How Can I Be a Good Ally?

In recent weeks, thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest in cities throughout the United States in response to the death of 46-year-old Black man, George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police. 

Floyd's death isn't to be viewed in isolation. Rather, the recent protests reflect a growing collective anger over the repeated instances of deaths of innocent Black People as a result of White police brutality, like 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot while jogging in February this year, or 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, who was shot in her apartment in March. 

As we absorb the horror of these events through our Twitter and Instagram feeds, it's easy - perhaps even tempting - to reinforce the perceived line of demarcation between the U.S. and Australia. 'What's happening over there is terrible,' we might say to a friend or a co-worker, as if racism is confined by jurisdictional borders. In fact, we often refuse to see racism for what it is: a boundless, infiltrative poison born from colonisation and sustained by ignorance and the domination of White People to the subjugation of People of Colour. 

We mustn't forget that on our own soil, Indigenous Peoples are often subject to extreme acts of racial violence (including death) by Australian police, and yet, the highly mythologised 'fair go' Australian narrative remains unmarred. Indeed, Australia has a long and bloody history of racism against its Indigenous Peoples, beginning with colonisation in 1788 and continuing into present day. Indigenous Peoples comprise just 3 percent of the Australian population but make up 27 percent of the prison population, and since 1991, a total of 434 Indigenous People have died while in police custody. This isn't a U.S. problem, it's a systemic racism problem, and the White People who amass the most social, political, and economic privilege and power must be held accountable. 

So, how can I contribute to the anti-racism cause? How can I go about supporting Australia’s Indigenous Peoples, in a way that is respectful, useful, and deferential to the specific needs and voices of those individuals? In other words, how can I be a good ally?

This is a tough question, one that ultimately is not up to me to answer. It is something that Summer May Finlay, an academic, writer, and Yorta Yorta woman, has previously explored in a 2019 edition of Reconciliation News. Finlay acknowledges that it’s tricky to avoid crossing that seemingly invisible line, a line which ‘takes you from being in the Aboriginal ‘good books’ to being on the shit list.’

Finlay says that being an ally means more than simply showing support through wearing an Aboriginal flag or doing an Acknowledgement of Country. It means preferencing Indigenous Peoples' voices and not speaking on their behalf, because to truly achieve self-determination, White Australians must support and work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples while allowing them to speak on the subjects that directly affect their lives. This also means recognising that there are some conversations White People simply shouldn’t participate in, as it is not our right to cherry-pick the ideas and proposals for change that suit us.

What I am ultimately learning from Finlay is that, as a White Person, I should never presume to fully understand the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, because (and this is something White structures of being don’t typically accommodate) it is not about me in relation to them; it’s just about them. Ultimately, there are some things I will simply never understand, because there is no version of the European imagination and no words of the English language that can adequately describe the Indigenous connection to country, but it’s not my place to garner a deep understanding of such things, anyway.

Being a good ally, then, means allowing Indigenous Peoples (and People of Colour generally) to dictate what they need in an ally, rather than what we think being an ally should look like. These needs might evolve, and they might require different levels of support and participation from us at different times, depending on the issue at hand. But essentially, it’s not a tick-box approach designed to make us feel better about ourselves; it’s about constant engagement with the issues at hand, and the moment you tell yourself that your work is ‘done,' you’ve already failed. The recent protests and outpouring of support for the Black Lives Matter movement have provided an opportunity to solidify our commitment to anti-racism. It is our job, as the benefactors of a privilege that historically has been reserved only for White People, to listen, to learn, to do the work, and to show up.