BUILDING ALLIANCES

INTRODUCTION

At the opening ceremony for Detroit Summer, 1994 - a multicultural, intergenerational youth movement to rebuild, redefine, and re-spirit the city from the ground up - Grace Lee Boggs, a long-time community activist in her eighties and one of the founders of Detroit Summer, quoted Black revolutionary Frantz Fanon: "Each generation must discover its mission" Boggs (1994) told Detroit Summer participants:

In the physical work that you do, the "found art" that you create, the connections you make with one another and in your reflections and discussions ont ough questions, you are using your hearts, hands, and heads to create new ways of living (p. 2)

Building Alliances for Social Change

Although one often hears of the failures, of times when alliances did not work, there have also been effective alliances across lines of difference. We emphasize the importance of such alliances for two reasons. First, the many inequalities among women, mentioned throughout this book, often separate us and make it very difficult to work together effectively. Those with power over us know this and often exploit differences to put one group against another. Second, progressive social change is a slow process that needs sustained action over the long haul. Effective alliances, based on a deepening knowledge of others and learning whom to trust over time, are necessary for long-term efforts, in contrast to coalition work, where the important thing is to stand together around a single issue, regardless of other differences. Alliances across lines of difference are both a means and an end. Gandhi commented that there is no road to peace; peace is the road. Similarly, alliances across lines of difference provide both the process for moving toward, and at the same time some experience of, multicultural society. Gloria Yamato (Reading 96), and Melanie Kay/Kantrowitz (Reading 97) address aspects of alliance building later in the chapter.

Some Principles for Alliance Building

Know who you are, what is important to you, what are your nonnegotiables. Know your strengths and what you bring to this shared venture.

Decide whether you want to be allies with a particular person or group. What do they stand for? What are their values? What are they interested in doing in terms of creating social change? Are they open to the alliance? What is the purpose for coming together?

Recognize, honor, and accept the ways you are different from the others. You may look different. You may have learned some very different messages from your own community.

Check out the person or the group as the acquaintance grows. Are they who they say they are? Do they do what they say they believe in? Do you have reason to trust them to be there for you? Judge them by their track records and what actually happens, not by your fears, hopes, or expectations that come from old experiences.

Commit yourself to communicate.Listen, talk, and listen more. Communication may be through conversations, reading, films, events and meetings, or learning about one another's communities. Work together on projects and support one another's projects. Go into one another's settings as participants, observers, guests. Get to know one another in different settings.

Share the past. Talk about what has happened to you, whom you've known, what has been important, what you've hoped for. Talk about the ways you've changed. If I hear something negative about you, is it the "you" you are now?

Wanting to understand, to hear more, to stay connected requires patience from the inside.It is not an abstract principle imposed from the outside. Allow one another room to explore ideas, share, dream, ramble, make mistakes, change words, be tentative. Hold judgment until you understand what's going on. Ask the other person to say more. Be committed to the process of communication rather than attached to a specific position.

Honesty is the most important thing, Be authentic and ask for authenticity from others. If this is not possible, what is the alliance worth? Say honestly what you honestly need.

Keep the process "clean." Call one another on bad things if they happen - preferably with grace, teasing maybe, firmly but gently, so that the other person does not lose face. Don't try to disentangle difficulties when it is impossible to do so meaningfully, but don't use externals (too late, too tired, too busy, too many other items on the agenda) to avoid it.

Be open to being called on your own mistakes, admitting when you're wrong, even if it is embarrassing or makes you feel vulnerable. Tell the other person when his or her opinions and experiences give you new insights and help you to see things differently.

Do some people in the group take up a lot of time talking about their own issues and concerns?Are they aware of it? What is the unspoken power dynamic among people? How does privilege based on gender, race, class, sexuality, disability, age, culture, or language play out in this relationship or alliance? Can you talk about it openly?

What is the "Culture" of your group or alliance? What kinds of meetings do you have? What is you decision-making style? If you eat together, what kind of food do you serve? What kind of music do you listen to? Where do you meet? What do you do when you are together? Does everyone in the group feel comfortable with these cultural aspects?

Work out the boundaries of your responsibilities to one another. What do you want to do foryourself? What do you need others to help with? When? How?

Look for the common ground. What are the perspectives, experiences, and insights we share?

Impediments to Effective Alliances

Over and over again sincere and committed attempts at building alliances have been thwarted, despite the best of intentions. Several common impediments to creating effective alliances include the following beliefs and behaviors:

Internalized Oppression This is a learned mindset of subservience and inferiority in oppressed peoples. It is the passive and active acceptance of labels, characteristics, prejudices, and perceptions promoted by the dominant society. Specific behaviors include self-hatred and dislike, disrespect for and hatred of others of the same group, isolation, and being satisfied, even grateful for being allowed to exist (Lipsky 1977; Pheterson 1990).

Internalized Domination This is a mindset of en-titlement and superiority among members of the dominant group, which includes the belief that inequalities are normal; thus those in the dominant group never realize that they are privileged. This belief is often accompanied by the contradictory feelings of self-righteousness and guilt. Behaviors such as always speaking first in group discussions, being unconscious of the large amount of physical and social space one takes up, and automatically assuming leadership roles are some manifestations of internalized domination.

Operating from a Politics of Scarcity This impediment results from a deeply held, sometimes unconscious, belief that there is not enough of anything - material things as well as nonmaterial things like power, positive regard, popularity, friendship, time - and, more important, that however much there is, it will not be shared equally. In this view, inequality is simply a given that cannot be changed. Subscribing to a Hierarchy of Oppression This involves the placement of one oppressed group in relation to another so that one group's experiences of discrimination, prejudice, and disadvantage are deemed to be worse or better than another's. There is an assumption that these experiences can somehow be measured accurately and that a negative or positive value can be placed on certain kinds of experiences.

Not Knowing One Another's History Ignorance about other persons' backgrounds often results in drawing incorrect conclusions about their experiences. This prevents us from recognizing the complexity of women's experiences and can hide the ways our experiences are both different and similar.

(cf. Kirk and Okazawa-Rey, Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, 451, 456-458)