Racial justice allyship requires civil courage
Williams, Faber, Nepton & Ching, (2023) published “Racial Justice Allyship Requires Civil Courage: A behavioral prescription for moral growth and change” in American Psychologist.
Here’s an edited impact statement and abstract:
Racial justice is an important goal for the well-being of racialized people globally. However, most Americans, psychologists included, find it difficult to align their values and intentions with actions. This paper offers a frank discussion of the issues of shame and discomfort that often surround issues of racial injustice and describes cognitive-behavioral approaches for cultivating civil courage.
In racialized societies, race divides people, prioritizes some groups over others, and directly impacts opportunities and outcomes in life. These missed opportunities and altered outcomes can be rectified only through the deliberate dismantling of explicit, implicit, and systemic patterns of injustice. Racial problems cannot be corrected merely by the good wishes of individuals—purposeful actions and interventions are required. To create equitable systems, civil courage is vital. Civil courage differs from other forms of courage, as it is directed at social change. People who demonstrate civil courage are aware of the negative consequences and social costs but choose to persist based on a moral imperative. To enable growth and change, we introduce ten practical exercises based on cognitive-behavioral approaches to help individuals increase their awareness and ability to demonstrate racial justice allyship in alignment with valued behaviors. We explain how these exercises can be utilized to change thinking patterns, why the exercises can be difficult, and how psychologists and others might make use of them to expand the capacity for civil courage in the service of racial justice.
They cite a claim that racial justice allyship applies to “individuals who have started the process of seeing, acknowledging, self-educating, [and] proactively implementing racial justice. . . . [they] understand institutional racism and White privilege, reflect on their own racism, work in solidarity with people of color and, critically, ‘encounter resistance from other White individuals’.” I want to summarize their 10 practical exercises they recommend:
1) Mapping relationships: Support network diagram
You identify those whom you could turn to in times of need – by intimacy, race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and religion; its purpose is to view your social networking and the degree to which you live in a segregated world;
2) Who is lucky? Chance versus effort
You identify the times in your life when you’ve been lucky, trying to get to 10 examples, then label what percentage of your luck was due to opportunity and what to effort;
3) Honestly assessing dislikes
Identify three types of people you typically avoid using appearance or stereotypes, find images on the internet of them, and reflect on why you avoid them. Next, you go out of your way to strike up a brief, friendly conversation with someone you would typically avoid;
4) Talking about race with a colleague of a different race
Find a willing colleague for a discussion about racialization. Before beginning, each person writes what they expect, then compare notes after the conversation;
5) Visiting a place of worship of a race or ethnicity different from your own
The rule is to go alone and experience being a cultural outsider;
6) Assessing one’s own racial identity
Write your own racial identity, then your own positive and negative associations with it – shame, embarrassment, stigma as well as appreciation and pride. They note that many White people don’t think of themselves as having a racial identity;
7) Defending convictions in a hostile forum
They mention that professionals should be careful where they do this but they suggest starting with a news site that permits comments, then find an ugly comment and respond anonymously in a “real-life situation as a conscious, self-aware, active bystander” with its purpose being to cultivate civil courage;
8) Challenging the status quo in the workplace
Most people are not risk takers at work, but this suggests asking questions about gender or diversity plans, current analyses of salaries by race, gender, position, etc. A further step might be to ensure the voices of the marginalized are respectfully heard.
9) Calling out bigoted behaviors of colleagues and friends
Such confrontations are part of civil courage by, for example, repeating back what a person said and asking what it meant, pointing out its effects on you and whether that was intended, and resisting any “but I’m not racist because . . .” by returning to what was said and its impact;
10) Choosing a more colorful, more integrated life
They note that you don’t need to move into a neighborhood with people predominantly different from you, but you can go to barbershop in a racially diverse or immigrant community, buy at a bodega run by people different from you, and socialize in a bar or café frequented by same sex couples.
In their discussion, they emphasize that most White children are taught that race is not to be discussed, with racial identity the elephant in the room in many households. “To be a White ally is to know, accept, and understand that, although you didn’t choose your identity, it gives you a special power in the US. . . . [L]ifelong experience gives you the eyes to see injustice and suffering and the empathy to make positive changes. You can choose to be a Spy in the House of the Unjust.” They speak to how psychologist educators and clinical practitioners can use these exercises, concluding that, “Creating a racially just society will require civil courage, willingness to stand up to institutions and processes that propagate harm, with the knowledge that doing so will surely have a social price but it is worth the cost.”