Top Quotes: “What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition” — Emma Dabiri

Introduction

“One of the things that allyship fails to address is the fact that you can continue to view black people as inferior while still being committed to their protection.”

“In certain ways, today’s antiracists are the abolitionists of the twenty-first century. A commitment to allyship with black people doesn’t automatically mean you don’t think black people are somehow inferior: it means you don’t think they should be treated discriminatorily as a result.”

“In the months before he was killed by the police, Fred Hampton, the charismatic young leader of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panthers, created a Rainbow Coalition, between the Black Panthers, the Puerto Rican Young Lords, and the working-class southern whites of the Young Patriots. The coalition organized around the idea that it was in the best interests of black and other oppressed and minoritized people, together with disenfranchised whites, to organize collectively against racism, police brutality, and the inequalities perpetuated by capitalism.

Remember that this is the historical period in which US segregation was dismantled, so it was particularly dangerous and fraught, yet in contrast to today’s culture of cancellation, or at least online pile-ons, triggered by the charge of being “problematic” or “toxic,” the Black Panther Party (BPP) had a different approach. Regarding the Young Patriots’ use of the Confederate flag, that deeply despicable symbol of the slave-owning South, Hampton had this to say: “If we can use that to organize, if we can use it to turn people, then we need to do it.” Without being told to, or being “held accountable, the Patriots renounced the flag themselves out of respect for the Panthers.

There are other rich examples connected to the Panthers. When Huey P. Newton, cofounder of the BPP, was asked what white people could do to support them, he replied that they could form a White Panther Party. The White Panthers, a nonracist group, was set up in 1968, two years after the BPP, by Pun Plamondon, Leni Sinclair, and John Sinclair.

The White Panthers’ Ten Point Program was assertive in its demands for a better life for all. This is an example of “white” people making demands that would benefit both black and white:

1. We want freedom. We want the power for all people to determine their own destinies.

2. We want justice.

Of course, it is vital to remember while coalition building that we cannot subsume everything under one single struggle, but that is exactly why we need coalitions of shared interests. Contrast the demands of the White Panthers above with the almost groveling tone of a lot of allyship today. Unless one is a masochist (which of course some will be), is it not also far more persuasive to be presented with a clear vision of the type of society we want to create because we all stand to benefit from it, rather than being chastised to transfer your “privilege” to a “black” person, especially when the steps about how to actually do that are at best vague and nebulous —call out racism, take a pay cut, only support “diverse” brands, all interpersonal, all contained neatly within a neoliberal framework, and all cutely infographical for your socials?

By 1972, Huey Newton himself had shifted the focus of his political activities from Black Nationalism to “inter-communalism,” seeking to unite and empower all disenfranchised groups. The original BP Ten Point Program was adapted to reflect this changing focus — for instance adding a demand for completely free healthcare for all black and oppressed people — although this led to tensions within the party. The BPP became more inclusive in its radical vision. With a new focus on injustices, members began to see more parallels between the struggles of all exploited and oppressed people, across lines of race and nation.

In racially diverse contexts, such coalitions are often more destabilizing to the status quo than strictly segregated groups.”

“Hannah Fizer was driving to work at a convenience store in Sedalia, Missouri, late on a Saturday night in June [2020] when a police officer pulled her over for running a red light.

According to police reports, Fizer was “non-compliant” and threatened to shoot the officer, so the officer shot and killed her.

Hannah, whose coworker describes her as “a beautiful person,” had no gun. At this stage it’s a depressingly recognizable tale. Here’s the part that might come as more of a surprise: Hannah was white.

Fields references a database of police shootings in the United States compiled since 2015, writing that

half of those shot dead by police — and four of every ten who were unarmed — have been white. People in poor neighborhoods are a lot more likely to be killed by police than people in rich neighborhoods. Living for the most part in poor or working-class neighborhoods as well as subject to, a racist double-standard, black people suffer disproportionately from police violence. But white skin does not provide immunity.

Fields goes on to insist that those seeking genuine democracy must fight like hell to convince white Americans that what is good for black people is also good for them. Reining in murderous police, investing in schools rather than prisons, providing universal healthcare including drug treatment and rehabilitation for addicts in the rural heartlands), raising taxes on the rich, and ending foolish wars are policies that would benefit a solid majority of the American people. Such an agenda could be the basis for a successful political coalition rooted in the real conditions of American life, which were disastrous before the pandemic and are now catastrophic.

Today’s allyship fails to build the necessary coalitions identified by Moten and Fields; it lacks the vision of Hampton. With its reliance on information rather than knowledge, its fetishizing of privilege without any clear means of transferal, as well as the ways in which it actively reinforces whiteness, allyship is not only not up to the task, it is in many ways counterproductive. If you, potential ally, are relying solely on that type of material and whatever allyship information you can cobble together from Google — because, never forget the foundational allyship principles: “Do not expect to be taught or shown,” and “Google is your friend” — well, then I have little hope about the outcome of all this.”

“I often think about the black feminist scholar bell hooks’s proposition:

For me forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?”

“I was recently struck by a conversation I had with a “white” Irish artist. He described growing up in the 1980s in Ireland as a working-class Dubliner and the particular stigmas attached to that. Of course, he “knew” he was “white” in Ireland, but it was when he migrated to the US that he found himself reinvented as a “white guy” in a way that was materially different from his position in Ireland, specifically the new status this identity held: the access to unearned privileges and opportunities at the expense of a subjugated African American population.”

“In the US, even more obscenely vast gains during the pandemic have prompted calls for a windfall tax on super-rich tech titans to help pay for the economic recovery from the pandemic. Senator Bernie Sanders and Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, both Democrats, have introduced legislation dubbed the “Make Billionaires Pay Act” for a one-off 60% tax on the wealth gains of billionaires between 18 March [2020] and the end of the year to help working Americans cover healthcare costs. Under Sanders’ proposal, [Jeff] Bezos would pay a one-time wealth tax of $42.8bn, and [Elon] Musk would pay $27.5bn.”

“Barbara Fields and Adam Rothman are cent reminding us that attacking “white privilege” will never build the necessary coalitions. They go further, saying that in fact

white working people — Hannah Fizer, for example — are not privileged. … They are struggling and suffering in the maw of a callous trickle-up society whose obscene levels of inequality the pandemic is likely to increase. The recent decline in life expectancy among white Americans, which the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton attribute to “deaths of despair,” is a case in point. The rhetoric of white privilege mocks the problem, while alienating people who might be persuaded.”