How to be a white ally: the brutally honest guide
Updated: Jun 13, 2020
We’ve all seen it. The painfully disturbing and explicit murder of George Floyd was recorded and circulated around the Internet for everyone to see. It’s genuinely awful to witness such a gruesome abuse of human life and miscarriage of justice in the officer’s prosecution.
The incident has since sparked global discussion about the realities of racial injustice throughout the world, but one topic that has been the subject of countless articles and thread posts is how non-black people can be effective allies to the black community.
Most of these articles have been nice. They play into naivety, assuring non-black readers that they can abolish racism merely by signing petitions, posting on their Instagram and reading a few books. That is absolute bullshit.
Racism is not something that can be ‘fixed’ by simply reading books or protesting. As a black person, I won’t tell you that you’re doing a great job by reading a book or protesting because you’re not. What these posts genuinely try but fail to mention is that there is no obligation for black people to be nice to you and hold your hand through the process of acknowledging the existence of racism within our society. There’s no need for us to congratulate you for labelling yourself as an ally – there is no such thing. Racism is not a political opinion that you can choose to stay out of. Racism is a deadly and fatal virus far worse than Covid-19 could ever be, and by not actively working against it at every opportunity that you can in your life, you are benefiting from its effects and supporting it as a acceptable way of life. You are either for us or against us and, if you are for us, you have to be for us every day, not just when its trendy online. There is no sitting on the fence with racism.
So, if you’re a non-black person wondering how they can better support the black community, or if you’re a black person wondering the same, here are some behaviours you can follow ordered by their significance in actually helping the black community.
Less than bare minimum effort
Posting online that you’ve read a book
If you are making the necessary steps to educate yourself using black literature, that is a wonderful step towards being more informed about racial issues, but there is no need for you to post pictures of yourself holding the book or reading it. When you do this, it sends the message that you are trying to prove something to the world or receive validation, as if you believe yourself to be a perfect ally or a more admirable human being to the black community because you read three pages of ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race’.
Educating yourself is not something to be congratulated for. If you are a non-black person educating yourself on black issues, your education is your attempt to catch up on basic information that you should have already known. It does not make you more educated, more of an ally or more superior than anyone else that you know. Being an ally isn’t something you’ll be congratulated on or thanked for, because it is in no way detrimental to you, nor does it take up much of your effort or energy.
For a helpful list of books to get you started on learning about black issues, click here
Acknowledging that you have privilege / taking a privilege test
Acknowledgement of your privilege is not even the first step in supporting the black community to tackle racism. I get it - perhaps you grew up in a non-black community and suddenly your whole world has opened up from learning about the systematic structures of societal power that are designed to give you privilege over non-white races, but people like me have known that our whole lives. Our parents knew that, and so did our grandparents. We all knew about the existence of white privilege.
The fact that it took you this long to figure it out shows nothing more than how much your white privilege allows you to ignore such blaringly obvious facts of life because you simply don’t want to acknowledge it whilst non-white people have this fact forced upon them at a very early age. Learning that you benefit from racial privilege in 2020 is not an accomplishment. It’s an embarrassment.
Reposting “pro-black” content from celebrities just because you like the celebrity
Let’s be real. You probably didn’t read that singer or actor’s post all the way through and, if you did, you probably didn’t actually take in what they were trying to say because you were just so happy to hear them make a statement you didn’t care how accurate or true it was. Maybe you added a ‘Yaaaaassss queen!’ in the comments section to let them know you really supported them. It’s painfully obvious to black people when you do this, and we can clearly tell that you just saw a quote that looked empowering and only posted it because of who said it. It doesn’t make you an ally and it doesn’t help our community.
Posting a black square/ Instagram challenge
As popular as this trend has become to celebrate #blackouttuesday, posting a black box on your social media timeline does not help the black community in any way. In fact, captioning your meaningless absence of content with #blacklivesmatter hashtag can negatively damage the black community as it censors vital information under the hashtag that people rely on to find news about black issues and advisory resources on how to stay safe during protests.
Posting a black box on your Instagram page is a performative action to project the image that you are anti-racist without actually doing anything to help or benefit the black community. #BlackoutTuesday is a tool to silence the masses on the realities of racial injustice and by posting a black square – a literal absence of information – you are falling right into the trap.
Be open to changing your mind
If you’re not black, you will always have a level of ignorance about black issues, regardless of how many Netflix documentaries you’ve seen. You won’t always be right, and you will make mistakes. It will happen, but you have to be okay with this and listen when someone corrects you. It is not a personal attack or a sign that we hate you, we are correcting false information to improve your knowledge.
Asking black people to educate you
We are not your black Google. Instagram and Google are full of information to help you learn how to support the back community if you don’t know how. It is unbelievably exhausting as a black person to explain over and over again why our lack of basic human rights for centuries is something you should be even moderately concerned about.
We are not the spokespeople for our entire race. By constantly asking questions that could be very easily answered with a Google search (e.g. “What books should I read?” or “Tell me about black history”), you are showing a complete lack of respect for the time, effort, and mental health of your black friends.
Checking in on black people
If your black friend is really your friend, you should be checking up on them without me even having to tell you. Black people’s mental health is going to be more fragile than usual now and it can be helpful to check in and see how they’re doing. Don’t tell them all the supposedly amazing activist activities you’ve been doing and don’t tell them you understand. Just offer a listening ear if they ever need to rant and ask if there’s anything you can do. That’s it.
Continuing to be an ally after protests stop
If your ‘activism’ only lasts as long as #blacklivesmatter remains a mainstream trend, then it’s not activism. It’s a slap in the face to all your black friends. See, unlike you, we can’t switch our opinions on racism on and off when we feel like it. When racism makes me uncomfortable, I can’t wash away my skin and walk away from it. Black people can’t escape racism outside or inside their own homes.
Despite the encouraging outrage and protests, racism has always been a serious, deep-rooted issue that will continue to affect my life long after you’ve deleted your #blackouttuesday post. If you stop being supportive once protests end, your support meant nothing to begin with because you don’t actually care about black lives at all and you only pretended to fit in with your friends and jump on a trend. Like they say, clout is a hell of drug.
Understand that you will always be part of the problem
“In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be antiracist” – Angela Davis
As long as you live in a society designed to give you privilege over others because of your race, you will always be a part of the problem. As long as you continue to uncomfortably walk away or laugh it off when you witness racism, you will always be a part of the problem. As long as you continue to feel uncomfortable when discussing race, you will always be a part of the problem. As long as you have unconscious stereotypes about black people, you will always be a part of the problem. As long as you scream All Lives Matter instead of Black Lives Matter, you will always be a part of the problem.
Until you consistently work towards challenging and defeating racial injustice in your life outside of the internet, you will always be a part of the problem.
Recognising diversity in the black community
Black people are female. Black people are sex workers. Black people are queer. Black people are non-binary. Black people are homeless. Black people are trans. Black people are disabled. Black people are Muslim. Black people are Christian. Black people have mental illnesses. Black people are more than their race – we are people, and, like any other person, we have identities other than our race.
I once had a girl tell me she understands racism because she’s a woman and experiences sexism. For those who don’t know me, I am a black woman. That conversation ended quickly after this comment. Its time black people stopped being viewed as a single type of person – we are as individually unique and different as any other race of people.
Do not believe everything you see in the media
I’ve stopped watching the news recently because all I’ve seen is reporters complaining about the ‘thuggish’ behaviour of black American protestors rioting and looting their neighbourhoods. What BBC News fail to mention is that protestors initially behaved peacefully until they faced attacks from the police. Countless videos of undercover cops posing as protestors attacking the police and destroying property have emerged on the internet. Hundreds of images of police placing piles of bricks in the middle of streets for protestors to use against them have been revealed. It is clear that the police are attempting to trigger violent reactions from protestors to justify using physical violence to disrupt protests.
After all, how could you justify using tear gas, bullets and dogs to attack innocently peaceful citizens to the media? If the police could coerce the public into being aggressive, they create a false story of acting in self-defence, justifying not only unlawful action towards protestors but also further pushing the falsely negative stereotype that black people are ‘thuggish’ and aggressive.
We’ve seen this tactic of the government creating a false image of black people to justify mistreatment before: from Columbus selling the idea that black Caribbeans were cannibals and less than human in the 15th Century to justify enslaving them, to European traders demonising ancient Afrikan spiritual practices to forcibly convert slaves to Christianity, to Nixon’s manipulation of statistics and law from 1971 to present the false image of black people as drug criminals and fight a non-existent ‘War on Drugs’. Look it up.
Understand the history of racism
Racism is nothing new. If you think it is, you were probably experiencing the effects of racial privilege that enable you to ignore it for your entire life until now, whilst black people have not only known about it, but have suffered its consequences for over 400 years. As a result, you expressing how mentally exhausted or overwhelmed you are feeling due to recent events is incredibly insensitive.
Great, you are now also tired and sad. Black people are not obligated to care. They have been tired and sad their whole lives and whilst your sadness will go away after a short time, black people cannot escape theirs. They cannot choose to ignore racism and not be affected by it. Black people will always be affected by the racism you choose to ignore. You will not be coddled for being sad, nor will you be admired or hailed as a white saviour for doing the bare minimum.
If you are posting quotes about racial injustice to be thanked and praised, you’re merely virtue signalling (meaning you have joined the conversation solely because you wish to be perceived as a good person by others). The narrative does not have to be centred around you, so see if you can handle not being the centre of attention for once. And no, this is not an attack on your whiteness, nor is it racist, because reverse racism does not exist. This is necessary because, unfortunately, the conversation has once again aligned itself to be solely about white people’s feelings as they attempt to confront their own privilege, and none of us have the time or patience to deal with that.
Bare minimum
Signing petitions
To an extent, signing petitions can be incredibly helpful. If an overwhelmingly high number of people sign a petition for a single cause, it shows undeniable support which authority figures will have no choice but to pay attention to. When others see you’ve signed a petition, they may also be encouraged to sign, increasing the amount of support a cause receives. In most cases, by signing, you also give the petition organisers your name and email to contact you for following events, keeping you informed on helpful activities you may not have known about before.
Signing one petition against racial injustice in any form does not, however, make you Martin Luther King. It’s an unfortunate scenario with many white people that they are signing as many petitions as they can to feel like they’re significantly contributing to the Black Lives Matter campaign when, in actual fact, they probably didn’t read the petition description properly before taking two minutes to sign and will delete any emails they receive from the petition website requesting their time to volunteer or be involved in further activities. The purpose of a petition is to make it known to authority figures that there is an audience who are prepared to take steps towards social change on a particular issue and they are not the ultimate answer to any form of social injustice.
Amplifying black voices
Recently, I’ve been contacted by many websites and social media pages who write huge paragraphs about how they want to stand in solidarity with the black community to shine a spotlight on black voices… only to post a sentence about me on their Instagram story which expires after 24 hours whilst making no edits to their main pages or websites which predominantly feature white people.
Do not post images of black people or ask us to feature in articles simply to ‘diversify’ your feed and make you seem anti-racist. Post quality content from black individuals whose words resonate with you and whose work you genuinely love because its what they deserve. There’s no point making half ass commitments – you are not an ‘ally’ or an activist if you post a picture of black people on your story for a week and then go back to your old ways… what’s the point in that? What did you learn from that?
Protesting
As much as it pains me to say it, most people protesting in London are not allies. The effects of lockdown include making a lot of people incredibly bored and frustrated from being stuck inside all day. I think, to some extent, the frustration being stuck inside the house during the Coronavirus pandemic has a part to play in the large number of demonstrators taking to the streets to protest for Black Lives Matter – why wouldn’t you when there’s nothing else to do and all your mates will be there?
If you don’t see people protesting out of boredom, you’re likely to see the second most annoying type of non-black person at a protest: the ‘Social media activist’. This person couldn’t give less of a fuck about what lives matter to whom, but boy does posting a photo of themselves holding a Black Lives Matter sign make them look politically aware and empathetic for a popular Instagram post! This person is easy to recognise:
They’ll have at least two pictures on social media of themselves holding a sign and maybe making a fist
The comments section of this photo will be full of white people congratulating them with clapping, fist and fire emojis or the odd ‘yasssss’ for a bit of variety
They’ll probably be shouting ‘I can’t breathe!’ at a protest (despite the fact that their yelling of such a phrase takes away from the fact that non-black people are there to support black people, not to speak over them and pretend as if they share the same pain)
They’ll probably post a black square on their page and
They’ll probably have #blacklivesmatter in their Instagram bio for two weeks before deleting it.
Don't be this person.
Even if you do go because you genuinely care about the cause, please do not be fooled into thinking peaceful protests alone are what is needed to produce social change. I know that whitewashed history textbooks summarise the American civil rights movement of the 1960s as a series of peaceful marches and sit-ins in restaurants, but this is such a small part of what happened during the civil rights movement. There was peace, but there was also violence on both sides. There was police brutality. There were assassinations. There were introductions of free school meals for children. There was rigorous training for some protestors to fight the natural urge to respond to violence with violence before they could be involved. There were guns fired. There were self-defence classes given. There were no black people using public buses for months when they refused to let black people sit at the front, leading to economic damage for bus companies which forced them to implement changes.
There is much more to the civil rights movement than the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.
Donating to black charities
There are many non-profit black charities out there that aim to do wonderful things for the black community, whether its providing free mental health services for queer black people, giving black people the skills that state schools don’t provide to get into Cambridge university or providing free legal advice to wrongly treated black people.
To donate to a black charity is an incredible help to their cause, but to make a one-time payment to suppress your white guilt does no long-term benefit to either you or the charity. Giving a small amount to a charity that you never contact ever again solely to inflame your ego is an incredibly selfish and narcissistic tactic to make you look like a ‘white saviour’ in front of your peers. As well as (regular) donations, what really keeps non-profit charities running are volunteers who are willing to give their time to help in any way that they can.
For a list of charities to donate to, click here:
Buying from a black business
Buying from a black business has many benefits, including (i) providing jobs to local black communities, (ii) providing a customer to local black services such as lawyers and (iii) attracting tourism by giving a local area a unique personality. Black businesses are also more likely to donate to black charities.
Regardless of how much our favourite celebrities endorse global brands such as Nike or how many statements such brands publish promising support to the black community, it remains a fact that these companies have an ashamedly low number of black employees at executive and corporate levels and are less likely to donate to charities supporting the black community. These companies are owned by white executives who pocket black money without helping black people.
For this reason, we should not only buy from black owned businesses, but make the conscious effort to permanently swap at least one big brand in our lives for a black brand. Personally, I am making the effort to swap lip products, highlighter, makeup sprays, makeup accessories bought from Makeup Revolution and some hair care products for the following (affordable) black owned brands: Bourn Beautiful Naturals, Colourblend and Pink Salad Ldn.
What black owned brands will you buy from?
For suggestions, I’ve written an article featuring 47 of my favourite black owned brands here.
Acceptable effort
Joining a society
What better opportunity to learn about the experiences of your black peers than to come with them to panel talks and events focusing on the discussion of racial issues? Because yes, you need to be a part of the conversation but, don’t forget, this is about listening to black voices. The last thing we want is for the narrative to switch to focus on allyship and white voices. Get actively involved. Join a society, listen to black people, have the discussions.
Permanently swapping a big brand for a black brand
Need somewhere to shop? I’ve written an article featuring 47 of my favourite black owned brands here.
Drafting an email to your local MP demanding change for the black community
In drafting an email to your local MP, you are able to personally communicate how you feel about the issue of racial inequality without depending on petition organisers to act on your behalf. If lots of people send emails on this same topic to their local MPs, it can put direct political pressure on our local members of parliament to take action. This is much more effective than a petition - whilst a passive two minute signature process for a petition doesn’t communicate your individual opinion or whether you even care about the issue, directly contacting someone in a position to make real political change tells them exactly how you feel and what you want them to do.
For a template (not written by me), click here
If you see a black person in your workplace thinking of leaving or complaining about racial discrimination, intervene and see if there is anything you can help
Are they leaving because they have allegations of racist behaviour that they have been afraid to raise? Could you alone or in an organised group help this person to make their complaint and ensure action is taken? Could you ask them what they aren’t happy with at work and what you anonymously could tell management staff to improve on?
Speak with your HR team at work to improve recruitment methods.
Could you campaign for the use of blind CVs (where no information relating to the applicant’s age, gender or race is included to prevent discrimination based on unconscious bias)? Could you advertise job descriptions that don’t require a fluent English speaker in multiple languages to be more accessible?
Create a community for black students at your university
Does your university have an ACS or a black society? Do you have a safe space for black queer students? If you’re black, do you feel included? If not, is there an alternative black society or student organisation that could be set up to improve the lives of black students at your university? Is there a student body you can reach out to if you face racial discrimination? If not, can you and a group of likeminded individuals create one?
Ensure your school or workplace is observing historical and religious dates
Does your school/university/workplace celebrate significant dates such as Black History Month or Eid? If not, could you form a group of likeminded individuals who want these dates to be celebrated? Together, could you create your own events to observe these occasions such as holding several events to showcase black culture during Black History Month?
Challenging companies
It is not enough for a global brand to donate to a black charity or publish a statement pledging solidarity with the black community. Make direct contact via email or DM and specifically ask them the following in response to their statement: (i) how many of their employees at executive and corporate levels are people of colour, (ii) how many POC are in senior staff positions, and (iii) which charities these brand support.
More acceptable
Volunteering your time for a black charity
Regular donations are vital for a charity to function, but it is even more important for non-profit charities to have a regular flow of willing volunteers prepared to help with tasks, such as preparing food to be served to homeless communities once a week. The difference that your actions can make, no matter how small, will always be valued more than you know and affect the lives of not only the people you help, but their loved ones as well. This is not activism in its entirety, but it is certainly a good start.
What everyone should be doing (and no, you do not get a pat on the back for this)
Challenging racism when it happens in front of you
Even if you do all of the things mentioned in this article and more, it will all mean nothing if racism happens in front of you. What is the point in posting a black square on your Instagram or signing a few petitions if you let your own friends and family say racist things without correcting them? If you are faced with ignorance and a deliberate hatred of a people because of the colour of their skin, take the time to educate them and explain why what they say is wrong, prejudiced and completely disgusting.
Don’t let it slide. Don’t let people excuse racism under the guise of 'edgy' humour. Argue with people that make racist comments or ‘jokes’ and don’t be afraid to be labelled ‘too sensitive’. You are not ‘too sensitive’ for pointing out factual errors or for not allowing someone’s offensive comments to go unchallenged. If they get defensive about their comments and can’t back them up, it is them who are too sensitive and ill-informed.
Challenge those who are deliberately provocative. Challenge those who preface every racist statement with, ‘well, just to play the devil’s advocate’ or ‘I’m not racist BUT…’. Have the conversation with your parents and family about how to discuss race so we don’t have to suffer any more than we already do because of your ignorance. Refuse to be passively involved and start making positively educating the people around you, because racism is far too regular an occurrence to simply ignore.
To summarise,
Remember, no matter what you do, make sure it isn’t a phase in your life. Supporting the black community isn’t something you experiment with for a week while protests are raging, it’s something you must continuously work at. You will make mistakes along the way and that’s okay, but I hope this article helped with any questions you may have been afraid to ask.