#1. If being an ally has NOT cost you comfort, convenience, or clout, you’re doing it wrong.

That’s lesson number one.

That’s where to start.

Don’t even bother considering yourself a true ally if your comfort, convenience, or clout has not been adversely impacted in some way.

Seriously. Don’t.

And that “cookie” you got from your “coonfused” Black friend doesn’t make you an ally.

It just makes you a cookie-holding fake ally.

Go ahead and let that cookie crumble.

John Brown is one of the historical archetypes for what a true ally is and for what a true ally does. If you don’t know about him, find out about him.

Thinking about him—and the countless others who fought tirelessly to the point of death—should provide a much-needed “perspective adjustment” for hurt feelings.

So…..about your comfort….it’s irrelevant. Lay it on the altar.

About your convenience….it’s irrelevant. Lay it on the altar.

About your clout standing….it’s irrelevant. Lay it on the altar.

Do you know what IS relevant?

Sanctioned pattyrollers pumping 60 bullets into a Black man two years after this nation’s self-proclaimed “racial reckoning” and it receiving less outrage than my use of the term “melanin-deficient.”

Some Background Before the Next 4 Mini-Lessons

Disrupting narratives and speaking truth to power were never meant to be acts of courage that could get one…

denounced

ostracized

disciplined

shadow-banned

fired

disappeared

dead

And yet here we are.

“Thanks” to conditioning and programming……

keepers of truth

safe-guarders of truth

tellers of truth

followers of Truth (capital T is deliberate here)

are viewed as…..

hateful

dangerous

divisive

racist

unpatriotic

traitorous

These labels put a target on our back.

To this country’s shame, Black folks have always had a target on our back, and so this life is not new to us.

We have studied this “beast system” and its worshippers our whole life, and so we know what’s coming.

There is not a thing going on around us right now that’s not connected. For example, Texas’ “failed bid” to replace the term “slavery” with “involuntary relocation” was a “dress rehearsal” for what’s coming. The “beast system” is constantly conducting “trial runs” to see what will pass muster.

What Texas tried to pull is as much a “trial run” as was January 6.

Pay attention.

Sanctioned “uneducation” plays a big role in what’s coming.

And because we are steadily losing daylight, we can’t continue to waste time coddling “good white people” and begging them to get their act together.

Now…Let’s Get on With the Rest of the Mini-Lessons

#2. Being a for-real ally isn’t the absence of falling down; it’s the determination to decide, and to keep on deciding, to get back up and keep going.

You will mess up.

Progress is not about perfection.

It will be uncomfortable.

No physical or spiritual muscle grows without being stretched.

You will be tempted to get defensive.

Take a pause and—for the love of a good home perm—resist the urge to fire back at someone whose lived experience entails being on the receiving end of racism. Suck it up and stay with it. No hurt feelings you experience will ever compare to the daily brutality and inhumanity of racism. 

#3. If you’re giving racism a “safe haven” in your home, stop “fronting” at work and stop performing on social media. You do not have what it takes yet.

The family is a primary breeding ground for the production and reproduction of racists and bigots. In particular, white families are cranking out young white male mass shooters faster than Wells Fargo can devise schemes to continue discriminating against Black folks.

It’s neither “not a big deal” nor excusable when Uncle Bob or Grandma Bettie makes a racist or bigoted joke or comment.

It’s deadly.

It’s violence.

And you are condoning it when you don’t interrupt it.

You are enabling that “proud tradition” to continue in your family.

#4. If you want to change the world so there’s equity and justice for all, you have to want yourself to be changed. Changed people change things.

Prospective clients sometimes approach me with a desire to change policies and practices. But they overlook that it’s the people in charge of the policies, the people interpreting the policies, and the people applying the policies that are in need of change.

Policy change without self-work is not sustainable for the long-term.

There is no substitute for self-work.

Don’t overlook the obvious.

#5. DIY allyship always fails.

You don’t know what you don’t know.

And here’s a newsflash…

Black people and non-Black people of color have more expertise on racism and the system of whiteness than you do. We’ve had to navigate both all our life from childhood. The higher the melanin-level, the greater both the targeted hate directed at us and the greater our “expertise” tend to be. Anti-Black racism is a thing. Colorism is a thing. IYKYK.

Part of the “advantage” of being racially classified as white is…

• not having to know a thing about Black people and non-Black people of color….
• not having to know how the system of whiteness works…
• not having to acknowledge that there IS a system of whiteness that oppresses and marginalizes melanin-enriched people.

The system underwrites and subsidizes your ignorance if you’re white.

How do you know if you’ve fallen into the DIY allyship trap?

Here are a few clues…

• if you believe that DEIB education is the same as anti-racism education (NO)
• if you believe that reading a book makes you an ally (NO)
• if you believe following and viewing the posts of anti-racism educators on social media make you an ally (NO)
• if you believe that white educators can speak on the lived experience of racism (NO)
• if you believe that Obama was proof that things are not as bad as Black people say (NO)
• if you believe that sexism (or any ism or phobia) is basically the same thing as racism (NO, NAH, NEE, NON, NEIN, NYET)

Are You an Intentionista™ or an Impactivist™?  

/Intentionista/ noun. One who talks a “good game” and puts on a “good show” while attempting to blow “sweet-smelling smoke up the asses” of others.

/Impactivist/ noun. One who consistently translates intent into concrete actions that make the difference.

There are way more “Nicodemus’ in the dark” than there are “Stephens before the assembly.” IYKYK

To all the “secret anti-racism allies” (no such thing, btw) on this platform……

Especially those who found value in last week’s Ally-ish edition.

Here’s a Call-to-Action

I’m extending an invitation to apply to join True Anti-Racism Allies Academy. It’s not for everyone, and it’s certainly not for non-serious folks. If you want to dive deeper and have support and guidance for the journey, if you want to be an impactivist™, then this is the community for you.

Some of you will brush off the call-to-action and conclude that it’s not for you, but rather it’s for those other people who have it “less together” than you. Have a few minutes? Take the Ally Challenge consisting of 10 multiple-choice items and see how you do. I can’t think of a single person on this planet that doesn’t have something to learn….and unlearn.

For those desiring to roll up their sleeves and get to work…

We “ride at dawn” on August 1.

You in?