Allyship

Question 1

Whiteness:

Answer 1

“about the discursive practices that because of colonialism and neocolonialism, privilege and sustain the global dominance of white imperial subjects and Eurocentric worldviews”

Question 2

Allyship:

Answer 2

“allies are people who recognize the unearned privilege they receive from society’s patterns of injustice and take responsibility for changing these patterns. Becoming an ally means learning about systems of oppression, figuring out our own (conscious or unconscious) roles in maintaining those systems and then working alongside those most affected to try and address the inequity”

Question 3

Challenges in allyship:

Answer 3

• Learning to work with rather than for.
• Learning to ‘stand back’ while avoiding fearful paralysis.
• Learning to accept discomfort and not to look for affirmation.

Question 4

Unsettling allyship:

Answer 4

• Part of the danger here is that being an ’ally’ insinuates that there is an identity end goal (’I am an ally’). The ally identity lulls us into a false notion of having ‘achieved’ a status that does not invite continued questioning and constant un-settling. A focus on the identity of ally can recentre whiteness.
• They argue that the term ally creates a binary that separates allies from Indigenous peoples: instead they advocate “look[ing] past colonial separations to understand collective learning toward solidarity” (p53).

Question 5

Decolonising solidarity

Answer 5

…requires taking active steps towards building ‘right’ relations, with a commitment to both naming and righting the material, epistemic, cultural and political injustices of present and past…