Lessons to Learn on your Journey Towards Allyship

Lauren Woodley on 22 October 2021

Allyship does not happen overnight. 

In fact, allyship is an ongoing process – a journey that I am still navigating. Yes, the journey can sometimes be uncomfortable but an important fundamental of allyship to remember is that although you may be feeling this way, as an ally, this conversation is not about you. 

Allyship can take on many forms. Everyone has their own meaning for the term ‘ally’. For example, your friends may be known as your ‘allies’. You choose to support your friends, you check in on your friends, and if someone has treated your friends incorrectly, you would hopefully step in and speak up. The same can be done as an ally against racism, or homophobia. Here, I shall specifically focus on allyship for the Black Lives Matter movement, but allyship towards all is just as important. 

The First Step

I accept that I have a white privilege. Accepting privilege can feel unpleasant, but all white people must acknowledge that this privilege does exist and cannot be ignored. Using this knowledge, an ally must take their privilege and use it to amplify the voices that are less heard before their own. 

Another important point of being an ally is recognising that you may not know how it feels to be oppressed but it is crucial to understand that there are many people out there who are marginalised every single day. The start of becoming an ally is making an effort to better understand the struggle and to educate yourself on the oppression faced.

Education

This will be an ongoing process of learning and unlearning. You need to unlearn the so-called ‘truths’ that previous generations believed in and actively go against what may, to you, be considered as the ‘norm’. During this, you must also accept that you will make mistakes and learn to take on criticism. This critique will help your learning process and will be a valuable lesson for the future. 

It is important that you self-educate. Do your own research and do not take credit for work that has been made before you, or made by those who are marginalised. If using work and guides made by the Black community, then remember you owe them for their invested time. It should not be their responsibility for your education. Make sure to contribute whenever a Paypal or funding page is made available. 

Reading 

A small personal way that I choose to show allyship is by reading authors who are primarily Black and female. Whilst this is only a small change in lifestyle, it can help you to start widening your horizons and surrounding yourself with culture outside of your immediate circle. Become aware of experiences that you have not lived. Further, supporting Black creators can help to amplify their voices. The same can be said with film directors, or music artists too.

Speaking out

Being an ally is mostly about listening. But, it is also important to speak out when the time is right. Speak out at home or with your friends if something said doesn’t sit quite right with you. If you witness discrimination, speak up! You could be in a position to protect someone who does not have that privilege. 

Showing support on social media can be an influential way of being an ally too. It is so easy to sign petitions, write to local charity groups and MPs for change, and share posts that are in support of BLM and other Black creators. However, it is important to remember that being an ally cannot just be for show. 

The viral trend ‘Blackout Tuesday’ that took place on Instagram to protest racism and police brutality shortly after the death of George Floyd gave an example of what some called performative allyship, with thousands of users posting a black square on their Instagram feed. Whilst the intention was seemingly pure, the action was seen as ‘empty’ and instead of promoting Black voices, feeds were instead full of empty space. Rather than staying silent in this case, to be a good ally, you need to be actively engaged.

The journey does not end here

This is just the tip of the iceberg of some of the lessons that I have gathered on my journey of trying to become a better ally. Please make sure to use other resources and never stop listening to podcasts, reading, and researching to continue to educate yourself!

Retroactive remedying: How can depictions of Blackface be torn down?

Owen Frost on 15 October 2020

After my weekly comfort viewing of Community the other day, I was alerted to the fact that Netflix had purged one of the comedy’s most absurd yet revered episodes, ‘Advanced Dungeons & Dragons’. This episode featured Community regular Ken Jeong’s Spanish teacher Chang, who starts the episode dressed up in full-body Black makeup with an accompanying white wig. Despite Community’s plaudits for being a ‘woke’ show and criticising the obvious parallels between Chang’s “dark elf” and the historically abhorrent tradition of Blackface, the episode was axed. ‘Advanced Dungeons and Dragons’ is widely considered one of the best episodes of the series, and currently has a 9.5 rating on IMDb. The removal from Netflix sparked a Twitter war, where many users pointed out the diverse show’s main focus during the episode is suicide awareness. Is full erasure a necessary step? 

Fans of Community were rocked by the removal of the celebrated episode containing alleged Blackface – Pictured: (l-r) Danny Pudi (Abed), Yvette Nicole Brown (Shirley), Joel McHale (Jeff), Gillian Jacobs (Britta), Alison Brie (Annie), Donald Glover as Troy – (Image credit: NBC Universal via Getty Images)

Over the last few months, episodes from numerous other big hit broadcasts such as 30 Rock, The Golden Girls, The Office, Scrubs and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia have all retroactively succumbed to the editorial chopping block. Subsequently, many white actors also quit their voice roles as Black or mixed-race characters, including Family Guy’s Mike Henry and Central Park’s Kristen Bell.  

In a Radio Times interview in July, Idris Elba dismantled these acts of censorship, arguing “viewers should know that people made shows like this” and that to “mock the truth, you have to know the truth.” Viral Success Munya Chawawa agreed, saying that “racism in Britain has always been more subtle and insidious – we need those blatant examples to remind us.” He argues that this removal is just a new form of gaslighting for Black people and people of colour. 

Similarly, television writer Alanna Bennett, believes it is “just trying to Band-Aid over the history.” Bennett asserts that these purifications are only effective at erasing mistakes rather than acknowledging them. She goes on to state it “feels like trying to protect the legacy of those creators instead of actually trying to address what those episodes did.”

Stand-up comedian and writer Dane Baptiste equally illuminates the issues of representation which emerge from these incidents. Baptiste declares that the main problem “isn’t just the fact that you have things like Little Britain and Come Fly With Me… It’s the fact that two white men have been able to depict Black people in two shows and the BBC won’t even give one Black person a show.” 

One potential lesson from these now outdated shows is the dearth of opportunities for emerging Black stars in British television to portray diverse, complex characters. Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You is an excellent example of the latest step in this beneficial direction – a step well over 20 years in the making. 

Coel’s I May Destroy You examined multiple contemporary issues, including Black identity – (Image credit: BBC)

Certain shows such as AMC’s Mad Men appears to have taken a different approach in light of the Black Lives Matter movement. Recently, I came across the series 3 Mad Men episode where John Slattery’s Roger Sterling is in obvious Blackface. The solution the creators took was to disclaim ahead of viewing: making audiences aware of the racist content. In an official statement, Mad Men’s production company Lionsgate stated that they chose to leave the scene in as they want to expose “the injustices and inequities within our society“. 

HBO Max also initially came under fire for removing infamous epic Gone with the Wind due to its racist characterisation of Black Americans. However, HBO Max then re-uploaded the film with both a disclaimer about the racist content and a supplementary historical documentary where scholars discuss the film’s impact. 

One way forward is not outright censorship. The questionable content instead needs either an apt preface which educates audiences on the wrongful history or an accompanying apology. Now more than ever, these incidents are showing the need for us to expose the flaws and racist stereotypes manifest in numerous artistic industries. Past events instigate activists to keep sight of goals of greater representation and attainment of an increasingly diverse world of television and film.

Image Credit: Variety

Da 5 Bloods Review: Spike Lee does not quite strike gold

Owen Frost on 22 July 2020

The latest Spike Lee “Joint” arrived on Netflix on June 12th, off the back of Lee’s 2018 critical success with BlacKkKlansman. Da 5 Bloods is Lee’s return to satirical form with focus on African American GI experience in the reprehensible Vietnam War. Da 5 Bloods unflinchingly portrays the African American experience, challenging the traditional representation of the Black ‘buddy’ characters in war films – showcasing a diverse range of antagonistic African American characters. It stars Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock Jr. and Norm Lewis as the four African American veterans on a pilgrimage to search for fellow GI Stormin’ Norman’s (Chadwick Boseman) remains along with their ulterior motive: searching for the gold he helped them bury. Most of the action sequences take place in the traditionally inhospitably depicted jungle and despite a promising start, Da 5 Bloods contains some questionable Vietnamese portrayals.

History is a powerful tool to provoke modern day action. This has never been truer than recently, with Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol and many other contentious commemorations being symbolically torn down across the globe. Significantly, Lee repeats his auteur technique of peppering Da 5 Bloods with historic documentary footage and does not falter in educating audiences on famous historic Black Americans including Milton L. Olive III – the first African American to receive the Medal of Honour for his sacrifice in Vietnam. As the aspect ratio alterations cleverly shift from the twentieth century to the modern era, the beginning of Da 5 Bloods morphs from the volatile sixties to the equally troublesome contemporary climate. 

The Hanoi Hannah (Ngo Thanh Van) character also advances Lee’s cultural critique of American history’s disregard of the African American GI experience. Her northern Vietnamese propaganda targets the Black American GIs, speaking to their exploitation during the war. Lee also digs at Hollywood’s whitewashing of the Vietnam experience in films such as propagandic The Green Berets, while also dedicating homage to select Vietnam war films such as Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and Oliver Stone’s Platoon. The Marvin Gaye soundtrack along with the ironically heroic orchestral score makes audiences question the role whitewashed war movies have on the movie-going public.

Da 5 Bloods bubbles up violently in places with the four antiheroes either being shot at, blown up or chased in equal measure. It also features Lee’s iconic trope of the impassioned fourth wall breaking monologue, rampant with racially charged rhetoric about injustice symbolically relevant in the modern context. Paul’s speech parallels Mookie’s monologue in Lee’s seminal Do The Right Thing. 

Chadwick Boseman in Da 5 Bloods, (Image Credit: Insider)

The flashbacks to the war through Newton Thomas Sigel’s 16mm lens are enticing, despite Lee’s inability to de-age his main stars next to the youthful Chadwick Boseman. This was a feat that Scorsese’s enormous Netflix debut The Irishman, with its whopping $160 million budget, capitalised on. 

However, despite these praiseworthy moments of Lee excitement, the Vietnamese characterisation is underwhelming in this venture. Otis’ Vietnamese ex-lover that fathered his daughter is underexplored and the Vietcong soldiers are often simplistically portrayed as cannon fodder to be peppered by bullets. 

I found myself longing for a film that belonged more tonally to the first half than the second half’s caper which felt more like a version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. After the initially promising start which represented America’s entrenched geopolitical misconduct in Vietnam, this all felt disappointing.  

While Lee touches well upon the racist experience that the disproportionate number of African American GIs in Vietnam experienced, and his use of historical documentary and iconic tropes resonate with today’s “Black Lives Matter” debate, the film’s two separate parts felt disjointed. This paired with the questionable depiction of the Vietnamese population detracts from the film’s appeal. 

Da 5 Bloods is available to stream on Netflix now.

Rating: 3/5 

Image Credit: David Lee, Netflix

Black Lives Matter, Covid-19 and the Arts: An Interview with BBC Two Channel Controller Patrick Holland

Owen Frost on 13 July 2020

Owen Frost sits down (virtually) with Patrick Holland, Controller of BBC 2, to discuss his channel’s policies regarding Black Lives Matter and the increasing importance of history in public broadcasting.

Owen: Hi Patrick, can you tell the readership a little bit about what your role is at the BBC and what you do?

Patrick Holland: My name is Patrick Holland and I am the controller of BBC Two. I also look after BBC Four, commissioning programmes there as well. As a Channel Controller, I work to commission programmes from across a wide range of genres including documentaries, music, arts, drama, comedy and entertainment. Each of these genres has a controller of that particular genre who work with their team to develop ideas and then they discuss them with me about whether they commission them for BBC Two/BBC Four. There is a whole portfolio of channels at the BBC and I am very privileged to run one of them.

O: Hospital, which you commissioned when you first started out as Controller of BBC Two focuses on the crucial work the NHS continues to do in our country. What do you think the importance is of broadcasting shows about the NHS during the current pandemic?

PH: I developed Hospital as at the time we felt envious of 24 Hours in A&E on Channel Four’s success, but I wanted a series which explored what was really happening in the NHS – showing bed shortages and winter flu crises. Hospital has told these stories in a very interesting and humane way. One of the things that I am most proud of in the last year is the Covid-19 special that Label1 made – a two-part series inside the Royal Free Hospital. Staff and patients know the TV show now and know that it has that commitment to exploring what happens inside the NHS at large. The access they were able to achieve during Covid-19 and the stories they were able to tell, I think will really stand as one of the outstanding documentaries made during this terrible time.

Hospital Series One, (Image Credit: BBC2)

O: It certainly sounds like these programmes reflect issues of today. In light of the Black Lives Matter Movement and Edward Colston’s statue being torn down, do you have any more programmes planned which will inform the public about Britain’s colonialist past?

PH: Over the last few weeks we have repeated series from History on iPlayer so newer audiences have access to them. David Olusoga’s series Black and British: A Forgotten History tells of black people’s experience in the UK. David’s latest A House Through Time, part of a returning social history format we have on the channel, follows the inhabitants of a house over the centuries in particular parts of the UK. Series one was in Liverpool, series two was in Newcastle and series three was in Bristol. Olusoga’s series engages with the Colston statue and the place of the slave trade in A House Through Time weeks before the Black Lives Matter responded to the killing of George Floyd. I think that there has been some extraordinary output on the BBC that has attempted to explore the deep underpinnings of the slave trade and Britain’s role in the slave trade. One of the other things we have made is a massive £100 million commitment over three years to produce diverse and inclusive content. It is not just about telling stories of BAME experiences in history but it is also really important that the people who are making films are from BAME backgrounds and also different social classes because television, like lots of professions, is quite hard to get into and once you get there the profession can be quite precarious. As an industry, we are trying to search hard for answers to retain brilliant BAME people coming into television. We need to work hard to retain them, promote those people and find the best roles for them because they need to be the future leaders as much as everyone else.

O: The reality show School documented the ups and downs of the education system. Do you think you might ever produce a show about university students?

PH: We did a series last year called How to Break into the Elite with Amol Rajan (BBC News Media Editor). His question was how you break into competitive professions (media, law, banking) if you come from a background like his. He followed university leavers from different backgrounds and tried to assess what their chances were. He found a huge amount of low-level prejudice which was stopping people from entering professions and there were discriminations made at an early stage about CVs names and how you carry yourself in an interview. We have commissioned Amol to do another two-part series which follows up about young people’s experiences. It created quite a lot of debate. Looking at the experience of young people and what their life chances are is certainly what we’re interested in. I wouldn’t say no to an observational documentary with university students like we did with School!

How to Break into the Elite, (Image Credit: BBC 2)

O: It would seem like BBC 2 focuses on challenging shows which evoke thought about everyday things in an exploratory way?

PH: I think one of the key things we are trying to do is that we don’t want a presenter who is telling people how to think. I think people are far more sophisticated in their viewing habits. We want to immerse people inside these new stories in an observational way and let them make up their own minds.

O: Thank you very much for this.

PH: You’re welcome, thank you.

Featured Image Credit: Edinburgh TV Festival