If you care for others at all in the current turmoil we're in, you may be experiencing a desire to do something - something helpful for others and something positive for society.
If you are a part of a dominant culture group, and have the privilege that goes along with it, you may be suddenly discovering a strong urge inside you to become an ally to those who face injustice of some kind. We often hear that it's important to be an "ally". But what does it really mean to be an ally? There's a distinction to make, and it's related to intercultural development.
In her article on "allyship", Holiday Phillips explains:
An ally is someone from a nonmarginalized group who uses their privilege to advocate for a marginalized group. They transfer the benefits of their privilege to those who lack it.
Let's pause and think for a minute about what this definition of ally is asking us to do. First, it's asking us to realize and accept the fact that we have privilege. Second, in order to be able to use that privilege, we must know the nature of our own privilege and where it comes from. This process of self-reflection can come with some shame and/or guilt in not having noticed this sooner or regret that we haven't worked on ourselves harder. Third, to transfer the benefits of the privilege to benefit others, we must find an incredible amount of courage in ourselves to come forward with the raw emotional commitment to disclose our privilege and turn it around for it to become a source of empowerment. If you have ever done this before, you'd probably agree that this is a painful process.
Finally, there needs to be an incredible amount of creativity in this act of allyship. Being an ally involves a commitment to being a partner to others you may not have much shared life experience with and work in collaboration with these others to create a shared future. This level of committed endeavor asks for highly developed intercultural competence coming from Adaptation, as defined in the Intercultural Development Continuum (IDC).
Because of this, many of us often fall short.
Phillips' article goes on to describe a more self-serving type of allyship called "performative allyship":
Performative allyship, on the other hand, is when someone from that same nonmarginalized group professes support and solidarity with a marginalized group in a way that either isn’t helpful or that actively harms that group. Performative allyship usually involves the 'ally' receiving some kind of reward — on social media, it’s that virtual pat on the back for being a 'good person' or 'on the right side'.
This performative allyship is often coming out of good intention. But this intention is serving the need of the ‘ally’ themselves. This isn't the most helpful or effective way to be an ally. To see this from an intercultural development lens, when we have the best intention as an ally yet end up wielding performative allyship, we are coming to allyship from the Reversal-Polarization worldview of the IDC.
What does your allyship look like?
None of us can be a perfect ally in every situation. But we can begin by knowing that allyship involves continuing learning and development on our own part. The effectiveness of allyship depends on how interculturally developed you are, which brings us back to the urge to ‘do something’. In the short run, you have the urge to do something. In that urge, I challenge you to reflect and examine what and whom that urge is serving. And at the same time, I invite you to engage in continuing, longer-term development of intercultural competence so that the actions we do take are in fact effective.