Beyond Allyship

Jen Fry is a social justice educator who trains organizations, institutions, and businesses through an antiracist lens on issues of race, inclusion, intersectionality, diversity, and equity. She runs JenFryTalks, a social justice education firm that uses conversation to educate and empower those within athletics through an anti-racist lens on issues of race, inclusion, intersectionality, diversity, and equity.

Jen shares with us today how to go beyond allyship and how to be a co-conspirator to people of color in our homes, our work, and even on social media.

Definitions of Race with Sources: Courtesy of Jen Fry, jenfrytalks.com

• Race: A socially constructed system to classify humans based off of phenotypical characteristics, like skin color, hair texture, and bone texture. Source: Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education (Multicultural Education Series)
• Racism: Racism is a system in which one race maintains supremacy over another race through a set of attitudes, behaviors, social structures, and institutional power. Source: Barbara Love, 1994. Understanding Internalized Oppression    
• Whiteness: The academic term used to capture the all-encompassing dimensions of White privilege, dominance, and assumed superiority in society. These dimensions include: ideological, institutional, social, cultural, historical, political, and interpersonal. Source: Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education (Multicultural Education Series)
• Anti-Racism: Anti-racism is the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably. Source: NAC International Perspective: Women and Global Solidarity

Recommended resources for further learning: 

Books:

• I’m Still Here by Austin Channing Brown
• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
• Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad
• How to be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
• The Very Good Gospel by Lisa Sharon Harper
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Tears We Cannot Stop by Michael Eric Dyson
• Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
• Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper
• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Renni Eddo-Lodge

Websites/Articles:

• Jen Fry’s Resource Page
• Austin Channing Brown’s The Next Question Show
• Unpacking White Feminism by Rachel Cargle
• Seeing White Podcast by Scene On Radio
• 1619 Podcast by NYT
• CodeSwitch by NPR
• Intersectionality Matters Podcast
• The Secret Lives of Black Women Podcast

To learn more about Jen’s work or to hire her, please visit her on Instagram, Twitter, her website, or text DISRUPT to 55-444 that will sign you up for Victoria’s updates.