Aboard the Ally Ship

What we've gotten wrong about allyship

Recent events in Singapore have sparked a national conversation regarding our response to racism and how we can progress as a multi-cultural society, which is great. What is significantly less great and exponentially more boring is that it has also sparked plenty of opinion pieces that use unnecessary academic jargon just to tell you things like Race Is A Very Complex Issue and We Need To Have Conversations. Crucially, what minorities have been articulating during this period concerns the difficulty, if not almost impossibility, of creating conversation about race without being perceived as being too sensitive, or too abrasive. Instead of having honest conversations about this precise problem, many who claim to be allies have ironically chosen to respond with a resounding “We Need To Have Conversations!” because the issue is clearly that we do not have enough conversations and not the fact that we don’t listen when minorities speak.

Already we have a contradiction on our hands. We call for conversation, but somehow when it comes to listening, we become bad at it. What undergirds calls for conversation is ostensibly also a push for empathy, and the desire to develop mutual understanding, so why do our conversations about race seem to lack productive results if we are all on the empathy train? This is because empathy, as Elizabeth Segal, professor of Social Work with Arizona State University, points out, is not quite as simple a concept as we tend to think it is. In her essay, The Case for Empathy, Segal highlights what we’ve gotten wrong about empathy:

Empathy is not imagining how you might feel in the place of another. It is imagining and trying to understand what the other person feels. […] Empathy is other-focused, not self-focused. Someone with sociopathic tendencies can ‘read’ other people well and understand their emotions. But a sociopathic person reads others in order to manipulate or take advantage of that person. It is not empathy.

Since to be empathetic is to imagine and understand what the other person feels, being an ally, as something intuitively connected to our capacity for empathy, necessarily requires active listening on our part. To write this piece on allyship, I interviewed someone whose experiences of Singapore society are shaped by their status as a minority. Varsha, a very sweet almond that has taken on human form, kindly agreed to let me discuss allyship with them over a noisy Skype call, even though they are “in Cornwall, in a cottage, where the nearest grocery store is 3.9km away”. This interview is a little long, so I have structured it with three basic questions:

1) What is it to be a good ally?
(What is the nature of allyship?)

2) What is it to be a bad ally?
(How can we do better in our assumptions and interactions?)

3) How should allyship look?
(What are concrete ways to be better allies?)

What is it to be a Good Ally?

I began with the most obvious question of all, which is “what is it to be a good ally?” Often, we conceive allyship as a set of rules; don’t joke about race, don’t support racist television, don’t mock an accent. Yet, in Varsha’s responses, what comes across most strongly to me is the inherently dynamic and human-centred nature of allyship, which redefines allyship as the simple principle of treating someone as human, as cliched or cheesy that might be:

“I think the places people usually start with are online posts like ‘How to be a good ally’ and those are good places to start, but being a good ally is often dependent on the situation. In cases of people being a good ally for me, it means having an exact conversation about our own needs. People will have a lower and higher threshold for things, and even though some people have a lower threshold for what they perceive to be racist, that’s still valid. What it means is that if someone wants to be a good ally to me, they have to know what my threshold is.”

Frequently, in discussions on race in Singapore, people tend to cite instances of marginalised racial groups being unbothered by racist jokes or remarks as evidence that such behaviour is not problematic. The upshot of this seems to be: so why are you calling me out for this if other people are okay with it? And here is where being human and racism intersect. Racism is inherently dehumanising because it is characterised by its treatment of another person as less than human based on racial differences. Think about how Filipino women are often stereotyped as domestic helpers in Singapore; a Filipino professor once had to introduce herself to the class by saying “yes I am from the Philippines, and no not all of us are maids”. On one hand, it is true that there are many Filipino women who work as domestic helpers. But on the other hand, this stereotype is dehumanising because it associates Filipino women with an occupation whose work is frequently under-valued, and in so doing does not position Filipino women as human, but merely as an unenviable workforce.

With this in mind, the necessity for tailoring our engagement with the people we are trying to be a good ally to makes sense. It isn’t about whether other Indians or Malays are unbothered. Your friend is bothered and hurt by your remarks, and to see someone as human is to genuinely try to go about fixing the hurt that you have caused because you acknowledge that their pain is real and tangible. Furthermore, plenty of minorities have voiced their frustrations, and to rely on the excuse that you know some minorities who aren’t bothered, is not just logically untenable since the argument goes both ways (yes, but there are also people who are bothered), but continues to perceives marginalised communities as less than human because you refuse to grant validity to their experiences:

“So I think that often there are certain things where they are like universal rules, like listen to people actively, don’t undermine their experiences, don’t be defensive once someone calls you out for something, like those things are pretty common but often when it’s specific things, I feel that really it’s about asking the specific person like what their threshold is for things. So if you fuck up and you say ‘I’m sorry it’s on me’, you also need to ask ‘what do you need from me’ to the other person.”

Varsha also pointed out that much of treating another person as a human is often reliant on actual interaction with them. Without making the effort to reach out and engage with other communities, particularly already marginalised ones, the difficulty of seeing these groups as human increases:

“I think the other thing is also like, where I had this experience with a friend from the States. So they’re white and American, and this is from the U.S., and recently when I had some trouble with immigration stuff, they were kind of upset so they talked to their dad about it like ‘I don’t know if my friend is going to be able to stay in the country’, and their dad, who is a conservative and is against like more liberal immigration policies and stuff, said ‘oh they are such a nice person, I’ve met them and that’s so sad’. I think sometimes, for people who don’t really experience or have connections and friendships with people who are from more diverse backgrounds, they can literally just be conservative for their whole lives, but when they do have these experiences, they realise that oh these are people because I’ve met them and I’ve spoken to them. So that’s really baseline, but that’s a part of allyship, where you actually experience these people as part of your life and you realise the stakes, which feels very basic but is sometimes what is needed.”

What is it to be a Bad Ally?

At this point, I asked Varsha if there have been instances where people were not good allies to them, and their response again emphasised allyship’s connection with humanity. Specifically, to treat people as human is also to consciously make the effort not to privilege your own feelings, point of view, and guilt, and bad allyship is result of the failure to do so:

“I think that there are like more than several, probably. But I think that in the experiences I’ve had, more often than not, why someone comes across to me as a more performative ally, someone who kind of like says that they are for the sake of social media or to look like they are a better person, is usually when, because now I think with Twitter and things like that, ideas about what it means to be a good ally or ideas about social justice are more accessible, which is a great thing and it’s how I learned a lot of stuff, but coming with that is the idea that if you use certain words you are doing the right thing already. But I’ve encountered a lot of people who use the right words and say things like ‘oh I’m an ally I care about this group I care about that group’, but I see microaggressions and they are awful. They know this terminology, but when they interact with an individual for example, who is from a community that they’re not, they centre themselves and make it about themselves, which is the most common example of how someone can not be a good ally.”

“I’ve had instances in which I’ve confronted someone I’ve loved and cared about, and said to them ‘hey you messed up on this thing and here’s why’ and someone who’s not a good ally would come at that and be like ‘oh I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry IF you’re offended’ and kind of offer an explanation and low-key defend the action that they did, and so there is an apology there and the words are all kind of in the right places but it still feels hollow because you can tell it’s not genuine because they’re kind of protecting themselves and their actions first and they’re using their apology as a means to be like ‘oh I’ve apologised, so we’re good’ but I think allyship involves taking action to make sure your actions are different because allyship doesn’t mean perfection, no one asked for that, we’ve all been raised in the same societies that are messed up and I don’t think anyone expects perfection from anyone, but I think what good allyship looks like is if you’ve messed up, being like oh okay, I see where I’ve messed up and it’s on me, and I’m going to take the steps to make sure I don’t do that again because I know how much that hurts you.”

Upon messing up, allies tend to want to get information on why and how certain behaviours are considered problematic. But Varsha noted that what is often overlooked is how tiring and exhausting it is for you to ask marginalised communities to explain to you the pain that you have caused, despite your good intentions:

“If there is information that you could have that someone is not giving you, like see if you can just acquire that information by yourself, because usually when someone’s like ‘oh what did I do wrong’ and it’s a little obvious, it gets a little bit annoying where it’s like it’s really easy for you to find this information but it takes, as a person who is offended or hurt or even maybe dehumanised to a certain extent, to not only have to go through that but then have to weigh in further on why that is not okay, it’s kind of just like a burden on them that you’re placing. So as an ally, if there’s information in a situation that you know you can glean from another source like, Google is free.”

I asked then, about how difficult it is for them to confront someone in cases of bad allyship, and Varsha’s words go against the pervasive idea that the people who call you out necessarily dislike you or intend for you to feel uncomfortable. The opposite, where the act of calling out is an extension of friendship and kindness, is very much the reality instead:

“Oh like so hard! I think that it is extremely hard and can take a lot of time, is the truth. Because I’ve been in situations where I’ve been able to see that a person has done something wrong, but I agonize over it because it’s this whole cycle of when you’re in a marginalised community you think, because of the way you’ve been socialised, that you think you’re in the wrong first, no matter what. So like in the situation where maybe someone is even being blatantly racist, you’re like ‘oh but am I being too sensitive?’ because that’s what we’ve been told, particularly in the Singaporean context, where we’ve been told that we’re post-racial, that racial harmony exists and multi-culturalism exists. So when something like this crops up, you feel like it’s your fault initially, like that’s your first reaction because you’re like ‘oh I shouldn’t call out my friend who I love because what if I’m just being too sensitive?’ For me it’s really hard because first there’s self-doubt, then there’s oh I don’t want to hurt my friend, then it’s like oh how do I phrase this in a way that I don’t look too angry or crazy or whatever, because those are also stereotypes of people who call out things like this. I think overcoming all of those things to getting where you need to go in terms of telling someone that they’ve messed up is a really big part of why it’s really difficult and I guess the other thing that’s also difficult is that it takes time.”

Beyond the difficulty in calling someone out because of how much thought and consideration gets funneled into it, Varsha also pointed out that calling people out is frequently exhausting because humans have a tendency to make it about themselves:

“Truly it’s just about being I’m listening to you, I know I messed up, there is truly nothing that I can do in this situation to fix that and it doesn’t mean that we’re not friends anymore it doesn’t mean that I am always going to hold that against you. […] I think being a good ally is saying I messed up, and I cannot fix that and me thinking that I can fix that is a part of my own pride and ego. I’m digressing a little, but when allies who aren’t great about it centre themselves, they centre themselves because of their guilt, like they’re experiencing this guilt so they feel that they need some way to let it out — ‘oh I’m so sorry, oh I’m so sorry’ — kind of overdoing it to the point where it feels like oh is this about you or is this about me? Like this is something that I’ve needed to learn and have been told by my trans friends, for example, because there was a period in time where I had misgendered someone, and they called me out and I apologized a bunch and they were like ‘yeah that’s great, but oftentimes when you do that, it makes the person who is offended feel guilty, even though they were the ones who were hurt by you in the first place’. So it’s kind of like apologising, not defending yourself, saying that you’ll do better next time, and then moving on. Being short and sweet kind of, because for the person who is offended, that moment does not need your soap opera as an ally, is the truth. It’s more like ‘oh I was hurt in this moment, and I want to know if I can keep this connection with you and that you’ll do better’, because the truth is, I think, people think that being called out is because somebody doesn’t like them but the irony of that is, in my situation at least, I would not call someone out for something unless I cared about them. If someone did something messed up, I would just let them do something messed up because I don’t care about them. But if someone is valued to me, and I see them do that, then I would take the effort to call them out because I want to keep them in my life and I want to make sure we can work it out, so being a good ally is about decentring yourself and seeing the situation as this is not about me and my feelings, this is about the situation at hand and how I can repair my relationship with someone that I’ve hurt.”

I also asked Varsha if allyship in Singapore was problematic, because it tended to be couched in purely intellectual terms, wherein people only participate in allyship if convinced, rather than to listen and empathise first. In response, Varsha acknowledged the inevitability of requiring these intellectual spaces, but also pointed out that it could sometimes cross over into elitism, or place an additional burden upon the marginalised:

“I think more needs to be said about how often with these situations a person is often confronted with something that contradicts their entire worldview [...] I think there are spaces in which they can be guided through that because I don’t expect someone to immediately change their opinion in a second. I think that, for all intents and purposes, some people just need more convincing about other people’s humanity because society sucks, you know. So I think that there are spaces in which that can happen, but I don’t think that all marginalised people should have to bear the brunt of having to do that for people. Because I do think that people couch it in intellectual terms and that gets exhausting and stuff and that makes it hard for a lot of people to engage with it on a real level. For example, if someone really has believed a certain thing all their life and they believe in a certain logic, and you throw social justice terminology at them — it is a bit of elitism, you throw terms at them that they’re supposed to know and go like oh you’re a bad person if you don’t know this and that makes them more resistant to learn, actually. So I think that there are spaces who are in different spaces with this stuff to learn and engage, and there are spaces for people to be convinced, essentially, or to learn more and for people who are willing to learn more but don’t know what to do right now, but I don’t think that marginalised people should bear the brunt of doing that. And that’s why I think allies are important, because they can be there, if they have decided that this is what they want to pursue and help people with.

Specifically, I then pointed to the question of which areas in Singapore they felt like could do better in terms of allyship:

“I think that’s a complicated question because I personally have been in spaces where the people I’m close to and value have really stepped up to the plate in terms of being like, oh these things are really not okay. But I don’t know — I guess I’d just point to the areas that I’ve experienced — like with my own queerness and with being Indian Singaporean, and like a PR Indian for a while. I’m Indian Singaporean for the most part, and being queer, because these are both things that kind of came to a head when — cause I went to schools that are majority Chinese, and I went to schools that were Christian for the most part, so in those situations, it was like — I was one of the only people voicing the opinions I was voicing, or caring about the things that I was caring about, and it felt like there was like a lack of community or solidarity where people were like — because you’re just one person, kind of, in like the midst of these bigger structures, you’re kind of outnumbered in a sense, and in those ways I felt like structures were kind of against me, and people who were in these structures were kind of like, we’re comfortable here, so we’re not likely to budge. Like the first time I went to Pink Dot, I went by myself.”

“But like as the years went on, more and more friends were going, and I’d see more people that I recognized there. And I guess that’s an example of like — it’s taken people time to come to grips with things that I’ve known for a long time, that’s kind of like — inculcated a bit of bitterness in me when it comes to allyship, because it’s like where were you when this wasn’t popular to do? — you know what I mean? But at the same time I’ve known these things for a long time, because I’ve got more skin in the game, if that makes sense. It’s hard to paint this picture, but I know if I wasn’t in a similar position, I probably wouldn’t have cared as much, from the get-go, I guess. I’m at a point now where I’m more surprised, really, at how forthcoming people have been, to really like speak out against things, but I know it’s been a long time coming — so it’s complicated.” 

Given how the popularity of social justice among people our generation has led to better allyship, I asked Varsha, while referencing a tweet, if they thought that people who were allies now, would cease to lend their support for marginalised communities in the future:

“Oh yeah, I saw — it was from Ruby Thiagarajan, who’s the Editor-in-Chief of Mynah Magazine — she posted a really apt tweet, about this — basically she said that oh, a lot of you younger Singaporeans who are more privileged will go overseas to study, and when you’re overseas you’ll point out things about race, about LGBTQ+ issues, and you’ll be really active in calling these things out — oh, like racism exists; but when you come back to Singapore you’re going to take a consulting job that pays six figures and you’re going to be comfortable with your parents and you’re not going to change a thing about your life. She specifically says, you’re not going to ask your parents how much they pay their domestic workers, you’re just going to come home and chill. So I think it is really — I think a lot of people we interact with, or at least in the kind of bubble we’re in I guess, are college-educated or poly-educated I guess, are in a space where they are undergoing education, and where they get to realise things within a bubble, where all they really have to do is study, so you have more room to hop on the bandwagon of social justice. But then like I think the real test — and this is true for me as well — of like where your values lie and stuff comes as an adult, because you really have to start making decisions for yourself and your life, and you have to interact with systems where you’re like oh right, this entire company is built on things that I don’t agree with, but I need a job. So I think it is a really difficult position we’re put in as young people, who are coming to terms with the fact that the systems we have trusted our whole lives are actually not great, and have not really been built for us to succeed, but we still have to work in them. So I think there is a way to navigate these things, to do your part and be an ally in these times, but I agree it is a little more challenging, and it becomes less of a priority for some people, like they completely drop it.”

I asked Varsha a more painful question; if they could elaborate on the feeling of bitterness, seeing how people are only becoming allies now when it is easier to do so:

“I have that bitterness, but I also acknowledge that that bitterness could also be directed at me, because I’ve held some really problematic views about things in the past that I didn’t realise because of my identity. I think the biggest thing, and something that I’m working on, is my internalised elitism for sure, because growing up I’m from an extremely privileged background, socioeconomically, so I have had parents who could genuinely give everything in terms of education and background — like college and everything — and my mindset has been kind of inculcated. Growing up, I didn’t even know that there was a Normal stream outside of the Express stream. I just assumed that everyone went to primary school, went to secondary school, went to JC, and then went to college. I assumed that that was what every single person did. I was raised with a very elitist mindset, and it took me a lot of time to break out from that, and it took a lot of patience from my friends who weren’t as privileged as me to be like hey not everyone has the capacity to have environments to study all the time and it’s not just about meritocracy. So I think I had to be coached out of that by very patient people, where it’s like I can empathise in the sense of like oh I’ve had shitty views in the past and it took time for me to get out of them and now I’m in a place of realising, I mean I’m not perfect, obviously, and I’m so very privileged in a lot of ways and I’m learning that, but yeah I think even for the people who went up to me and were homophobic to my face, I think a part of me is like bitter, but there’s also a part of me that’s like oh good for you isn’t that kind of what we want in the end? So it’s kind of hard to balance those two things like you were hurt by some people in the past but who are different now, but it’s a good thing, it’s a good thing that people change, even if it’s like oh that took you a minute, you know?”

So far we had only spoken about bad allyship and how to grapple with that while still maintaining that relationship, along with how we moved forward from it, but we hadn’t yet discussed the other more troubling scenario: backlash from allies. I asked if they had ever experienced backlash from calling people out, and how they came to terms with cutting people off for racist and homophobic remarks:

“I mean yeah, definitely. I’ve lost a couple of friendships over it, is the truth. Like people have seen me as too angry, and too sensitive, and people have said that oh if you want to be someone who cares about social justice and want to convince people then you need to be this, this, and this.”

“Recently, in the wake of all the truelove.is stuff, there have been people who have told me that they feel uncomfortable cutting friends off for being homophobic, but when I really think about it I think it’s quite simply, like why would you want that connection to someone who is homophobic?”

Varsha returned to this question of cutting people off later on, stating that

“I think that the notion of, like, when other people here are like, oh you cut off someone because of their beliefs, I’m like — it’s not just about their beliefs, it’s how they feel about me — about me as a person. These big political things are tied to my personhood, and that might not be true for you, but it is for me. Because I think that’s what being part of the majority often is — having the privilege to view politics and issues, like bigger things, as just that — and it’s not things that affect your personal life and your everyday well-being. That’s why I think it seems as if cutting someone off for their politics is a very cruel, and like harsh and insensitive thing to do, but it’s like if it affects the way you see someone as a person then it makes it very difficult to retain that relationship.”

How Should Allyship Look?

As gleaned earlier, allyship does not require perfection, but I asked Varsha about what we could be doing better in terms of allyship in Singapore, and what that could look like in concrete terms:

“Maybe you have to be the person in the room who disagrees with the rest of the room. For example — you’re Chinese, and you’re with Chinese friends, and someone says something racist — even if someone who is non-Chinese is not in the room, to say ‘hey, that’s fucked up’, and it’s kind of like that’s what being an ally is, because these are the spaces in which racism continues to thrive because for some reason some people think it’s more acceptable to say racist shit when people of colour or people who aren’t Chinese aren’t in the room.”

“Someone told me that they had Chinese classmates who were using the n-word, and they were like, ‘hey, that’s not okay’, and they were like ‘oh, but there aren’t any black people in the room’, and that logic to me is wild, and makes no sense — but I think it’s that principle of — if you’re in spaces where you’re the majority and other people of the majority are essentially shit-talking the minority, you having the courage to stand up and say hey, that isn’t okay, is something that is really important. Because if you don’t, then you’re complicit, kind of, and that’s why if you feel like you can tolerate that or listen silently to that, but then the next day meet up with your friend who’s from the minority and just be like oh, isn’t it messed up that they did that? And I’m like yeah it is, why didn’t you say something?”

Then, I asked Varsha how important allies are to progress and social maturation, and if it was difficult to build better societies without them. Sometimes we might conceive of allyship as a matter of purely increasing numbers and support, but Varsha highlighted that much of it also has to do with an asymmetry in how marginalised communities and allies are perceived respectively, and what they are privy to:

“I think it is really important — like, it depends on the situation I suppose — but yeah, I think they are really important specifically in Singapore. We’re at the stage right now where, unfortunately, people who are experiencing these things, when they talk about them, are believed less than others. A Chinese person speaking out about racism against minorities is often more believed than a minority person, because it seems like people are like, oh, you’re biased, because you’re this, and I’m like, I would love not to talk about this; it brings me no joy to talk about this. So I think it is really important because we’re not in an ideal stage right now — we’re at a stage where some people are more believed than others. I’m not asking every Chinese person to write an op-ed, but if you see voices around you that are doing the work, amplify them. If you see situations in which you know something is wrong and you know the right thing to do, do it — speak up; things like that.”

“I think it is really important right now, because of this stage that we’re at, and I think there is a complication. I mean — it is complicated, because it’s like, to what degree do you feel like you can speak on these issues if they’re not a part of your identity. But at the same time, there are spaces — it’s not just about being listened to — there are literally spaces in which people who are not Chinese are not privy to; are excluded from. And those are the spaces in which Chinese people are; those are the spaces in which a lot of very important decisions are often made. Like recently we’ve been told that we’re not ready for a non-Chinese PM, so it’s like we’re excluded — largely excluded — from politics; we’re largely excluded from the media; we’re largely excluded from so many other places […] so I think in those situations, allyship — or I like to use the word ‘solidarity’ — I think in those situations allyship is particularly important.” 

Allyship is not simple; it requires the constant effort to pay attention to the problems experienced by marginalised communities and also demands our intervention when we come across them. But at the same time, it becomes much simpler when we understand that allyship is fundamentally borne from treating others as human, instead of a list to things we must refrain from. But will we always be limited by our unconscious biases? In Segal’s essay, she highlights that studies have shown that we often empathise more strongly with those we perceive to be similar to us. In a study, participants were shown different photos of hands being pierced by a needle. Participants had stronger empathic reactions to hands that were of the same race as their own, but Segal is quick to point out that our empathic abilities are not doomed. Participants were also shown pictures of purple-coloured hands, but the data from these purple photos were not similar to those of photos with hands of a different race. Segal states that this suggests hope:

“This research demonstrates that, neurologically, we are more likely to experience the feelings of another with whom we see similarities. […] Does this mean that empathy is forever doomed to be biased? No, because bias is learned. In the experiment with different-coloured hands, there was a bias that was socially taught – the meaning of a different-colour hand. If it were simply difference, the purple hand would have been interpreted the same way as the different-race hand. And we are also taught the preference for sameness, that too is learned.”

“The good news is that our brain paths can be changed, in a process called neuroplasticity. We can create new ways of thinking, which in turn allow us to be able to process empathically. We need to learn that bridging differences is part of the empathic process.” 

Good, strong allyship can be cultivated, and it is needed now more than ever, so for all Chinese Singaporeans out there, we need to get to work.

Notes:

1. Once again, I am indebted to Varsha for their time. It takes a lot to constantly articulate the difficulty of being in the margins, and to share deeply and honestly about it. You genuinely possess a dearth of strength, and I am always honoured to call you a friend.

2. A great deal of gratitude also goes out to Zann, who so very kindly and adeptly helped me to transcribe a large chunk of the call recording. You are the best, and also my eternal 4am online companion.

3. This post is meant for people who want to be allies, and who want to put in the work to make Singapore a home for all of us. But if you don’t believe that racism is still very much present in Singapore, then this link detailing examples of racism in Singapore is for you. And also this, this, and this.