Why I’m attending the Women of Color Call to Action Summit and Conference

This week, the Women of Color Network is hosting their 4^th annual Women of Color Call to Action Summit and Conference. I plan on attending and participating actively. Some may well ask (legitimately) why I, as a white man, will attend this event, but also actively encouraging other men – in particular other white men – to also attend. My participation may be seen as expression of my white, male and whitemale privilege (my saying that this “may be seen” is not meant to discount that my attendance may also actually be an expression of my white, male and whitemale privilege), it is also intended to be an expression of solidarity and support.

The Women of Color Network (WOCN) is a national organization which supports the leadership of Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women in the movement to end gender-based violence in the US; and centers the experience of Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women who have been victimized by domestic or sexual violence. WOCN provides a wide array of resources, services and programs designed to support agencies supporting and advocating for people who experienced gender-based violence are positioned to offer high-quality, culturally humble services; advocating and training to develop the organizational culture of victim-service and advocacy agencies to support Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern as leaders; developing the leadership skills and confidence of Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women; and facilitating a national network of these Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women leaders in this movement.

Although I do not have any kind of position in any direct service or advocacy organization, and lack any voice to encourage my local programs or state coalitions to support Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women, I am an advocate on promoting gender equality and gender justice, and I do have a role in supporting the leadership of Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women, and the centering of Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women’s experiences in our work.

Those of us who aspire to ally with Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women and men, there is both a tendency and an invitation to stay on the side-lines as women battle against the systems of oppression and dynamics of domination that they face, and while they support each other to develop and expand their leadership skills. Especially in situations like this in which women of color have created a structure and process to support each other and advocate for the leadership of Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women, it is particularly easy for us (“us” who are white male or whitemale) to take a step back and encourage/allow Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women to do the work of supporting and advocating for each other. I surely don’t claim to have the answers, but I find it awfully easy to choose to stand by.

I have a seemingly endless stream of reasons/excuses/justifications: I’m not a woman of color, I want to respect their process and space, I am not in formal leadership role in a local program or a state coalition, I don’t want to interfere with “their” process (pick the “they” in this context: women of color, white women, feminists, men of color…), I don’t know how to best be of active support, I’m not in active day-to-day relationship with women of color advocates/activists and don’t want to engage in way that have unintended consequences… The list goes on and on.

If I’m honest, the real reason is that actively allying with Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women in a deliberate and conscious way requires me to simultaneously center them and their experiences and my own (one of the qualities of our humanness is the ability to hold our attention onto more than one thing at a time). Attending the Summit/Conference means that my whiteness, my maleness, and my whitemaleness will be very visible – but in a way that isn’t centered. It also means that the intersections of my privileges will also be centered (at least for me). Centering the intersections of my privileges in a way that is critical and undermining of those privileges is never a something that I particularly want to do. It’s less than fun. Doing so in the context of a 200+ person conference in which maybe 5 of us will be whitemale means feeling like I’m in a petri dish and under a microscope the entire time.

Oh wait – kinda sorta like what Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women experience all the time.

I have no doubt that I will make mistakes this week – likely some that are relatively significant. Being in the context 200 plus Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women activists and a number of white women, white male and men of color who are also aspiring to ally means the prospect of making those mistakes feel daunting. The prospect of doing something stupid or insensitive, or acting in ways that demonstrates the ways I am still not aware of my own white or male privilege in this context is scary. Knowing that I may well humiliate myself at some point in the coming days is anxiety producing. But if I am going to go into this space and have any meaningful experience, I need to go into this space authentic, which includes being authentically there will all my flaws.

There is an active role that I can play in supporting the leadership of Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women, and ways that I can actively help to undermine the barriers to their leadership and healing. There are ways that I can forge deeper and stronger relationships with other white men and with Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern men to ally with each other so that we can collectively act in alliance with Black, Asian, LatinX, Native and Middle-Eastern women. There is progress to be made and I intend to make my next steps.