Types of Allyship

     One way to support the BIPOC community is through physical acts of allyship. Allies have particularly urged their audience to spread awareness on police brutality, victims of residential schools, and anti-racism movements by sharing content on social media. Other physical ways to practice allyship include joining protests, making donations to anti-racism and racial advocacy-related organizations such as Black Lives Matter (BLM). Additionally, allies can sign petitions to advocate for careful reviews on judge rulings of racially motivated hate crimes, and support the families of victims whose lives were lost to systemic racism and racial injustice. 

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     When reviewing the verbal art pieces, we also found the recurring pattern of naming, but in the specific context of naming as a form of bringing change and an action for allies to take. This is quoted in “Stronger Together” by TikTok user @crissa_ace, which urges the audience to “Use your voice / Say his name / Rest in peace George Floyd.” But why does it matter to “say the name” of the victims of police brutality? In an article published in Pathways: A Journal of Humanistic and Social Inquiry, Lynn Saniorah Edouard explains that “separating the Black victim from their body and humanity in symbolism utilizes Black bodies and their trauma as a signifier for the white violence against the Black community, thereby erasing the victim both metaphorically and literally.” As both a narrative symbol and technique utilized in verbal art content, the victims’ names carry the weight of their suffering, lived experiences, and the racial injustice that the Black community faces as a deep-rooted issue. For allies, it is therefore especially important to understand the fundamental objective and intent in saying the names of the victims of police brutality. Saying the names of Black people who were murdered because everyone else is saying them can become performative without learning about the history behind these police brutality cases and the prevalence of racial prejudice in our social institutions. For the content creators, the call to “saying their names” in verbal art pieces enables them to emphasize the individual humanity in each of these names, and through doing so, prevents the literal and metaphorical erasure of these victims in our knowledge and social discourse. 

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    Engaging in allyship can also come in a subtler, more intangible way: changing our existing mindsets about race and anti-racism, especially in confronting implicit biases and assumptions. A possible starting point is to think about our own privileges, and practice empathy for folks who face the implications of systemic racism and racial prejudice. In “Racism vs. Humanity” by Lari’s World, they express that "racism should be disconcerting, confronting, disturbing, awful", and that “when one of us hurts, we should all be hurting.” Racism is a collective issue; we shouldn’t remain complacent simply because we believe that the events in reality do not apply to us, or engage in advocacy only when it pertains to our race (even for BIPOC folks) or when we believe that it will benefit us in some way. It is also important for educators to reflect on their own possible biases. The creator of the poem “Emancipation Proclamation” emphasizes that “when [the teacher] tries to skate past the fact that our people were lynched, beaten and killed / Raise your hand and ask your teacher to elaborate on Emmett Till.” Aside from dismissing historical acts of racism, educators should also understand why it is problematic to lay the blame on marginalized groups who have historically been oppressed: “when a child is continuously targeted as a problem / As it happens all too often with Romani children or Black children / We must know that the problem is with the system itself / To other educators / Let us check our biases and let us remind ourselves that the school has to accommodate children's needs not the reverse.” Sabrina Brancato’s “Dear Teacher” urges the educators to reflect on how their own misconceptions and ideologies may potentially translate into their own teaching endeavours (classroom content), and the way they are teaching these materials (specific delivery styles and teaching practices). By prompting educators to actively correct these misconceptions, it ensures that students are learning about race-related content and the history of racism in a practical, non-sugar-coated way, and that they in turn become encouraged to identify and speak up against various forms of racism in their own lives. 

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  Changing individual biased assumptions is also important in the contexts of understanding the genuine purpose of anti-racism social movements. TikTok user @hanacondah’s “Uprise Overdue” reminds us “don’t just fight because you hate the cops / fight because you love Black lives / BLM was never made to divide / understand the outrage and unite.” In an attempt to confront systemic racism, it is important to remember that the “fight” involves more than fighting against perpetrators of racism; more importantly, it requires demonstrating care and connecting with the Black community to support their advocacy efforts. Similarly, people should understand the inclusivity that BLM serves to uphold. In “The Black Lives That Don’t Matter to Black People”, the creator They/Them states that "Black lives can't matter unless all Black lives matter / And all Black lives includes trans.” This piece reminds us that we cannot call ourselves an advocate if we choose not to support folks with other gender identities and sexual orientations.  

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Reference 

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Edouard, L. S. (2021). Symbol, Signification, and Hashtags as Violence Against Black Bodies; A Comparative Analysis of Michelle Cliff’s No

     Telephone to Heaven and Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric. Pathways: A Journal of Humanistic and Social Inquiry, 1(3), 1–

     11. Retrieved August 13, 2022, from https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1037&context=pathways_journal.