Dear white people: here is what you really need to know about allyship

So, the title of this likely tells you all you need to know. This is a sort of calling in to the white people in my circles of influence and any white person reading this on how to engage, do the work and walk the walk.  With anything you’ll come to expect from me, it’s not designed for comfort. The work of dismantling the system of white supremacy is about challenging power structures that have kept equity deserving groups from advancing and living up to our fullest potential and it requires straight, raw and honest conversations to evoke some of the change. Many of us have a lot of unlearning to do around equity, so what I share on this platform is meant to challenge, and it will likely cause discomfort, but ideally it will make you think.  

First, some necessary context. I started the Equity Gap Podcast because I've struggled as an equity and inclusion professional to bridge the gap between the ideologies of how to practise the work and inspire people to lean into actionable change. I see two ends of a nuanced and dynamic spectrum that are often not met in the middle. One the one end people treat kindness as a cure for racist systems, systems that are so deeply rooted in nearly everything we encounter, almost to the extent of going undetected by the naked eye and this simply glosses over the realities of what most equity deserving people work through. On the other end, there is a frustration, a boiling point, and a well-deserved anger on the part of marginalised people that often alienates and shames white people who mostly in effect play only one part of the solution which is factually beyond individual influence. I wanted to bridge that gap to help those in positions of influence to understand their privilege and how to really do the work to advance equity all while centering those living with marginalised identities.  

And we’ll unpack a few things and ways in which you, as a white person, regardless of your influence,, power, socio-economic status can be a meaningful ally to particularly Black, Indigenous and women of colour in your lives. 

And a note on privilege, specifically white privilege. I love this definition of privilege by John Amaechi because it lays the groundwork for what we’re talking about today, “Privilege is a hard concept for people to understand because normally when we talk of privilege, we think of immediate, unearned riches and tangible benefits for anyone who has it, but white privilege – and indeed, all privilege – is about the absence of inconvenience, the absence of an impediment or challenge. As such when you have it, you really don’t notice it. But when it’s absent, it affects everything you do." Let that sink in for a moment – affects everything you do, it’s inescapable and I hope by the end of this episode you won’t be able to unsee it enough that it spurs you into action.  

I also spent the last 4 years building the Colour Gap podcast, a career strategy podcast which focused on the foundational idea that no one sizes fit all approach in career planning works for those of us from equity deserving groups - how we find purpose, advance in our careers, and make impact looks different than those of our white counterparts. We have limited representation, we don’t often come from strong circles of influence, we deal with racism and microaggressions on a regular basis and our race and gender walk into the room before we are really seen. Lean in doesn’t work for us.  

And when I started the Colour Gap podcast, one of the first episodes my then podcast partner and still dear friend Susy Ko and I started talking about the possibilities of sharing our experiences more widely and we had to have a level setting conversation with ourselves to ask if anyone would even pay attention and really hear us. We were gaslighting ourselves so much based on all the gaslighting we experienced over and over again in our careers and we ended up dedicating an entire episode to unpacking the question we kept asking ourselves - "are we crazy?" and were our experiences and those of the Black, Indigenous and racialized people in our communities and circles of influence in all our heads? I can't begin to count the number of times I've sat around with friends and family talking about our experiences in hushed tones, knowing what we all know because when you’re used to being the other, an outsider, of having your culture, race, religion and gender lambasted in various ways in pop culture, media, and often more insidiously in the workplace, you know racism and oppression all too well and you know that fragility around these conversations exist, most often with people who are in the highest positions of power and you know you aren’t often safe to speak your truth. We often found ourselves seeking data and proof of our experiences for white people to believe what we knew with our own hearts and minds and we were rarely met with humble acceptance and accountability. At the time we didn't have the agency or even feel the right to lay blame on the problematic assumptions that our experiences were merely perceptions of reality and not reality itself. And there are a lot of reasons for that. And I can only speak first hand to the experience of being a first generation Canadian-South Asian Muslim woman who isn’t so visibly Muslim. I can speak to the ways in which I've been taught to stay quiet, to stay out of the spotlight, to not have an opinion and settle into the model minority stereotype. I can also speak to my own experiences of working in HR for over 10 years and the ways in which so many white female leaders I've had failed me in their surface attempts at allyship. I can tell you about the time I almost got fired for talking about white supremacy on the Colour Gap podcast by an anonymous person with a vicious agenda, but would you believe me? Would you have to ask for evidence, for the data to prove my lived experience? Because so many of us have and I'd love to talk to you about the impact beyond what might have been your good intentions. How it makes us feel and how significantly it damages the efforts we are doing to create a more equitable world.  

I start with this topic of allyship because its foundation building. Without understanding the performances that so many Black, Indigenous and women of colour must put on to get heard and understood, we won't get very far together. I need you to believe us. I ask you to suspend judgement, to step out of the need for us to prove experiences and for you to tap into the same energy many of you gave the “Me Too” movement to believe Black, Indigenous and women of colour and believe us when we tell you our experiences are not in our heads. I ask you to not start a game of oppression Olympics and compare your pain and life tragedies to that of racism and the inequities that Black, Indigenous and women of colour face simply for existing and having the desire to try to take up space in the world.  

It's beyond individual experiences to something bigger and more pervasive. It’s not about victimhood but rather about calling out a collective experience that we as marginalised people live with every day. It doesn’t take much to google residential schools, missing and murdered Indigenous and two-spirit people, to find countless stories of Black trauma in this country that also has a past rooted in slavery, to know that a big part of the pain is rooted in being seen as disposable and that our systems are designed to favour one racialized group over another. There is an interesting concept that I think helps paint the picture even further about the work that is put in us to get you to care, it’s what is called the economy of trauma - a term coined in a recent episode of the Maintenance Phase podcast. In the episode co-host Aubrey Gordon speaks to the concept as it relates to anti-fat bias. She goes on to say that “It's actually not enough currently for fat people to just say, "Hey, this hurts me and I wish you would stop." There are too many people, who just won't take our word for it or will say, "Well, then you just should have lost weight, or you shouldn't have gained it in the first place or whatever," that it's extremely unforgiving. That the only way that I have found to write that is through both data and research. But again, I know as an organiser, that data and research isn't what changes people's mind. It helps, but that's just not how our brains are wired. Our brains are wired to pay attention to other people's stories.” The same concept too easily applies to Black, Indigenous, and racialized people in that we must use our stories, pain, and trauma to build empathy. That our stories spur some into action while others into weaponizing the things we literally cannot change about how we experience the world. And what’s more is that when people hear our stories, often we’re only worth believing if we fit your idea of what is acceptable. If we assimilate into some digestible version that isn’t based on the stereotypical idea of what our people can be at their worst or what is expected of our people to fit the narrative you have in mind. 

I personally oscillate between niceness and upholding the model minority myth to being deep in my feelings and amplifying my voice to the extent that it sometimes gets me in trouble and more often than not has other racialized women telling me they are grateful for what they see as my courage. When I’m the quiet, submissive model minority I tend to create comfort for those around me that expect me to be exactly that, yet I suppress the thoughts and opinions that call for me internally to speak out and make change. When I’m opinionated and what I call a bit spicy, I find myself in situations where white people and marginalised people who internalise racism get uncomfortable, at times to the point of attempting to cancel me and most other times where I get tone policed in a way that wouldn’t be done to a white man with a well thought out opinion. Even writing this episode and putting my thoughts out in the world as someone who does this work for a living, who is required to challenge racist systems, makes me incredibly uncomfortable because experience has amplified for me that I’m not always safe to have an opinion that asks white people to do things differently in their attempts to solve for DEI in the workplace. People don’t expect this soft-spoken brown skinned woman to have such disruptive opinions or think there is space or room to talk about my experiences publicly. I’ve been told that I weaponize my ethnicity and race to create problems, that it’s all in my head and that I should watch how I say things. It’s interesting to me too as a highly self-aware, first generation Canadian and children of immigrants who has literally found success in navigating corporate systems by being my most articulate self. Rarely do I feel what I say is irrational or not well thought out, never does my character or integrity come into question yet what I’ve had to say has made some people so uncomfortable to the point of threatening my livelihood. It’s why this episode is so needed, to help you see how fragility only holds us all back from real change and upholds an approach that won’t move us beyond our performative, check box exercises. You may not be that anonymous person who decides to try to cancel me, but you may be on the defensive hearing what I have to say, and I ask that you sit with that to reflect how you can do the work to centre voices like mine and more importantly Black and Indigenous women to solution.  

When I’ve spoken to white allies in the past about the experiences of being a woman of colour, I explain it as some sort of hyper awareness equivalent to that of a woman walking alone at night in a park. Constantly aware of our surroundings, our differences and always on guard ready to respond to the subtle and not so subtle attacks on the mere presence of us. We can’t turn it off unless we’re in the company of other racialized women and our sense of safety comes from being in spaces and places where the colour of skin and our differences aren’t anomalies. Where we can take our armour off, breathe a sigh of relief and trust that our differences won’t be weaponized against us. That feeling is most amplified in the workplace where we are often amongst blissfully ignorant peers and leaders who haven’t had to live their lives being “the other” and where toxicity and workplace trauma can run rampant. 

What also underpins the entire conversation is systemic racism, something I implore white people to open their eyes to. You don’t need to look too hard to find the problem – the racial wealth gap, microaggressions, lack of representation in positions of influence, police brutality, health care inequities, how marginalised people are portrayed in the media and so much more. Once you start to uncover how our systems are designed to uphold white supremacy, you really can’t unsee it and yes, everything does become about race because that’s how our lives have been intentionally designed. We need you to do the work to understand this, from a place of humility, from a place of active listening. To hold back from looking for loopholes or giving the offender the benefit of the doubt. We need you to stop assuming good intentions and start challenging the moments you may let slide in favour of harmony and protecting your company agenda. 

We also need you to stop saying you’re not political or attempting neutrality as a defence. Besides the obvious misnomer of existing in society being in and of itself a political act – to lean on apathy gives away your privilege in ways that further marginalises equity deserving groups. Neutrality isn’t an option when people’s lives and livelihoods are on the line, where so many of us have no choice in the experiences we are forced to deal with. Where many of your marginalised co-workers, friends and family carry the emotional weight of racist systems and people in the backs of their minds. As Desmond Tutu says, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” I’ve worked in an environment in my past that consistently put the needs of the conservative, homophobic, racist team members front and centre, who were too afraid to rock the boat when it really mattered to protect those that were marginalised in the spirit of freedom of speech. I didn’t stay very long to further be at the receiving end of more harm and the experience has and will never leave me. I had enough privilege to choose to leave, others are not so lucky. If you decide to choose upholding freedom of speech over the safety of marginalised people, you are the oppressor, point blank period.  

Lastly, you have to move beyond the idea of diversity of thought which keeps many of your workplaces homogenous and is often a comfort play to keep equity deserving groups out. Beyond your good intentions to incorporate many dimensions of diversity into the equation of hiring or decision making, leaning on diversity of thought, particularly when your circles of influence within and outside the workplace are homogenous, means you are likely seeking culture fit and it usually means you are seeking those that look like you, sound like you and more than likely come from similar socioeconomic backgrounds as you. Not only are you perpetuating the problem you are also immensely limiting the brilliance and expansive approach that can come from hiring someone from an equity deserving group who in addition to their qualifications brings a unique depth of life experience that has come from having to cultivate resilience and navigate systems that are designed to see them fail – the capacity and the character in that alone is something that shouldn’t be overlooked and you can’t get that if you limit your perspective to diversity of thought.  

In all, allyship is an active process that requires you to rethink the privileges and opportunities that you’ve been afforded as a white person. You may have intersections to your identity that limit your access, but the colour of your skin has never been that and gives you unseen advantages that require a critical lens. Your comfort is not to be upheld when there are people dying because they have the audacity to exist in a world in an identity that they cannot change. I’ll leave you with the wise, wise words of Ijeoma (E-joy-ma) Oluo (Oh-loo-oh) in her incredible and thought-provoking book, “So you want to talk about race?” “The possibilities of where you can leverage your privilege to make real, measurable change toward a better world are endless. Every day you are given opportunities to make the world better, by making yourself a little uncomfortable and asking, 'who doesn't have this same freedom or opportunity that I'm enjoying now?' These daily interactions are how systems of oppression are maintained, but with awareness, they can be how we tear those systems down. So please, check your privilege. Check it often.”