WRIGHT: Check your white ally complex
I would like to preface with a kind-hearted “Thank You” to the white women and men who do not make it their jobs to be seen as some savant solely because they think Black people deserve equality.
My title refers to all the white people who have recently begun to see how Black people are treated in the real world and not the white figment of reality that goes on in their heads.
This year alone the white ally complex was more evident than any other time in my years of life. In the Twitter-sphere, the term "performance activist" was a big buzz-word, with white people left and right being allies to this exact term.
From March to this specific point in time, I wholeheartedly see this performance coming into play in many facets of my life.
In classrooms, I see this performance ten-fold. As a africana studies minor at Rutgers, I have noticed that a lot of my classes in my minor have a larger ratio of white faces. Even within some of the organizations I am apart of have this uprising of white “participation” or at least the low-hanging fruit of “support” being thrust upon us.
This newfound “wokeness” of my white peers is one that seems not only performative, but also very disrespectful to the actual causes of these student-run organizations and classes. The disrespect is felt solely because not only have these classes and organizations been right under their noses for these times being at this University, but it also brings about that weird space between actual “wokeness” and “performative activism,” with the latter feeling more fitting for this space.
In the media, performative activism seems more prevalent now than years past. The NFL putting “END RACISM” (exactly like that) on its football fields, approximately five years after blackballing former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick from the the league, is peak performative activism in regards to media.
This is followed by the interlocking of arms between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans to show some “unity” right after both teams stayed inside the locker rooms not only during the playing of the the troublesome U.S. national anthem, but also the Black American and NAACP national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
The performances by the NFL in this first week alone show to me that there is a lot of tone deafness among white leaders in the front offices of the NFL that are disseminated onto these other white humans, who think they are actually making change by not thinking, “Hey Black people are inferior” or “Black people should not be killed by the police,” It is all a part of their performance.
The performance then leads onto my aforementioned white ally complex.
The white ally complex is this idea that since you think Black people deserve equality, you are automatically an “ally,” or since you take one africana studies class your senior year after being at a school for three years, you are somewhat qualified to be an “ally” to Black people. In layman's terms, it is a mixture of performative activism mixed with a superiority complex all gift wrapped with condescension, topped off with a white bow.
Could you imagine if in World War II all the United States did was say, “Hey you guys with those red swastika patches on your arm, stop being mean to the Jewish people,'' and ended the conversation there and then called themselves “allies.”
Allyship is something that is necessary in the advancement of minorities into the majority, but the allyship being some sort of act for self-gratification is something that is being seen all over now.
To be absolutely clear, I am not saying every white human who claims to be an “ally” is a bad person or they have white ally complex. I am just asking for more from our “allies.” It is not enough to slap “BLACK LIVES MATTER” on the streets of cities and towns or get an “F” in an africana studies course or go to your first general body meeting of a Black Organization while it has been under your nose for years.
It is actually getting involved, staying involved and being genuine to the Black women and men whose space you consume and coexist in.
And every once in a while sit back and ask yourself, “Why am I doing this”? If your answer is to look like the one cool white guy among your Black peers, then you are doing it all wrong.
Amir Wright is a School of Arts and Sciences senior majoring in journalism and media studies and minoring in africana studies. His column, "The Black Light," runs on alternate Fridays.
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