Leah Bowshier, Copy Editor
As a white student on Asbury’s campus, I am part of the majority; as a white person in America, I am part of the majority. I have not personally experienced what it feels like to be in the minority, but I have come to recognize that I cannot sit idly in the background as if racial injustice is not something I should care about as well. As a member of the majority culture, I am now continually seeking out ways to be an ally to people of color.
An all-encompassing definition for being an ally is hard to establish, but Repair the World, a service organization with a focus on racial justice, describes an ally as “a person who actively supports and advocates for people who belong to marginalized, silenced or less privileged groups without actually being a member of those groups.”
Being an ally requires learning through discussions and asking questions even when it seems hard. “I think, on this campus, there is a unique experience to where we can directly go to people and have conversations and just grow and learn with each other,” said Demarion Johnson, secretary of Asbury’s Black Student Alliance (BSA). “So I think that is a first step — initiating conversation and just reaching out.”
These conversations can be intimidating, and it might be difficult to know the best way to approach some of these topics, but Stephanie Beltran, vice president of Student Intercultural Programs, encouraged asking “questions from a place of learning and a place of respect.”
At Asbury, students also have opportunities to be allies by learning about and experiencing other cultures through many on-campus events.
“I think the biggest way to be an ally is to participate in events, [such as] the Black History events that we will have,” said Beltran, “but we also … try to put out as many events as we can to try to bring cultural awareness and to advocate for different minority groups that are represented on this campus.”
Beltran explained that these events offer a time and space to “support our minority students and our intercultural students because, more often than not, they are the ones putting on the event — they are the ones who came up with the idea, and they want to show other people their culture.”
Along with learning more about minority cultures, allies can take advantage of their particular position and opportunity to reach the majority culture in ways that minority voices sometimes cannot. “[Allies] can be in the crowd of the majority culture, and then once they step out and they are an ally to the minority culture, they have the unique experience of touching that majority culture and pulling them alongside,” explained Johnson. “So it is just another way to lead by example — just reaching out and then hopefully others will see what is going on and try to become an ally.”
Beltran described how this role directly applies to Asbury’s campus. “This is a predominately white institution, and so more often than not, white students might have a bigger platform or might have different types of areas where they have a stronger platform,” she explained.
Both Beltran and Johnson emphasized the importance of this kind of advocacy and support from allies, but they explained that even when allies have good intentions, there are boundaries to be aware of as well.
“I think sometimes things that can go wrong are people trying to wear the problems of their minority peers — in the sense that I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘Aren’t you mad about X, Y and Z?’ when it’s like, ‘Well, I’m not mad about it, and I don’t understand why you should be,’” said Beltran. “They come from a great heart, and it’s understandable, but … I think [you should be] very careful with how you ally and where the boundaries are and making sure that you’re appreciating one’s culture and not just appropriating it.”
Johnson encouraged allies to make sure that they are fighting together with people of color, rather than “just telling the person of color, ‘You should feel this way; this is how you should handle it,’ without having any experience in that avenue.” This requires allies to focus on the people of color instead of their own feelings.
Making mistakes is inevitable even while trying to be a good ally, so allies should make sure that they are responding in the right way to correction from people of color in these situations. “The [response] to avoid is to just try to justify the statement,” said Johnson.
“I think the best thing to do is just to take ownership and be apologetic … and [listen] to why [something] offended that person because it all comes down to understanding,” said Beltran. “Then you can learn and make sure that won’t ever happen again … and take that person’s feelings and bring that to other majority students and other people of the majority culture and say, ‘Well, this does offend people, and this is why.’ You can … really teach other people about being an ally.”
Being an ally is an ongoing process that can be challenging to navigate at times, but it is necessary work for all of us in the majority culture. According to Beltran, “Being able to be an ally can … show that this isn’t just a minority issue. Some of these racial things going on in the world, some of the things we go through on the daily, isn’t just an ‘us’ issue — it’s an everyone issue, and it should be a human issue.”
