Reflections on First Studio Session #UnboundEq
I just listened to the first live studio session of the Equity Unbound online course organised by Maha Bali, Catherine Cronin and Mia Zamora. It's so nice to hear peoples' voices - there is so much more you can gather from people's voices than from engaging with them in writing; their backgrounds, their personalities, their sense of passion, engagement and humour.
What stayed with me most, beyond the richness of what was shared, is their question around allyship, the roles of allies in the fight for social justice. This is a topic I have recently been forced to engage with. South African higher education has gone through hectic times over the last few years - the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall movements have opened up spaces for important but difficult conversations around transformation, equality, and the role of academia and academics in today's world. What I am most struggling with is the role of white academics in this space. What does it mean to be an “ally” in the context of decolonisation? Is there a role for us? Should there be a role? And if yes, what would such a role look like? What is my own position as white, middle class female academic, deeply concerned with social justice issues, in the decolonial project in higher education in South Africa?
I have recently written a chapter about this, a narrative reflection on the last few years. I came up with four main points for white allies in higher education:
What stayed with me most, beyond the richness of what was shared, is their question around allyship, the roles of allies in the fight for social justice. This is a topic I have recently been forced to engage with. South African higher education has gone through hectic times over the last few years - the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall movements have opened up spaces for important but difficult conversations around transformation, equality, and the role of academia and academics in today's world. What I am most struggling with is the role of white academics in this space. What does it mean to be an “ally” in the context of decolonisation? Is there a role for us? Should there be a role? And if yes, what would such a role look like? What is my own position as white, middle class female academic, deeply concerned with social justice issues, in the decolonial project in higher education in South Africa?
I have recently written a chapter about this, a narrative reflection on the last few years. I came up with four main points for white allies in higher education:
- Stepping Back and Calling Out
- Listening to Others
- Recognising that White People Set up White Spaces
- Continuous Self-Reflexivity
The first two are pretty obvious: first and foremost white academics interested in the project of transformation must step back and start listening to others. As Sevenhuijsen asks us to do: to retreat to make space for the other. What that exactly means is deeply personal. It can mean consciously drawing others in in meeting, holding one's own voice / position back, letting others present, moving your name to the end of a co-authoring sequence. It might mean to wait and be asked to step in when necessary, to do your work more among white colleagues, to understand, that we might not have the answers needed anymore (nor the questions).
But something that was said in the studio session struck me - even if we are stepping in as allies, we might be causing violence. That's my third point. And this is where allyship gets tricky. There are strong voices in the decolonial debate who challenge the notion of white allyship, arguing that there danger of involving white allies in the fight against white supremacy. Rigby and Ziyad for example have strong views about the impossibility of separating whites from Whiteness and that Whiteness cannot operate in any way that does not first perpetuate white supremacy. They claim that this inability to step back and listen can derail the process, take centre-space and thus re-centre Whiteness “[b]ecause for white people ‘to do’ anything means that Whiteness must be centered in a way that would perpetuate its oppressive essentiality”. The more I get involved in this kind of anti-racist or decolonial work the more I see the difficulties of boundary crossing / of working across difference. It needs huge emotional labour on both sides, but even more so on the side of people of colour. Can we continue benefitting from the work our colleagues of colour do in order to learn more?
Making ourselves vulnerable - one of the final points that were made in the studio session becomes extremely important. Being a white academic ally means never allowing ourselves to be comfortable, being hyper-aware and upfront about who we are, our own intersectional subjectivities, and how this impacts on who we teach, write and do research with, who we supervise and who we invite into projects or who invites us into projects. Na Shai Alexander tells us that “Developing as an Ally is a skill that doesn’t happen overnight; it comes from engaging in open conversations, asking questions, recognizing your own biases and blind spots, and stepping out of your comfort zone”. Again this means relying on our friends, colleagues of colour to call us out when we mess up.
How to find a way to allow myself to feel the pain Whiteness inflicts on people of colour and at the same time feel compassion for our continued failings, our white guilt and shame is what I trying to do. I recently stumbled across one of James Baldwins's quotes on how to tackle racism and white supremacy (although he calls it the 'Negro problem'): “White people...have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this -- which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never -- the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed.”
Is that all we need? To start loving ourselves?
Is that all we need? To start loving ourselves?
