The Importance of Being a Productive Ally
Desmond Tutu, a South African civil rights activist, once said “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, then you have chosen the side of the oppressor”. This quote acts as a guiding influence in my life. During my semester abroad in Cape Town, South Africa, I learned the narrow lens I was viewing the world from. My semester abroad truly opened my mind to the depth by which I benefit from white privilege. White privilege, as defined by Christine Emba, an opinion writer for the Washington Post, is “the level of societal advantage that comes with being seen as the norm in America, automatically conferred irrespective of wealth, gender or other factors. It makes life smoother, but it’s something you would barely notice unless it were suddenly taken away — or unless it had never applied to you in the first place.”
When I arrived in South Africa, the students were just returning from winter break. The previous semester included the rise to the powerful “Rhodes Must Fall” movement, a protest movement that originated to protest the statue of Cecil John Rhodes in the middle of campus. Rhodes Must Fall describes itself as "a collective movement of students and staff members mobilizing for direct action against the reality of institutional racism at the University of Cape Town." (rhodesmustfall.co.za) After spending time both at the university and within the city of Cape Town, I more deeply learned about the problems that influenced this movement.
While abroad, I was enrolled in AXL2102S, Gender and the Politics of Development. In this course, we learned about the importance of intersectionality, and specifically how it effects women of color. Intersectionality is a term first coined by black feminist theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw, in her 1989 essay “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” Intersectionality identifies the intersection of discrimination when it cannot be described in legal terms such as ‘sexist’ or ‘racist’, but instead, is a single word that identifies that one individual can face multiple and related oppressions, such as the fact that black women are oppressed both due to their race and their gender.
The entire course some how related back to intersectionality, and I found myself applying the concept in every paper I submitted of the course. In this paper about food sovereignty, women are effected based upon location, socioeconomic status, race, and more. This highlights the effects of intersectionality on all social issues. As my within the classroom artifact, I have attached a paper I submitted about the link between food sovereignty and corporate power. The influences of intersectionality are prominent in this paper. During the course, we also discussed the implications intersectional inequality had on the South African education system, specifically higher education. My American friends and I listened to our classmates as they discussed their life experiences in a world vastly different from the one we grew up in in the United States. As the semester progressed, so did our interpretations of the world around us.
Towards the end of the semester, universities across South Africa announced that fees would be increased by 10% for the following school year. The semester had been somewhat quiet in regards to protesting, and suddenly protests began at every university, and they were severe enough that many universities across the nation shut down completely. Many local, South African students live in small townships without access to running water, let alone being able to afford college tuition. They cannot find jobs because there are no jobs available, and yet the countries unemployment rate is 26.7%. Examining this issue further, almost 40% of blacks in South Africa are unemployed while only 8% of whites are. As a white American, I was an outsider. I am one who benefits from the historical discrimination that the students were protesting. I felt an obligation to be an ally and show support. My fellow study abroad students and I decided to attend the protests, but walk in the crowds. We showed solidarity with the movement while being careful to not make it our story. We tried our best to listen, to learn, to understand, to take even the smallest actions to address and combat our white privilege head on. In this situation, my role as an ally was to acknowledge the issue and show support.
While studying abroad, I blogged for the USC Study Abroad Office. When I came home, I chose to continue a private blog, mainly because I needed an outlet to critically engage with society. I use this blog as an outlet to discuss intersectional inequalities as well as a variety of other controversial social issues. This blog is one of many actions I have taken to combat complacency that often comes with privilege. As my beyond the classroom artifact, I have attached one specific blog post that I wrote in Spring 2016 about combatting white feminism for a more intersectional feminism. Here are the links to both blog websites, also!
http://adrianna-scstudyabroad.tumblr.com
http://critically-engadri-ing.blogspot.com
During my previous research involving prison and incarceration trends around the world, as well as my current research involving the effects of parental incarceration on children’s education, I have discovered indisputable facts about inequality within the incarceration system. Three out of every 100 children in the United States have a parent who is incarcerated, but one out of every eight African American children have an incarcerated parent (Munson and Frabutt 2006). This fact alone highlights the disproportionate rate in which African American individuals, specifically African American males, are incarcerated. This fact not only effects these men, but also effects the well-being and future of their families, specifically their children. According the Kristin Turney, an academic from UC Irvine, “Incarceration is likely compounding the disadvantages [the children of poor people and racial minorities face, setting them further behind, and contributing to racial and social class inequalities in children’s health” (Scommegna 2014). Lastly, the very individuals who are supposed to be the main advocates of children, their teachers, seem to have an unconscious bias against children who have an incarcerated mother. If the teacher knows about a child whose mother is incarcerated, that teacher is more likely to think that the child is less capable then their peers (Habecker 2013). It is stigmas such as these that influence the fact that parental incarceration lowers the odds of a child completing high school by 50%, and lowers their educational attainment by .33 standard deviates (Habecker 2013). In this research, I have found the severe need for allies in two places. First, who is advocating for the minority individuals, specifically African American males, who are incarcerated at a disproportionate rate compared to white men who commit the same crimes? Second, who is advocating for their children, who face countless obstacles due to parental incarceration? Lastly, there is an intersection between these two concepts. In 2004, 63% of federal inmates were also parents to minor children. This number is even higher for African American males. The intersection of their oppressions; their often disproportionate incarcerations, lack of support, inability to see their children in many cases, and the effect on the child, makes me wonder what my role as an ally should be in this situation. As a white American female with no personal experience involving parental incarceration and with no friends who have experienced this, I must find a way to advocate for these individuals and their children without personalizing this advocacy to myself. This comes with listening, learning, and understanding which rehabilitation or current policy programs are effective and which are not, and why.
Since Donald Trump was elected President of The United States of America, many marginalized groups have expressed fear due to policies and rhetoric he supports. On January 21st, The Women’s March on Washington took place, and I drove to Washington D.C. from USC to attend. I held a sign that said “I March for Equity”, and listened to phenomenal speakers discuss their own experiences with inequality. One speaker stood out to me. Her name is Tamika D. Mallory and she was a Co-Chair for the Women’s March. She is also a nationally recognized civil rights leader and anti-violence activist. During her speech, she said “To those of you for the first time felt the pain of my people who were brought here with chains shackled on our legs, I say to you ‘Welcome to my world. Welcome to our world. I stand here as a black woman, a descendant of slaves…Through the blood and tears of my people, we built this country…Today you may be feeling the grief, but know that this country has been hostile to its people for a long time. For some of you it is new, for some of us, it is not so new at all”. Tamika’s words resonate with me, because they send a clear message. Many of the women who attended the march, white American women, disregarded the pressing intersectional issues that women in our society have faced for generations. Our complacency and disregard for these truths only further perpetuate the problem. To be a productive ally, myself and my fellow white citizens must hold ourselves and others accountable for actions that perpetuate these systems of injustice. Today, I try to address situations of injustice with more than silence, but this process is complex. I am constantly learning.
Within the Classroom Artifact: Essay submitted in AXL2102S discussing the links between Food Sovereignty and Corporate Power. One can see intersectionality at play in this paper.
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Beyond the Classroom Artifact: Blog post discussing the dangers of 'white feminism' and the importance of intersectional feminism
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