Wonder Twin Powers Activate: Form of an Ally; Shape of a Human Shield
When I was a little girl one of my favorite cartoons was the “Wonder Twins” a show about a fraternal twin duo with the power to transform. She would take a different form. He would take a different shape. In 2017, I had to ask my white friend to become my wonder twin. Jen is a New Yorker who graduated from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education with me. I called her in New York to ask, “Jen, are you planning to attend the American Educational Research Association Conference in San Antonio?” She said, “I wasn’t planning on it this year.” I said, “Oh well you need to come to Texas because I don’t want to deal with racism there alone.”
I shared my fears. My father was born and raised in segregated Texas. When he was nine years old, Dad watched my grandfather die. He was refused medical treatment in Greenville, TX because he was Black. In April 2016, Dad, aged 83, traveled home from an international Umrah trip to Mecca he had taken. Upon his return to the United States, he slipped and fell down an escalator at the Los Angeles International Airport. Dad was dragged back up the escalator, with his clothes torn to shreds. He was bleeding. He was disoriented. He called my brother and asked him to pick him up from Oakland Airport because he did not know he was still in Los Angeles. The police and emergency personnel put Dad on a plane even though he clearly did not know where he was. When he got to Oakland, my sister in law took him to the hospital. He called me from Kaiser Oakland and said, “They did a CT scan, my brain is bleeding.”
By April 2017, I was suffering from complex trauma. My Dad was dying from his brain bleed and Donald Trump was president. I am a Black woman; a hijabi Muslimah which makes me visibly Muslim. I asked Jen, “Have you ever seen the wonder twins?” She laughed, “Yes, I remember that show.” “Alrighty then! Wonder Twin powers activate! Form of an Ally; Shape of a Human Shield.” We laughed and cried through the pain and Jen came with me to San Antonio.
On June 4, 2020, I watched a video of a 75-year-old protester being pushed backward by Buffalo, New York police officers. He fell on the concrete and was visibly bleeding from his head. Today, I said out loud, that elderly man reminds me of Dad. I am writing this article because Dad died having not received the medical treatment he needed just like his father before him. I keep hearing white people ask the question, “How can I be a better ally?” First, let’s define the term ally. Recently, I interviewed a close friend, Babalwa Kwanele, MS, LMFT on the impact of complex trauma on Black American people. We discussed the role of white allies.
The first thing that allies can do is understand what it means to be an ally. It does not mean that an ally, who’s not African American, takes the front seat and leads and tells us what we need. That’s not an ally. That’s an oppressor. An ally is someone who is in support of.”
Kwanele reminds white allies not to allow white supremacy to fool them into thinking that Black people are asking them to lead us. We are not. When a Black person tells a white ally that they should stand in front, we are asking you, like I asked Jen, to be a human shield because white police officers are less likely to shoot and kill you.
Unfortunately, I have seen many white people kicking in glass, smashing windows, and writing graffiti on the walls at George Floyd protests. They have taken it upon themselves to use George Floyd protests for their ulterior motives. Their white hoods are showing. Their white supremacy is showing. Their anti-black hate is showing. Step back. Allies need to be wonder twins. Know and understand that you cannot take the form we take. We are taking the form of an ally so that we can be allied with you. It is hard work for us because we must overcome centuries of your antiblack hate against us. You can take the shape of a human shield to protect us from white supremacy which seeks to do us harm. Together we work to transform this nation.
