Lessons from my personal allyship journey
Happy Chanukah to those who celebrate! I hope the first candle brought you some warmth and cheer last night.
Thanks to our fantastic participants, we raised over $400 for SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective through our December effective allyship workshop! I chose SisterSong as the beneficiary because they played a pivotal role in my personal allyship growth. As we close out 2022, I’m sharing more about that growth below, and offering questions to consider as you think about ways to grow your allyship practice in 2023.
My journey with SisterSong and allyship
I first learned about SisterSong ten years ago, when I was working at Planned Parenthood (PP). At the time, I saw PP as the the pinnacle of the feminist movement. Shortly into my tenure, a few PP leaders (all of whom were white) stated in an article in the NY Times that they thought moving away from the pro-choice label would help the movement become more inclusive and successful. In response, they received an open letter from SisterSong, co-written with other reproductive justice (RJ) movement leaders (primarily women of color). It noted that PP had failed to give the RJ movement credit for its long-term work to develop this strategy (and the term for it). In making this omission, the authors said, PP had perpetuated “the co-optation and erasure of the tremendously hard work done by Indigenous women and women of color (WOC) for decades.”
This was my first time learning the term reproductive justice, coined in 1994 by WOC leaders as, “The human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.” What a powerful way to illustrate the critical interconnectedness of all forms of systemic oppression.
Before this letter, I’d never thought much about the racial history of the feminist and reproductive rights movements. I felt embarrassed and ashamed realizing this. How had I not made the connection when thinking about PP’s predominantly white leadership history? How much harm had I caused through my ignorance? I started to notice how many of the leaders and organizations I admired/followed were white or white-led. So I became a monthly donor* to SisterSong to follow their work more closely.
That was the beginning of a bigger shift: Today, ten years later, the vast majority of organizations I give to, volunteer with, follow on social media, and look to for analysis on issues I care about are run by WOC–mostly Black women–who have been the longtime backbone of progressive organizing. And I hope that in another ten years, I’ve learned new ways to live my values that I can’t even imagine yet today. I wish this for you, too!
Questions to consider in your own allyship practice
In service of this vision, I invite you to take a look at which public figures you admire and look to most frequently.
Who runs the organizations you donate to, follow on social media, or look to for analysis on issues you care about? Who authors the books and articles that have shaped your thinking on the issues that matter to you?
Are they representative of the demographic communities that are most impacted by those issues?**
Do these people and organizations have a long legacy of grassroots work on the issues? (Or did they jump in only when the issue became trendy, co-opting the work of others to make it more palatable for your consumption?)
In January, we’ll share some tips for a framework that can help you answer these questions and make an action plan based on your answers. Join our email list get those tips sent directly to you.
Warmly,
Natania