Allyship requires daily learning and unlearning. It requires owning your mistakes and being proactive in your education, every day.

Reflections

Make a list of allyship Do’s and Don’ts. The Guide to Allyship offers a number of helpful Do's and Don'ts to support us in our individual journeys.

The Do's

• Do be open to listening
• Do be aware of your implicit biases
• Do your research to learn more about the history of the struggle in which you are participating
• Do the inner work to figure out a way to acknowledge how you participate in oppressive systems
• Do the outer work and figure out how to change the oppressive systems
• Do use your privilege to amplify (digitally and in-person) historically suppressed voices
• Do learn how to listen and accept criticism with grace, even if it’s uncomfortable
• Do the work every day to learn how to be a better ally

The Don'ts

• Do not expect to be taught or shown. Take it upon yourself to use the tools around you to learn and answer your questions
• Do not participate for the gold medal in the “Oppression Olympics” (you don’t need to compare how your struggle is “just as bad as” a marginalized person’s)
• Do not behave as though you know best
• Do not take credit for the labor of those who are marginalized and did the work before you stepped into the picture
• Do not assume that every member of an underinvested community feels oppressed

Allyship requires we understand learned patterns and behaviors - ways in which we show up, that undermine equity. And work to proactively unlearn and relearn new patterns.

We have created a journal page that you can use for this activity. Please click on the PDF file below to download the journal page.