Waking up to the murder of another black person by another police officer (or group of police officers) has become commonplace. There are as many people expressing how numb they are to this reality as there are expressing their rage. One commonality among both groups is questioning where all of our allies are — other people of color and white allies alike. What I think eludes most of us is knowing the difference between an ally and a sympathizer.
Sympathizers are silent
Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘Letter from Birmingham,’ talks very succinctly about the white moderate and how this group can be problematic: “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
Sympathizers might feel bad about what’s happening to us, but their suggestions will ask us to work with a system built against us and that, with all of its surface amendments, has never truly been inclusive. Sympathizers will suggest that we wait a bit longer or ask a bit quieter. They are more compelled to quash our resistance and rage than to listen to, accept, understand and mirror it. Sympathizers will tell us that “they’re hurting, too.” They will say that they understand where we’re coming from, never having experienced what we’ve experienced. Most importantly, when we ask them to stand with us, to bleed with us if necessary, sympathizers will quickly vanish, like a lukewarm boyfriend ghosting a girl he never really liked “like that.” A sympathizer will call themselves an ally, just as a wolf will cloak itself in wool in order to be accepted by the herd, only to devour the herd while they slumber.
Allies take action
Dorothy Pittman-Hughes and Gloria Steinem (pictured above) are one example of two people of different races coming together to advocate around issues of race, class, and gender. Ultimately, it is a question of risk and belief. Do you believe in my equal right to justice and freedom enough to risk your justice and freedom so that I may obtain mine? An ally will get out in the street with you, speak up on your behalf and bleed with you, if need be.
One of the most important things an ally can and will do is to go into spaces of their own, call out and speak against prejudice, bias and racism and to help transform the thinking among their own groups. It is not black people’s jobs to educate the oppressor (or their descendants) about how they have been oppressive or have benefited from the oppressive systems built by their ancestors. An ally will acknowledge this and vigilantly take up the cause to educate their own about acknowledging, relinquishing and/or leveraging privilege in service of a more just society for everyone.
The harsh reality
If your great, great, great grandparents made millions killing people and building businesses by killing people, but left you millions or billions of dollars in their will, would you acknowledge the ugly and criminal way in which wealth was passed down to you? The benefit of being a sympathizer is continuing to unfairly gain from unjust systems to the detriment of everyone else, while also feeling that you’ve cleared your conscience by saying “how terrible” things must be for “those people” over there.
When we’re asking, “where are the allies,” it’s not that they don’t exist, it’s that they are few and far between. Sympathizers don’t understand that their silence or lack of action makes them collusive in the oppression of others. The reality for many who have been privileged their entire lives is that equality will feel uncomfortable and, in some cases, unfair.
Sympathizing is comfortable. Becoming an ally feels dangerous. Either way, change feels afoot. Which side are you on?
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