I'm about to start screaming at people in my office. The guy who sits next to me has started an office fantasy football thing. So for the past FOUR DAYS it's been all football, all day, all at full volume. The woman who sits on the other side of him yells - her normal tone of voice - usually with her mouth full of food. Between the constant distraction - and yesterday my boss was standing at my desk trying to talk to me and I COULDN'T HEAR HIM TALKING - and the fact that I don't like football to start with, I am ready to start screaming.

And the local BLM groups are becoming more vocal in my area. One of my good friends is the director of communications for a community action group. She just texted me that they've blocked a few white allies because they "don't understand the narrow prescribed role for whites in this movement... we don't need anyone but strong black people." I'm trying really hard to understand how this is going to make anything better. I cannot fathom what their lives are as POC, and I can only try to support them in whatever way they need support, but I'm struggling with this. I understand they're angry, but how is alienating people who want to help helpful?

I think there is a level of frustration with both white allies wanting, often subconsciously, to walk in and take over, and also with white fragility, that you have to read in to these interactions. Similarly to how women are often tasked with both doing their own part and to be emotional caretakers of men in discussions of sexism.

White people, even the most well meaning and genuine allies, are frequently just not that good at letting someone else take center stage. (Hell, look at that language I just used - letting. Maybe better to say "not that good at recognizing that someone not them belongs center stage".) So well-meaning ally becomes something that actually drains some energy and requires tending and feeding and why?

There are resources out there with recommendations for how white people can be allies in a way that doesn't take roles or energy from the people actually impacted. Or that can be even more effective - is a white face at a BLM demonstration more or less effective than a white person learning to recognize when and how to push back on their families and (mostly white) communities when they see racist or otherwise problematic behaviors?

More political than I like to get here, but bottom line, I think as people who want to be genuine allies, we need to be okay with being made uncomfortable and with not being a priority once in a while, and find our own channels.

ETA: I was heartbroken when at about age 18 or 19 I had a chance to meet Betty Shabazz and got smacked down for turning the conversation to what white people could do to help. It took me a long time to really get what she meant, and absorb it.

Timelies all!

Typing one handed because of baby.

Health~ma to your mom, DC.

I think brenda has the heart of it here.

Health~ma to your mom, DC.

Well put, brenda.

Maria, I hope your cat's diagnosis is something manageable.

brenda's point is very valid. I also think that the rhetorical positioning of white allies as explicitly and expressly marginal voices in the movement is pretty effective at making its own point about the power gained by marginalizing others. And I'd say that the message is primarily aimed at POC, not whites.

Relatedly, this seems like a good time for me, hippy dippy white liberal that I am, to 'fess up to the fact that I dislike and resist the term "ally." I'm okay with other people using it to label me, but I don't want to label myself that way. I'm just going to continue to be who I am, and to raise my voice where I think it's appropriate for me to raise it, and raise my kids with the values I believe in. I've spent a long time thinking about why it bothers me, and I think it comes down to the way it overtly maps the language of war onto other kinds of interactions and exchanges. Sure, okay, in an explicitly political interaction I will overtly position myself as an ally, but in day to day interactions, I don't want to be burdened with the imagery of war and conflict.

Suzi, that's a great vote of confidence, and yet, why would you want a position he's just described as horribly frustrating.

Ginger, stay safe, okay. That's too close.

Matt, no, it isn't wrong at all. Totally understandable.

eta wrote the above hours ago and just hit Post.

brenda, well said, and Burrell, thanks for articulating why the word "ally" feels uncomfortable.

Sympathy and fist bumps to those feeling overwhelmed. I'm taking vacation next week, and although I've worked overtime this week (and last, and the week before...) to get ready, work is still not ready for me to be away for five whole days. I don't know what I'm going to come back to, but I need those days away.

YES, brenda. Thank you.

to 'fess up to the fact that I dislike and resist the term "ally."

Oh lord, yes. Along with the points you made, it positions allies as separate - it's not our issue, you know, we're just good people who ally with you.

I like the term "decent human being" in place of "ally."