Allies & Allyship
Allies are important. But, what makes an ally? I’ve always felt that’s up to the individual/ community to decide. Broadly speaking, an ally is someone who does not belong to a marginalised group themselves, but stands alongside and supports that community through what they say and do, including advocating on the community’s behalf. This may include individuals who share some aspects of a marginalised/ oppressed identity, but are privileged in others. For example, someone who identifies as part of the LGBTQIA+ community because of their sexuality, but whom also identifies as cisgender, could act as an ally for those within the LGBTQIA+ community who are gender diverse. The term ‘ally’ originated with the LGBTQIA+ community, but has since expanded to cover supporters of a wide range of other marginalised groups, such as people with disability and those of a different, marginalised race, for example.
Allyship can mean and look like many different things, and everyone’s definition of what allyship means to them, will be as unique as the individual themselves. Let me give you an example. Following an incident involving the use of an outdated, ablest slur in a work training setting, I automatically set out to explain the true meaning of the term that had been incorrectly and offensively used as a slur to a friend/ colleague (in the process of enlisting them for back up support- just in case of a recurrence). The response from my friend/ colleague was to stop me in my tracks and tell me “it’s ok. I can do the research myself”, thereby saving me the extra labour of having to explain, and thus adding more emotional labour to the emotionally charged incident that had just occurred. I didn’t even realise it was something that was a possibility, let alone reasonable to request, until my colleague, now friend, affirmed they would do the learning themselves. That to me, is an amazing example of allyship in action. Another example is this clip from an episode of Amazon Prime series Modern Love.
To learn more about allyship, you may like to check out the book Promoting Diversity & Social Justice: Educating Privileged Groups by Diane J. Goodman as a starting point.