Welcome to the online Ally Skills Workshop!
We're so happy you could join us today! A few requests:
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Ally Skills Workshop
Esther Plomp & Rowland Mosbergen
Slides CC BY-SA Frame Shift Consulting LLC, Dr. Sheila Addison,
The Ada Initiative, OLS
Format of the workshop
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Rowland Mosbergen (he/him)
Founder Practical Diversity and Inclusion
25 years experience in IT and software development across research, corporates, and small business, now partially working on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Practical, long-term change is difficult and can be exhausting. This is why I started the website – to collate resources that I felt would be able to be scalable and change people’s minds.
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Esther Plomp
Data Steward @ Faculty of Applied Sciences, Delft University of Technology
Previously: PhD in bioarchaeology, part of several Open Science communities
Esther Plomp
(she/her)
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Let’s talk about abled privilege
I (no longer) have any disabilities: which means I have a lot more energy/time left to do all the things I want to do.
This allows me to contribute and build a ‘better’ CV more easily compared to people that are disabled/have a disability.
I use this to my advantage by advocating for disability rights/access in an ableist system.
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What is an ally? Some terminology first:
Privilege: an unearned advantage given by society to some people but not all
Oppression: systemic, pervasive inequality that is present throughout society, that benefits people with more privilege and harms those with fewer privileges
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Terminology
Marginalized person: a member of a group that is the primary target of a system of oppression
Ally: a member of a social group that enjoys some privilege that is working to end oppression and understand their own privilege
More terminology: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iGj11dxJJiAjpa_-Q9CZf1H4Htu-ojo2WUJYfVhK3NM/copy
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Ally is a verb, not an identity
Being a marginalized person takes no action - it is an identity
Acting as an ally is about action - it is not an identity, which is why we talk about "ally skills" instead of "allies"
Depending on what is most relevant about you to the situation, you may switch between being marginalized or acting as an ally
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Example
Privilege: The ability to walk into a shop and have the owner assume you are there to buy things and not steal them
Oppression: The self-reinforcing system in a (white dominated country) of stories, TV, news coverage, police, and legal system stereotyping immigrants and people with darker skin as criminals, that benefits UK-born white people and harms immigrants and people of colour.
Black defendants in the UK are three times more likely as white defendants to be prosecuted for homicide as a group of four or more … the supreme court ruled that the law on joint enterprise had been wrongly interpreted for 30 years – yet nothing changed. - Article The UK should be ashamed of ‘joint enterprise’ convictions. America has put us on notice.
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Example
Marginalized person: A person of colour or white person with a non-native accent, applying for a job in the UK.
I have attended many interviews as the only Caucasian (with less qualifications) and got the jobs (British female, White) [1].
Ally: A citizen or english speaker with a British accent who donates to immigration reform organizations, calls their representatives to support immigration reform and uses their power and networks to help marginalized people [2].
[1] https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/files/28356632/Racism_In_the_Medical_Profession_the_Exp.pdf
[2] https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14315846 slide 50 How you can help as an individual
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Terminology
Power: The ability to control circumstances or access to resources and/or privileges
Intersectionality: The concept that people can be subject to multiple systems of oppression that intersect and interact with each other, coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw
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Why focus on ally skills?
Because allies provide opportunities for people from marginalised groups to make up for the ones that they have lost.
Identifying opportunities to help is a skill.
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Recent relatable example:
Timnit Gebru, an AI ethics and anti-bias advocate being fired from Google.
https://www.wired.com/story/google-timnit-gebru-ai-what-really-happened/
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Exercise: Identify your power and privilege
☑ Type "done" into chat when you are done
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xlRf6265EovRoolY1DFLE4N7N_8jajNvDS9YT1_Nc_I/copy
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What did you think?
Do you have more or less power than you thought?
Do you have more or less privilege than you thought?
Any surprises or things you hadn't thought about before?
https://flic.kr/p/H2cL7F
CC BY-SA jason gessner
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What this workshop is not
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Help us create a safer space
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Basics of ally skills
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What if I make a mistake?
Apologize, correct yourself, and move on.
Awkward...
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CC BY yvonne n on Wikimedia Commons
CC BY Tom Thai https://flic.kr/p/6wLBVM
CC BY-SA 4028mdk09 on WIkimedia Commons
What to do when I make a mistake?
Apologize, correct yourself, and move on.
Move on.
One of my many mistakes: Assuming gender & pronouns
CC BY-SA Jenna St Martin photo
Scenarios & group discussion
Introductions
Introduce yourselves briefly:
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Preparing for group discussion
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A few more tips for group discussion
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Tip: Effective and just meetings
Good meetings have the following roles:
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Who is speaking in your group?
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Scenario 1: What could an ally do?
At a meeting, a woman makes a suggestion, but no one picks up on it. Later on in the meeting, a man makes the same suggestion and is given credit for it.
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Break time: 5 minutes
Do not sign out of the Zoom meeting!
If you do, you will have to reset your name again
Use the chat feature to message the instructor privately if you have any comments or requests
Scenario 2: What could an ally do?
A colleague of yours says, "It's great to hire more people of color, but let's not lower the bar." Before you can reply, another colleague says, "Oh yes, we'll be careful not to lower the bar."
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Assumption-Reality-Reframe
Assumption: at present, everyone has an equal chance, regardless of race
Reality: People of color face a much a higher bar than white people, and white people often get a pass to the process
Reframe: "Actually, the problem is that people of color have to pass a higher bar, and we need to fix that."
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Higher bar
Asefaw Berbe et al. 2021 and resources therein
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More resources for Scenario 2
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Why is reframing questions a useful skill?
People will have genuine questions about some apparent
contradiction which means they have to be oppressive
Usually based on one or more of:
1. Incorrect ‘facts’
2. Ignoring systemic oppression
3. Putting onus of change on marginalized/less powerful
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Tips
Tip: Charles' Rules of Argument
https://hypatia.ca/2014/09/13/charles-rules-of-argument-the-short-version/
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Tip: Don't reinforce unfair expectations
Marginalized people are often held to a higher standard of behavior than those with more privilege
When marginalized people are more patient, kind, or helpful than necessary, thank them in a way that acknowledges they are going above and beyond
Related to tone policing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing
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Tip: Share your experience
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After this workshop
Proactive actions you can take
Four things you can do as an individual [1]:
[1] Improving Diversity and Inclusion in Senior Leadership, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14315846
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Goal-setting exercise
☑ Type "done" in the chat when you are done
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k3iBHkPZ18NJQ5zrdWB5mERPXopm4trJeVIBNSQqhbY/copy
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Thank you!
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team@openlifesci.org
Other scenarios
Scenario 3 (Advanced): Who would you be an ally for?
Haneen Zreika breaks her silence on sitting out AFLW Pride round.
"As the first Australian Muslim woman in the AFLW, I have a responsibility to represent my faith and my community," Zreika wrote.
"I respect people, regardless of their sexual orientation.”
In a subsequent article, it mentions “These events also provide a fascinating glimpse into the secular West’s newly minted religion. In the name of inclusion, a player who should be a poster-girl for diversity has quite literally become a victim of uniformity and exclusion.
It was Zreika’s decision not to play, to be sure – but only because her club first chose to preach a political message that not all of its players believe.”
Using Intersectionality can help
I created a model based on intersectionality to help visualise “degree of difficulty” so that it can be taken into account when looking at “merit” and other things.
The idea is to center the most marginalised people in the situation, which usually means people who aren’t even being talked about!
But the underlying diagram I will show does dehumanise people and that needs to be kept in mind as we continue.
All models are wrong but some are useful - George Box
This is a reminder that, as in the words of George Box, “All models are wrong but some are useful” [1].
This applies for all models, even outside the world of statistics, and includes this model too.
[1] Box, G. E. P. (1979), "Robustness in the strategy of scientific model building", in Launer, R. L.; Wilkinson, G. N. (eds.), Robustness in Statistics, Academic Press, pp. 201–236, doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-438150-6.50018-2, ISBN 9781483263366.
Intersectionality Spectrum
The Intersectionality Spectrum is flexible, and can be adapted to the situation.
In this situation, it is a general model based on Australia and its workforce.
But the point to highlight is that the more marginalised groups you belong to, the higher you “Degree of Difficulty” becomes. This allows you to identify people who are more marginalised and center their needs first.
So how can you apply that model to this situation?
How to handle such a delicate situation?
First of all, start with intersectionality. Who is out of this conversation?
Well, there is a third group here - LGBTQIA+ Muslims. What do they think?
Here are two examples of reactions from LGBTQIA+ Muslims. It shows how polarising this topic is.
I considered a hypothetical: what if Zreika, who holds leadership roles within the community, was faced with similar threats, or the fear of losing her standing as an advocate for the empowerment of Muslim women and girls? If that was the case, then how should society judge her? Fahad Ali
Haneen Zreika’s comments are a joke. Basically saying “I represent Muslims an good Muslims don’t support LGBT people… but I swear i still respect my teammates!” Surprise girly, there’s LGBT Muslims. We see you. Your teammates also see you. Do better. - Anonymous
So how would I look at this?
So the way I would look at this is to be an ally to the most marginalised people. Who are they?
Imagine this. Aabida is a young, 12 year old girl who is a Muslim, and loves football because of Haneen. Haneen is her role model and is why she has taken up football.
Recently, she has been starting to notice that she is different, that she is beginning to realise that she is a lesbian. How do you think she would feel by Haneen's actions?
What if I told you that in “while national suicide data by diverse sex, gender and sexual orientation are not available, there is evidence that LGBTI people are at a higher risk of suicidal behaviours (Skerrett et al. 2015) and have the highest rates of suicidality compared with any
population in Australia (Rosenstreich 2013).
Do you think Haneen’s actions would increase or decrease Aabida’s risk of suicide?
Would you change your mind about who you would be an ally to?
… and who wasn’t included in this discussion?
The head of the AFL's inclusion and social policy, Tanya Hosch, told the ABC's The W podcast that inclusion was a complicated matter.
Hosch, a Torres Strait Islander and the AFL's second female executive, said she had to consult her peers both in and outside of the AFL sphere.
"I had the privilege of hearing from Haneen first-hand about the situation she found herself in," she said.
"Then I had to consult a whole range of other people with expertise that I don't have, which included speaking with the president of the Human Rights Commission, Ro Allen; the Anti-Discrimination Commissioner of Victoria, who's previously the Gender and Sexuality Commissioner in Victoria, and certainly spoke to other Muslim leaders who I know and who have been around football."
Tip: Don't reinforce unfair expectations
Marginalized people are often held to a higher standard of behavior than those with more privilege
When marginalized people are more patient, kind, or helpful than necessary, thank them in a way that acknowledges they are going above and beyond
Related to tone policing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing
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Tip: Share your experience
Two problems: lack of knowledge, and fear of mistakes
Share your own experience learning to be a better colleague to disabled colleagues
Share articles or guides on creating a more accessible workplace and offer to help review
Help others apologize, correct themselves, and move on
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Tip: Handling "white tears" without derailing
"White tears" is shorthand for white people redirecting discussions about racism towards their own distress
Marginalized people are often expected to do the emotional work of soothing people who harmed them
White people can and should redirect the conversation back towards the original topic, while doing the emotional work in a side discussion
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Tip: Create psychological safety
Psychological safety means an environment in which people take turns sharing information
Google study showed the most productive and profitable teams have psychological safety
Two elements: sensitivity to others' feelings, and conversational turn-taking (equal speaking time)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_safety
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Tip: What Works for Women at Work
By Joan C. Williams and Rachel Dempsey
Four patterns of subtle bias, varying by race, ethnicity, appearance, etc.
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Tip: Bias interrupters
3 step process from UC Hastings WorkLife Law Center
Detailed list of bias interrupters for workplace systems:
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Tip: Have a concise code of conduct with examples
Have a short, clear, concise code of conduct that focuses on what not to do
Specifically list common forms of oppression
Put everything else (values, how to be inclusive, etc.) in separate documents
Hand over any dispute over CoC violations to an expert
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Tip: tone policing/the “tone argument”
When members of marginalized groups advocate for themselves or their ideas, it violates expectations that marginalized people should be submissive and quiet
The same behavior in a person with a lot of privilege may be described as "passionate" or "committed"
Tone policing often uses the word "tone"
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