Ethical White Allyship: Radical Love Requires the Redistribution of Power
“The construction of whiteness affords one many privileges; whether one chooses to acknowledge these privileges or not, is a different story. We (white folks especially, due to proximity to privilege), must intentionally leverage our privileges through collective activism with historically marginalized communities...”— Belle, 2024, p. 17
In Start with Radical Love: Antiracist Pedagogy for Social Justice Educators, I reflect on the privileges each of us carries and the responsibility we have to use those privileges to leave the world better than we found it. More specifically, I examine how whiteness and the social and political construction of race more broadly, shapes the work of equity and social justice.
One of the foundational concepts in Critical Race Theory is “Whiteness as Property,” introduced by legal scholar Cheryl I. Harris in her landmark 1993 Harvard Law Review article. Harris examines how race and property became intertwined in American law, allowing whiteness to function as a form of property that historically conferred status, access, protection, and material advantage.
For a long time, I have been thinking about how to write about what I call Ethical White Allyship; not as a performance of goodness, but as a practice of responsibility. I am interested in what it means to recognize our collective humanity while simultaneously acknowledging that racist power structures are embedded within the institutions and systems that shape our lives: our laws, schools, housing systems, healthcare policies, workplaces, and communities.
As a Critical Race Theorist, I am constantly thinking about how power moves between people and institutions. I think about how it shows up in our interpersonal relationships, in the spaces we occupy, and increasingly in the digital environments where so much of our communication now takes place.
I also think about anti-racism and the necessity of examining anti-Blackness. Anti-Blackness is not confined to one institution, one country, or one historical moment. It shows up everywhere. It is a global problem that requires all of us to interrogate the systems, assumptions, and practices that reproduce racial hierarchy.
So what does ethical white allyship actually look like? Sometimes, it looks surprisingly ordinary.
A Lesson in Allyship
In 2015, I began my first academic position on the tenure track at the University of Houston-Downtown. I had just earned my doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University, and had given birth to my second child, who was only a month old when my family and I moved to Houston, Texas.
As a first-generation everything, I had a lot on my mind: a new city, a new home, new people, a new institution, and a new career. I was also navigating the realities of being postpartum, breastfeeding, and suddenly caring for a toddler and a newborn at the same time.
The dean, Dr. Leigh, had been part of my hiring process. She seemed to like me very much, and although I had just endured significant trauma as a Black doctoral student (much of it caused by white women) something told me that she was different.
She was.
What made Dr. Leigh different was not simply that she was kind. It was her commitment to social justice and her ability to see me. To see the brilliance, experience and possibility I brought with me.
She also understood that I was a mother.
When I asked if I could teach only evening courses during my first semester so that I could be with my children during the day, she immediately made it happen. She spoke with the department chair, a white man who was not nearly as receptive as she was. But once she gave the word, he came on board.
That detail matters.
Allyship does not happen in a vacuum. Relationships, hierarchy, and positional power matter.
Dr. Leigh had institutional authority that I did not yet have. She was able to use her relationship with the department chair and her position as dean to create an arrangement that allowed me to succeed. She did not ask me to navigate that institutional barrier alone. She used her access to remove it.
The courses were three hours long and met once a week, which allowed me to structure my schedule in a way that made it possible for my family to thrive as we adjusted to life in a new city with two children.
And I did thrive.
My first year on the tenure track was successful. I published in respected academic journals, earned a competitive university grant during my first semester, and received a course buyout for the following semester. A course buyout occurs when grant or other institutional funding covers the cost of teaching a course so that a faculty member can be released from that teaching responsibility and use that time for research, writing, or another funded academic activity.
On paper, everything was going well.
But Houston was not the right place for my family.
The broader political and cultural environment was increasingly difficult for me to reconcile with the work I was doing. I was one of the only professors in my department openly engaging Critical Race Theory and social justice in my scholarship and teaching. I did not feel comfortable, and I did not feel safe.
So I began looking for another institution.
Eventually, I accepted a position at Rutgers University–Newark as the Director of Urban Education. I knew it was the right decision for my family, even though we had only moved across the country a year and a half earlier.
When I told Dr. Leigh that I was leaving, she smiled warmly.
She was disappointed to lose me. But she respected me. She respected me as a scholar, as a professional, and as a person capable of making the best decision for my family.
Then she said something I will never forget:
“What if we could work something out?”
At the time, remote teaching was not the norm. There were a few remote courses in our department, but they existed under very specific circumstances. Dr. Leigh proposed that I continue teaching my courses remotely while remaining on the university payroll for the remainder of my contract, as long as I could successfully manage the courses from a distance.
I could.
So I did.
I was already receiving a salary increase in my new role, but this arrangement meant I could maintain my existing income for another six months. It was financially wise for my family, and I was able to save much of that additional income and make financial investments that continue to support my family today.
That is ethical white allyship.
Not as a theory. As a practice.
Dr. Leigh did not simply tell me that she supported me. She used her positional power to create material possibilities for me. She collaborated with me and trusted my ability while making institutional space for my family. She opened a door.
And ultimately, she helped me leave one institution for another without having to sacrifice the financial security I had worked so hard to create. That is what allyship can look like when it moves beyond intention and into action.
Allyship Is Relational
To be clear, my relationship with Dr. Leigh was mutually beneficial. I contributed meaningfully to the institution through my teaching, scholarship and service. We shared a passion for literacy, and together we created space for new courses within an emerging master's program that I was also helping to develop.
During my time at the University of Houston-Downtown, I received excellent teaching evaluations and created Racial Literacies at UHD, a university-wide series that facilitated courageous conversations about race and racial justice. This is important because ethical allyship is not charity. It is not about a powerful person “saving” someone who is marginalized. It is about recognizing talent, creating equitable conditions, and building relationships in which everyone has the opportunity to contribute their gifts.
Dr. Leigh did not make me successful.
She helped remove barriers that could have prevented my success.
There is a difference.
And that distinction matters.
Radical Love Requires Action
If we are serious about dismantling racial inequality, we cannot pretend that racial justice is a problem that people of color are supposed to solve by ourselves. History has never worked that way. During the Civil Rights Movement and throughout Black liberation struggles, solidarity required more than agreement. It required people to march, organize, provide resources, defend one another, challenge institutions, and take risks.
Assata Shakur reminds us:
“We must love each other and support each other.”
That is the connection between radical love and ethical allyship. Love cannot simply be an emotion. It must become a practice. And practice requires action. White allies are not a distraction from racial justice. They are part of the work because people who benefit from racialized systems often possess forms of access, institutional authority, economic resources, social capital, and proximity to decision-making that can be leveraged toward change.
But allyship is not about becoming the “good white person.” It is about collective liberation.
Three Ways to Practice Ethical White Allyship
First, use your privilege to advance people from marginalized communities.
Do not simply acknowledge your privilege. Ask what your privilege makes possible. Then use it intentionally.
Second, use your access to open doors and amplify the names, work, and leadership of people from marginalized communities in spaces where they have historically been excluded.
Recommend someone. Make the introduction. Share the opportunity. Put their name in the room when they are not there. Use your institutional credibility to create access that has historically been denied.
Third, build radical communities across difference while doing the uncomfortable work of confronting your conscious and unconscious biases.
Allyship requires self-interrogation. It requires us to examine the assumptions we carry, the people we listen to, the people we overlook, and the ways we benefit from systems we did not create but may still participate in maintaining.
Ethical allyship is not about perfection. It is about responsibility, relationship and redistribution. It is also about recognizing that the liberation of one group is connected to the liberation of all of us. Radical love is not passive. Radical love asks us to move beyond good intentions and into courageous practice. It asks us to look at the power we hold and decide what we are willing to do with it.
So I leave you with three questions:
1) What am I willing to risk?
2)What am I willing to redistribute?
3) How am I using the power and access that I have?
Because ultimately, ethical allyship is not about what we believe. It is about what we are willing to do.
And radical love requires us to do something.
Comments