We have all heard it before:
“Black people and POC should not be at the frontlines, it is too dangerous for them.”
“The role of white people is to do the riskiest tasks, BIPOC are too at risk!”
“Only white people destroy things and agitate, BIPOC know not to do those things!”
“I am an ally to this struggle and will only do the things that the leaders of the struggle say to do.”
All of these misled statements and widely held beliefs result in the following:
- Erasure of Black, Indigenous, and POC militants, risk-takers, and revolutionaries
- Belittle and infantilize the struggles of marginalized people by telling them how to NOT resist
- Gaslight and mislead marginalized people into thinking that directly fighting back is counter-productive
- Upholds savior complexes and allows clout-seeking individuals to become representatives of a struggle by centering respectability, pacifism, and legibility to those in power
When (typically white) people say that others cannot militantly resist their own oppression, they minimize the harm that the oppressed endure, patronize the oppressed by insisting on how they should be receiving help from their “allies,” and establish a false binary between those who can versus those who cannot “properly” resist.
We are told that resistance lies in “speaking truth to power” rather than attacking power materially. We are told by an array of non-profit-certified “white allies” that the very things we need to do in order to free ourselves from domination cannot be done by us because we’re simply too vulnerable to state repression. To these things, we must say, Enough bullshit! We must refuse this idea of privilege: the idea that only a select exclusive few can take up action against systems of oppression.
The privilege theory model of activism has weakened movement organizing by confusing identity categories with solidarity, thus reinforcing stereotypes about the political homogeneity and helplessness of “communities of color.” However, many self-appointed leaders tend to weaponize the concept of “the community” in order to wield it for their (usually liberal and reformist) ends. Uncritical adherence to the use of the word “community” tends to hide the power moves made by clout-seekers. We should push back against the habit of deferring to the concerns of so-called “community leaders.”
It is a well-worn activist formula to point out that “representatives” of different identity categories must be placed “front-and-center” in struggles against oppression. But this is meaningless without also specifying the content of their politics. For example, the US Army is simultaneously one of the most racially integrated and oppressive institutions in American society. “Diversity” alone is a meaningless political idea which defines agency as inclusion within oppressive systems and equates identity categories with political beliefs.
These models of privilege and allyship politics relinquishes power to political representatives and reinforces stereotypes of individually “deserving” and “undeserving” victims of racism, sexism, and homophobia. A vast nonprofit industrial complex and a class of professional “community spokespeople” has arisen over the last several decades to define the parameters of acceptable political action and debate. However, we must challenge all and every group’s attempts at trying to become the most “legitimate” actor against oppression. Ultimately, “legitimacy” has more to do with hoarding social, cultural, and material capital rather than the subversion required to undo all forms of capital.
This politics of safety continually projects an image of powerlessness that keeps BIPOC, women, and trans/queers “protected,” confining them to speeches and mass rallies rather than active disruption. This kind of politic defers to palatable, white middle-class cultural values, such as respectability, legitimacy, or legibility. When we are considered too “rowdy” or “defensive” by liberals and reformists, they are ultimately making us LESS safe by diluting the true nature of resistance. As oppressed peoples, in order for us to be TRULY safe, we needa get rowdy and violent towards this dangerous system against the wishes of respectable “activists” or “community leaders”!
When activists argue that power “belongs in the hands of the most oppressed,” it is clear that their primary audience for these appeals can only be white activists, and that they understand power as something which is granted or bestowed by the powerful. Appeals to white benevolence to let BIPOC “lead political struggles” assumes that white activists can somehow relinquish their privilege and legitimacy to oppressed communities and that these communities cannot act and take power for themselves. Allyship is treated as an identity, but it is not true solidarity: solidarity is based on action, not on opinions or by superficially “leaving your privilege at the door.”
BIPOC communities are not a single, homogeneous bloc with identical political opinions. White allyship both flattens political differences between whites and homogenizes the populations they claim to speak on behalf of. The absurdity of privilege politics re-centers anti-racist practice on whites and white behavior, and assumes that racism (and often by implicit or explicit association, anti-Blackness, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia) manifest primarily as individual privileges which can be “checked,” given up, or absolved through individual resolutions. Privilege politics is ultimately completely dependent upon precisely that which it condemns: white benevolence.
In seeking oppressed groups to take direction from, white folks often end up tokenizing a specific group whose politics most match their own. “What does the NAACP [or Critical Resistance, or the Dreamers] think about this?” Likewise, they may latch on to the most visible “leaders” of a community because it is quicker and easier to meet the director of an organization, minister of a church, or politician representing a district than to build real relationships with the people those leaders purport to represent. This approach to dismantling racism structurally reinforces the hierarchical power that we’re fighting against by asking a small group to represent the views of an entire category of people with radically different lived experiences.
Being an ally has come to mean legitimizing a political position by borrowing someone else’s voice— always acting in someone else’s name without questioning the principle of appropriating others’ struggles. It’s a way of simultaneously taking power and evading personal accountability.
The idea of allyship obscures the fact that hidden choices are being made about who is being listened to, inculcating the idea that there is a single “community of people of color” that share common interests that could be properly represented by leaders, rather than a heterogeneous mass with both overlapping and sometimes deeply contradictory ideas. This repositions the white ally to wield the power of determining who are the most representative and appropriate black and brown voices. And, most importantly, who are white “allies” to determine who/ what is the most appropriate anything?
We must abolish the ally-industrial complex, and all of the components that make it possible: non-profits, whiteness, infantilization, representation, individualism, legitimacy, respectability, and the fear of truly disruptive revolt.
In place of the politics of allyship and privilege and their forms of activism, we suggest:
- Warding off any and all attempts of local actors that try to seize the title of “community leader,” “local organizer,” “representative/ voice of xyz” – such moves are hierarchical power grabs and should be checked as such.
- Building relationships with community as accomplices, not allies, which are relations realized through mutual consent and built trust.
- As accomplices, being compelled to become accountable and responsible to each other.
- Not waiting around for anyone to proclaim you an accomplice. You certainly cannot proclaim it yourself; you just are or you are not. The lines of oppression are already drawn.
- Direct action is really the best and perhaps the only way to learn what it means to be an accomplice: we’re in a fight, so be ready for confrontation and consequence.
- Recognizing that we inhabit multiplicity, which means that we live in a diverse world with communities that vary significantly between and within themselves. So, as we build power, we must acknowledge that we can only ever speak and act for ourselves.