about allyship

Just want to redi­rect all the com­pli­ments this morn­ing about the ra­dio show ap­pear­ance – it is a huge hon­or and part of my life’s call­ing to be a white voice for black lib­er­a­tion. It is also AL­WAYS my hon­or to have a bunch of beau­ti­ful black broth­ers and sis­ters who cor­rect me when I’m wrong or mis­un­der­stand some­thing and teach me out of love. It is be­cause of all of these fam­i­ly and those lessons that I am at all ef­fec­tive in this work.

A lot of white folks ap­proach me as though ally­ship is some kind of su­per­pow­er, and I’m here to tell you it’s not. I grew up just as priv­i­leged around just as many prob­lem­at­ic, racist white folks (in­clud­ing some in my own fam­i­ly). I have been very blessed to be wel­comed into spaces of all cul­tures. I work to be love when I am in these spaces so that when I do in­evitably mis­step on some white priv­i­lege it is my ac­tion that is ques­tioned and not my in­ten­tion.

I have failed a lot. I have been called out. I still get called out. Con­stant­ly. In fact I got called out last week at an ac­tion be­cause I did some thought­less straight, white, male shit in a black space. There is no mag­ic dance you do that makes you into the per­fect ally, and cre­ator knows I’m far from it. The key as I have found it is to re­move the ego and chan­nel love.

While I am glad I in­spire you, please take me off of any pedestal as I still have as much or more to learn about ally­ship in ac­tion than any­one white in Amer­i­ca. And please stop ask­ing me about what the next steps are or talk­ing to me about strat­e­gy. I will con­tin­ue to tell you the same thing every time. The move­ment lo­cal­ly is in the some of the most lov­ing, rev­o­lu­tion­ary hands I’ve ever seen. I’m try­ing to shut up and lis­ten to our city’s in­cred­i­ble black lead­er­ship and so should you.

Black Lives Mat­ter Sacra­men­to.

Hel­la love. And hel­la thanks to all the peo­ple who have tak­en time, in­vest­ed en­er­gy, loved me, and taught me what I know.

#Black­Lives­Mat­ter
#Black­LivesIn­spire
#Black­Lives­Beau­ti­fy
#Black­LivesTeach

—an­dru de­f­eye

Flom­mist An­dru De­f­eye is the Guer­ril­la Poet Lau­re­ate of Sacra­men­to. Copy­right © 2018 An­dru De­f­eye. Top pho­to by Cody Drabble/Capital Pub­lic Ra­dio; march pho­to by Jack­son Bran­dan.

MOR D’ARTÍCULOS  MOR FLOMM !

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