By Simone Lassar
It was a hot, sweaty day in St. Louis, Missouri. To be fair, all days in St. Louis are hot and sweaty, but this day was especially scorching.
This day was August 9th, 2014. The day Michael Brown died, and the day the world finally began taking notice of the injustices committed against young black men.
Fast-forward 14 months into the future, when I was visiting my family in a suburb outside of St. Louis. Driving from the metropolitan airport to the suburban town of University City, I was struck by the distribution of #blacklivesmatter signs. In the midst of polo shirts, collie dogs, and ivy-covered bricks, there were more homes than not showing support for the Black Lives Matter movement. These homeowners deliberately showed encouragement in their front yards, a space visible to all. This appears constructive, progressive, and very forward, but is it really?
There is no doubt that signs help the movement, but putting the signs in one’s front yard instead of contributing to the movement is not helpful.
Statistically, these suburban neighborhoods are populated by upper-middle class, white families. Yet these families are statistically the least likely to demonstrate in the Black Lives Matter protests. The signs allowed these people to outwardly appear supportive of the cause, but undermine the purpose of action in the movement. They act as a thinly veiled attempt to say, “I’m not like other white people.” This is a term known as “ally theatre”.
Ally theatre is detrimental because it’s all about creating a popular self-image. When you choose to only join a conversation when you have an expertly crafted comment that publicly conveys what a good person you are, that is ally theatre. When you use your identity as an alley to shield yourself from the criticism of others, that is ally theatre.
When you demonstrate how much of an ally you are in your front lawn, Facebook page, or Twitter, asserting that “I’m not like other white people” in order to get more likes, that is ally theatre.
Because I am like other white people. I have all the privilege and entitlement one gets from being born white. That doesn’t mean my life will be easy, but the does mean there are some struggles that I will never face. There are times I see articles harshly criticizing white people, and it takes all my self restraint to hold back from saying, “That’s not me, I’m not like that.” But to be blunt: I am like that. The system is setup to benefit me, and I cannot opt out of this. That is just how supremacy and privilege work.
Conversations about race are extremely difficult. Newton South is no exception, but it has done an outstanding job at tackling them. Last year faculty went through a training where they talked about respect for human differences, race, and white privilege.
Newton South is one of the only schools doing this in the entire state, which is fantastic, but does not make the problem disappear. There is an underlying “all talk, no do” mentality in terms of solidarity at South, and in Sophomore Speech.
Conversation is not enough; we must stop talking and start doing. So I am going to start doing. The power I hold, as of now, besides my inherent white privilege, is that you are a captive audience. An aspect of solidarity is recognizing that sometimes you need to hand your power over to someone else. So I hand my speech over to students and staff of color at Newton South.
Junior Kaelyn Brown says, “A lot of times people come and tell me I’m the whitest black person that they know, and that is something I find upsetting because South has a small black population, so it’s really discouraging for them to judge how all black people are based on a small percentage.”
Ms. Sumner, the Metco counselor, and advisor to the Black Student Union, elaborates on this point, saying, “It’s challenging feeling safe to be who you want to be, while having the pressure to represent the entire Black or Latino race.”
This idea is significant. It seems obvious, but one person is not a representative for their entire race. But when a student of color is part of an extremely small community, it is easy to feel like a spokesperson for one’s race.
Sophomore Tate Ross observes, “Having the feeling that you are the only black kid in the class can be stressful. Because there is no one you can talk to about the same things, or the same struggles that you might talk to a black person about.”
Ms. Sumner says, “It’s hard when you’re in the upper level classes, there’s only one student of color. When certain difficult conversations come up about slavery, if you’re the one African-American student everyone looks to you as if you’re the expert.”
She continues, “I was a Metco student, so I know what it was like to come from Boston. But it was just really hard to feel like this is my place versus they’re just letting me come here. We want it to feel safe for everybody, to really thrive and do well.”
This feeling of unbelonging is something everyone experiences in their lives, but it is amplified for students of color.
Still, this racist culture will not go away if we pretend it is nonexistent. As white people, we need to stop leading all the discussions on race, stop exercising ally theatre, and stop acting as a white savior. I know so little about the full extent of racism, and probably never will experience its full rage. But I can still work towards true solidarity, still use my privileges to broadcast a message, and still demonstrate support without signs in my front yard.
Because at the end of the day, is it really about the signs in our yards at all or is it about leaving the neighborhood of performance?
