Your Allyship is Starting to Look Mad Performative, my guy...
you think your soooo smart
Something I’ve been learning the more I interact outside of my race and gender is this performative allyship to see who appears the most liberal, the most healed, educated, understanding, and smartest person in the room. It gets old really quickly, especially as a Black woman, because we’re the ones usually talked or looked down upon in this situation. As if we don’t know what social/political issues look like(side eye). This is why it’s so frustrating when I’m working with others outside of my race and gender combined. It’s something I can’t avoid or run away from.
As someone who works in the film/media industry, I’m on tons of sets run by White men, and if I am working with women, it’s White women. Mind you, we’re usually filming/shooting scenes that talk about social issues, but somehow I’m not allowed to chime in because it doesn’t “include” everyone. Not to brag, but Black women are the universal voice. We’re the ones who have historically stood up and spoken out for everyone. And to speak for myself, I’ve gone to one of the best high schools in my state(International Bachorolette) and one of the best film schools in my country, so I’m not as dumb as you might think. But, sure, let’s discuss how the scene needs to convey lower-class white kids and their struggle in life.
This continues in all aspects of my life: writing circles, work, classes, relationships, and everything. I’ll go to documentary screenings that talk about gentrification. The audience will mostly be White, and the questions are generic and centered around the class issue but not the race issue. They also don’t want to recognize the up-and-coming issues by ignoring the input of the Black community.
This isn’t the only time I’ll be discussing fake allyship. I’ll be going into more detail about different aspects of it in our everyday world, but for now, I’m going to rant.
The new forms of liberalism, feminism, tokenism, and intellectualism are all forms of this new wave of Allyship.
In the end, if it’s not radical woke, you're not making much of a change. But radical now is seen as discussion about racial issues, majority Black issues. Once a Black person makes the main topic about Black issues, it’s seen as “too much” or not “inclusive” to other races. In the end, those people aren’t realizing they are practicing antidiscriminatory ideas themselves by thinking that way. If anything, those people are just making think-pieces after think-pieces, parroting each other’s work with no real content, just big words on topics that they have no actual relationship with.
It’s starting to get annoying.
If you want to make art about something new and controversial, work with artists outside of your bubble. You want to have new discussions about issues you don’t understand, talk to people dealing with those issues. You want to learn about a new world, talk to people in those worlds.
For example, I wrote a piece on segregation/redlining in Chicago, and even though I lived in Chicago for 4 years, I still spoke to Chicago natives(majority Black and Latinx because they experience this issue the most). Segregation/redlining is a world issue, so tons of people can relate and understand the issue, but I’m not going to ask a person who is experiencing the positive upsides or benefits the most from this system to explain the issue. Like really…
This is why I say Black women are the most educated and liberated group in the world. We have to learn to do all of this every day of our lives. I’ve worked with all different races, genders, economic, education, and national backgrounds. I’ve learned how to codeswitch, be “professional”, dress, keep my tone neutral, smile, and more, just so I can go about my day peacefully. And yet I’m unaware.
Broaden your fucking horizon because babes the revolution is coming and your going to be left behind.