Are You Really an Ally?

What is an ‘ally?’

An ally is someone who supports a person or group of people—for example, you can be an ally to LGBTQ+ people, people of colour and people with disabilities.

In this article, I am going to be writing some suggestions on how to be a better ally to marginalised communities. Obviously, this is not a complete or comprehensive list and I still am learning to be a better ally—but here are some things that I think are important.

But before I begin with strategies to be a better ally, I want to delve deeper into why people struggle to be allies to those who need their help.

Some may argue that they want to avoid making a disadvantaged person feel uncomfortable by focusing on their impairment and making a ‘big deal’ out of it—after all, ‘it’s rude to stare.’ However, this is not helpful—you can cater to a person’s specific needs without making a spectacle about it. So, let’s disregard this reasoning because it’s BS. Another reason for a person lacking allyship is because they are uncomfortable with people who are different from themselves—they don’t feel like they can really do anything about something they’ve never experienced.

Although, I believe one of the most common and innocent types of lack of allyship is that the person is uneducated about the topic, so they don’t feel qualified enough to talk about it. But in 2019, marginalised communities need your allyship—you can’t use ignorance as your defence anymore; take time to educate yourself on complex issues in today’s society.

So, now that we’ve addressed the root cause of the issue, let’s get to the allyship tips!

Acknowledge and understand your privilege

The idea of you having privileges may be hard to understand if you feel like you haven’t had it easy and/or got things just for being a man/white/misgendered/etc., because privilege doesn’t mean that your life is easy and you get everything that you want. It just means that in some aspects of your life, things are catered for you rather than somebody of a different gender or skin colour.

You can’t see your own privilege if you are not looking for it or observing how it is playing a role in your life, and it is so easy to miss because your privilege allows you to never have to think about certain things or experience certain discriminations because of who you are.

Have open ears, not an open mouth

Allies are there to support, not take the limelight and speak over the people at a disadvantage. You can use your voice to educate others like you, speak out against discrimination, but do not try to be the face of their movement—it is not about you. Centre marginalised people; do not speak on their behalf.

Take responsibility for your mistakes

Take responsibility when you make a mistake—we all get something wrong occasionally. It takes time to unlearn things that have been programmed into us, so just work on being better. Apologise and remember your mistakes so you can learn from them.

For example, if you misgender someone, correct yourself as soon as you notice and move on. Do not make a big fuss, just make sure to consciously try to get people’s gender and pronouns right next time.

Understand certain spaces weren’t made for you

In this example I will be referring to the LGBTQ+ community: If you aren’t part of the queer community but want to attend pride or go to a gay club, that’s great, but make sure you aren’t making those spaces less available for queer people to attend as that’s who these spaces are for.

Don’t go to gay bars because you think gay people are ‘fun,’ these people aren’t there for your entertainment. They’re not cute novelty items that you can play with for a little while and then throw away, these people are in these spaces so that they can feel accepted and not have to cater to heteronormative culture for a while.

Don’t Use People for Tokenism (I Shouldn’t Have to Say This one)

Don’t befriend a ‘sassy black friend’ or a ‘fun gay best friend’ to make you seem progressive. Having a black friend, or a black partner or a black child does not make you NOT racist. If you use these people to justify that you’re not racist or homophobic or Islamophobic etc, you’re just using them as a get out of jail free card.

Toleration isn’t support

You are not an ally just because you don’t actively work to oppress marginalised people. You are not ‘woke’ because you ‘don’t mind’ having gay friends—if you are ignoring that part of their identity, you are not supporting them at all.

Don’t be a performative ally, but doing nothing for us

Performative allyship is so exhausting, but it is so common. I know so many people that disagree with antisemitism and would never partake in it, but at the same time they’re not actively doing anything to stop or discourage people who are antisemitic.

Please don’t pride yourself on being a good ally to Jewish people, when all you do is retweet someone standing up against it, but you actively don’t sign petitions, write to MPS, go to marches, etc. (Disclaimer: This does not include people who are unable to do these things for medical or other reasons)

Being an ally is an around-the-clock job, it is continuous.

It doesn’t take a break when you want to make a problematic joke. You can’t say you are an ally to people/a community if you are still perpetuating language or stereotypes that work against them—you have to be conscious of what you’re saying and how those words could affect the world around you.