of what she had felt, living here. She spoke about being the descendant of slaves. She was thoughtful, sincere, and had a lot of really insightful things to say — even things that were eye opening for her, as a Black woman. The crowd was enthralled — she was a gifted speaker. Then, she paused, looked at the crowd, and said, “Thank you. I really want to thank you for being here. I really want to thank you for taking this seriously.”

It was a startling contrast to the mother who spoke at the George Floyd site. And I had a really strong, really negative response to that.

Here is someone who is sincerely looking at the crowd, saying, thank you for being here. That is a socially mature, emotionally intelligent response, isn’t it? Meeting people where they are, being gracious and warm and inclusive, right? And I understand that intellectually. But it felt wrong. I immediately contrasted it to the comment from the woman who had lost her son, who looked at the crowd and said “Shame.” These are two dedicated people with opposite responses — a “thank you” and a “shame on you.”

And tying all of this back to performative allyship: Performative allyship can be something as simple as putting a black square on Instagram. And it can be something as big as putting together a 500 person rally, but not recognizing that in a rally to focus on listening and learning, we ended up with a long line of neighborhood people waiting for their turn at the microphone. And, again, to be fair — everyone there was earnest — they were all there with passion and sincerity. I believe that they believed they were adding value by speaking on stage.

I have to ask myself: Am I interpreting this fairly? Is there really something off about this, or am I being unfairly negative? For the woman who thanked the crowd, was this sincere gratitude? Or did she feel like she had to deliver a message that would land with this specific crowd — did she feel like that a “thank you” was the socially acceptable response? Maybe both?

Maggie: That is a powerful contrast! And of course we can’t know what the speaker was thinking and intending because we’re not her. I can see why something felt off to you, given the dynamics of this being organized solely by white people. I wonder how much self-congratulatory feeling the organizers felt from the “thanks.” The thanks strikes me as something white people might easily use to alleviate our discomfort and make ourselves feel better — whether or not the speaker intended it that way.

When we feel discomfort with the racism around us (structural racism, or one-off overt racist acts), a lot of times the way we’ve been socialized and indoctrinated to react, is to seek to solve problems. We say to ourselves, “Well, I just have to do something” or “But what can we do? What should we do?” We rush off to take action, to relieve that discomfort… maybe hope for a pat on the back, a thanks or “good job” that somehow proves we’re good people, even if the action we take is very surface level (like a black social media profile picture) or done in a vacuum (like organizing an antiracist event with no BIPOC speakers or organizers).

I have this reaction all the time! Take action! Not moving fast enough! Gotta do something! I was expressing my need for action to a white activist I know recently, and she said, “That’s really part of the white savior complex.” Incredibly eye-opening for me to hear. This idea that the bias for action at all costs to prove my goodness is more about me as a white person rushing in to prove I can fix things, vs actually working to change the deep problems of racism and working to change my own understanding and mindset.

With George Floyd’s murder and the protests and uprisings around the country this summer, it’s as if eyes have “finally” been opened to deeply structural, political, policy-based and cultural problems. Some of us are learning about deeply ingrained racism for the first time. But then we get this modern-day version of “white man’s burden,” rushing in to “fix” things without partnering with the BIPOC communities actually affected, without letting BIPOC folks lead, and with deep need for affirmation we’re good people.

If we’re truly committed to making fundamental change, I wonder how much of fixing and solving things and rushing for action comes from believing deeply in our bones that we need to right fundamental wrongs, including confronting our own beliefs, education and behaviors. Versus doing it so we don’t have to feel bad about ourselves, or we don’t have to feel uncomfortable, or so things will quiet down and go back to “normal.”

Here’s the difference I see: if we’re truly fixing, then we’re contributing to solutions and not taking an egotistical stance of being a fixer-hero. If we’re truly contributing to solutions, then we’re also centering BIPOC leadership and voices, instead of rushing in to say, “Well, we know better,” which in and of itself is a racist approach.

Sarita: What do you think about the idea that “This situation is wrong and I want to help” compared to “This is my obligation to fix because it’s my responsibility or I’m being held accountable?”

Maggie: I think of defensive people. The ones who say, “That’s not my problem. I didn’t do that. You know, this wasn’t my family, we weren’t slave owners,” and who don’t want to contribute to change because they don’t see their accountability nor do they have the helping impulse. “I didn’t cause this problem” defensiveness is the other side of the obligation-to-fix coin

I had not understood the problems with rush-to-action before. I needed that white activist to hold that mirror up to me. I was literally in an all-white group of women, a learning circle. We were all saying “We’re feeling uncomfortable. We don’t know what to do.” Big emphasis on “do.”

The activist said, “If it’s a rush to take action, as a white person, instead of a rush to first/also deeply listen and learn, then that can be a problem.” I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

Sarita: It’s reminiscent of someone saying, “I’m going to get fit tomorrow.Tomorrow, I’ll be the kind of person who shuns donuts and can do 50 burpees,” then expecting to snap the fingers, and voila — you’re toned and muscular and you no longer have powdered sugar on your collar. The reality, which I don’t love but have accepted, is that we have to go through a journey and it’s never “done.” Like any long term change, it starts off with learning and understanding, from others, and from your own self-awareness, knowing how you got here in the first place, what things you can begin to do, and start actually taking those steps. Then, checking in, over and over, knowing you’ll learn and improve as you go.

Maggie: And knowing that you’re in for the long haul — you’re not starting out with a marathon.

Sarita: Right. You’re starting with the slow and steady, with thoughtful training. Ideally, the idea of learning would seem like action.

But learning might feel like inaction.

It can feel overwhelming. I found myself pretty blue after a recent Board meeting, where we had a long and difficult conversation about race and how our organization should position ourselves — what we stand for, where specifically we wanted to invest time and resources. The topic, which started with Black Lives Matter, took on a broader scope that included gender equity, LGBTQ, and Indigenous people.

The question that has stuck with me most is: Are we specifically working on Black Lives Matter, or are we general do-gooders? If your organization is a general do-gooder, can you have material impact? What impact can you have if you have if you take on so many causes? It’s reminiscent of Greg McKeon’s Essentialism concept.

So, I ended up feeling overwhelmed by how much there is to do, how will I know and where to spend my time, and how to invest our organization’s limited resources.

And specifically in the context of Black Lives Matters: A few months ago, I felt like I could speak about race very comfortably. But recently, I’ve been just processing everything that’s happened since George Floyd’s murder, and getting myself out of that shame cycle. Trying to figure out what personal biases am I blind to, what will I do to create more justice and fairness in my own beliefs and thoughts and words?

I have to honor the processing and the growing awareness, because that’s a big part of the inner work of education. Dealing with multilayered sets of emotions, that’s a piece of it, right?

Maggie: You’re not newer to the conversation and I’m not newer to the conversation but what you said still rings so true for me. We’re both processing through the direct events in our city, the pain and outrage we’re witnessing in our community. Processing how we feel about this helps us next turn toward a deeper level of knowledge and understanding and a deeper ability to act in a more impactful and truly collaborative way.

Sarita: You can’t run from emotion, if you suppress it, it will bite you at some point. You have to go through the emotion. That takes time for me, for sure. The other piece for me has been a deep worry that this is a flash in the pan. I’m so scared something else will come up and then the heightened focus on anti-racism and justice is going to go away.

I’m seeing this theme in writing and speeches from leaders in Black communities, and from different activists — the question of whether now will be different over the long term.

It does feel overwhelming. There are so many intersections of how racism plays out with gender, with different races, with different cultures, with different regions around the country. There’s so much complexity with how it plays against really big issues that this country was already grappling with (and in some cases needs to start grappling with). I’m thinking specifically about public health — we’re in a pandemic after all — but also public safety, education, mental health in this country. The state of politics. Even things like integrity. Fundamental democracy. Professionalism and professional work opportunities.

Maggie: I’ve been grappling with how to continually remind myself that I don’t own everything, but I really own my growth as an antiracist. My own continued return again, and again, and again, to choosing antiracism.

Sarita: What can I choose? What is one thing that I could meaningfully contribute to, knowing that there’s lots of really smart, capable people contributing at all different levels. It reminds me of what you talked about last week, about the multiple lanes on a highway analogy: you can’t expect to be driving in all of them. Choose one. That was really, really helpful guidance.

My head goes two ways. One way is succumbing to the overwhelm, wanting to crawl under the table, saying, “Call me when humanity’s fixed, ’cause I’m out.”

The other way, which is of course the path that I continue to direct myself to, is to decide: Okay, just start small, start with learning, and allow time to figure out what I can meaningfully do. Right now, my first step is to become more educated and more compassionate and more aware of where am I contributing to unjust norms. Sounds simple, but it’s harder than it seems, for me anyway.

We need to tackle the workplace side of the conversation and a lot of the performative allyship from companies right now. Especially as compared to the dialogue that’s happening on LinkedIn and business press from black executives leading the way on speaking out. How about we dig into that further in our next conversation?

Maggie: Yes, please!