Conversations with Self

It has been just about a month since the US elections ended. The various reactions to the results have been interesting, to say the least. Of course, the calls for self-introspection and a rethink of certain policies on the Democrats’ side were the loudest.

Amongst the most unexpected things that happened during this election was that Latino men voted in larger than expected numbers for Trump, the same man who has been riling up his base, promising he’d deport Latinos from the US, regardless of whether they came in legally or illegally. This has led to Kamala Harris’ supporters lash out at them, some even going to the extent of wishing they get deported at the earliest.

Another set of Harris supporters declared that they can finally go to Starbucks again, since the supporters of Palestine and the people of Gaza probably did not vote for Harris (there is no real data to confirm this).

This one made me a bit mad, I must admit.

To give you some context, Starbucks sued its union for copyright infringement after they had posted a message of support for Palestine on social media. This triggered a backlash, and a boycott of Starbucks. I was amongst those who joined the boycott. It made sense to me while acknowledging the fact that it was less than bare minimum.

But after the election results, these people saying they’ll go back to Starbucks got me thinking about how shallow allyship is these days. If I asked someone from an oppressed community, they’d probably say it has always been shallow.

I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that there are people walking around in this world thinking they are allies to someone with far less privilege by avoiding coffee at a particular store. What’s worse is that these “allies” then feel they are owed solidarity and respect when they ask for their leader to be elected. This makes their original show of solidarity seem more transactional than anything else.

I come from privilege. I understand how easy it is to see those less privileged than you patronizingly. I’d feel good about “not seeing caste” or “treating women as equals”, and so on. But the moment I’d feel slighted by even one person from an oppressed community or class, I’d get angry, because “how dare they?!” The Hindi word “Aukaat” (loosely translates to “status”) comes into play in these conversations.

It has taken me years of unlearning to even acknowledge my privilege, let alone acknowledge the holes in what I considered allyship to be.

While growing up, particularly during the 90s in India, I have seen coalition governments where you’d have political alliances made or broken at the drop of a hat. Today’s allies were opponents the next year, and while it made for good, entertaining news coverage, it brought about a feeling that political alliances were mostly fragile and political parties led by egomaniacal people made alliances to either win or retain power.

So, to me, the word “ally” became to mean friends, for now. Completely transactional. Over the past few years, thanks to my interactions on social media, I’m beginning to realize how wrong I was. Before I go further, I want you to read this quote from Periyar.

“If a larger country oppresses a smaller country, I'll stand with the smaller country. If the smaller country has majoritarian religion that oppresses minority religions, I'll stand with minority religions. If the minority religion has caste and one caste oppresses another caste, I'll stand with the caste being oppressed. In the oppressed caste, if an employer oppresses his employee, I'll stand with the employee If the employee goes home and oppresses his wife , I'll stand with that woman. Overall, Oppression is my enemy”

In my opinion, allyship begins with the understanding of oppression. Understanding oppression also requires understanding of the context, which in turn requires empathy. I could be wrong, it may not be the same for everyone, and of course, I still have a lot more to learn.

But here are a few things I do that you can do to be a decent ally (in no particular order):

• Don’t call yourself an ally. It’s presumptuous and pompous. Are you sure that your allyship is even welcome? Ally is a title that is given to you, it’s earned through your actions, rather than declared by you.
• Listen. And listen with the intent to understand, not respond.
• Don’t tone-police. People are angry. They don’t need someone telling them how to express it. Also, remember that “decorum” and “being socially acceptable” are all tools of the oppressors to control the oppressed. If you are thinking, “I support Maori rights, but doing the haka in the parliament was disrespectful”, you’re being a bad ally.
• Learn to pass the mic. A lot of so-called allies make allyship their personality and sometimes start speaking on behalf of the people they support. Our privilege also makes it easy for us to find an audience that is willing to listen. If you find such an audience, pass the mic. Invite someone from the community you support to speak instead of you.
• Finally, and this is more generally speaking, don’t be an asshole. You avoiding Starbucks is not a “sacrifice”. Don’t look to score points for giving up a privilege.