An important and meaningful webinar was recently organized by the Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada. The Role of Allyship in Reconciliation was part of an ongoing series encouraging individuals and organizations to better understand truth and reconciliation through cultivating dialogue and shared experience.

“The Journey to Reconciliation webinar series is one of the spaces in which The Circle hopes to promote learning, build relationships and activate the philanthropic sector in the work of reconciliation as outlined in The Philanthropic Community’s Declaration of Action,” explains communications manager Shereen Munshi. It’s well-aligned with the organization’s aim to transform philanthropy and contribute to positive change with Indigenous communities by creating spaces of learning, innovation, relationship-building, co-creation and activation.

As part of the webinar, the Circle’s executive director, Kris Archie conversed with Rudayna Bahubeshi, Nada Elmasry and Tanvi Bhatia who shared personal experiences working as racialized women in the sector. They also discussed the role of allyship between immigrants and Indigenous people, the need for more inclusive leadership and the practices that need to change toward a more equitable sector.

Creating space for reflection

The conversation was a good fit for the Circle’s mission, “because it sparked self and organizational reflection,” says Munshi. It also highlighted the fact that different communities experience similar barriers, she adds, prompting additional conversations around three basic questions: What does an ally in philanthropy look like? Whose voices do we need to elevate? And what does philanthropy have to change to better work with racialized communities? These dialogues are extremely important for the sector, echoes Caitlin Blacklaws, governance and communications manager at the Lawson Foundation, a partner of the webinar series and of previous ones with the Circle, including Shedding Light on Language and 150 Acts of Reconciliation. The Foundation is committed to supporting and advancing the work of reconciliation between Canada’s Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, adding that this commitment led to its decision to join other philanthropic foundations and grant-makers in signing the Declaration of Action.

These webinars offer a space to learn and ask questions, Blacklaws explains. “If we want to take action, we first have to understand and learn about the path to reconciliation and the webinar series is a great way to do that.” But the work is a continuous journey and not a destination or goal to be achieved, she adds. “As we walk the path of reconciliation, these webinars give us a platform to be learners and listeners first.”

Turning allyship into action

That goal would certainly be seen as positive to panelist Nada Elmasry, coordinator at the Refugee and New Canadian Support Program at Simon Fraser University and member of Fresh Voices, a group of racialized youth who, with the help of adult allies, work at removing barriers to their success.

Serving a community that you connect with or belong to can be very rewarding, says Elmasry. But it can also be exhausting and isolating. “I personally face a lot of discrimination because of who I am, not only when reaching out to other people who work in the sector but also when trying to advocate for people we serve,” she explains, adding that being a visible Muslim is part of the problem.

Within this context, the concept of allyship, as a verb, as an action, continues to grow in relevance, she says. Marginalized communities are facing many barriers but achieving change alone is impossible. “If we support one another, if there’s some kind of allyship, we’ll be able to be stronger, to navigate, and to actually change the systems that oppress us.”

Of course, when we talk about newcomers or racialized immigrants and refugees, we’re not just talking about one community. Considering the diversity among communities and people, allyship is important within those communities as well as with Indigenous communities, and with everyone, she says.

Moving from tokenism to meaningful decision making

Equally important is ensuring the marginalized community is part of the decision-making process. Elmasry shares how, while she’s often asked to talk about her experiences, racialized people are seldom part of the decisions. If you look at people in leadership positions, they’re not usually directly impacted by these communities, nor are they in touch with communities who are. That’s when Elmasry and others who are connected to these communities try to bridge that gap. “But it’s really hard because we’re not in leadership positions, so often we get turned down or the system that we have in place is not necessarily a structure that is best for those kinds of communities.”

Bottom line: to see real change, people who are impacted should be seated at the decision-making table. And let’s be clear about something else: they shouldn’t be there – or on a panel, or in a group – just to be tokenized. They must be valued and provided a position or a platform. Though Elmasry is invited to speak at various events, she often wonders: “Am I being asked to join those conversations because they actually want my opinion or is it a checkmark, ‘we have a token Muslim in the room, now we did our job and can move on’.”

Fellow panelist, Rudayna Bahubeshi, manager of stakeholder engagement and communications at the Inspirit Foundation, shares her frustration. It’s common for organizations serving a marginalized population to have people at the decision-making wheel who don’t represent those groups, she says. “There’s a disconnect between really understanding on-the-ground experiences and being able to reflect on that meaningfully in decision-making.”

What’s more, even though there’s a greater importance today on lived experience than in the past, tokenism gets in the way of progress. “Even with me, if I’m the only black person at the table, they may feel that’s enough,” she says, adding she’s usually the only person in a room who looks like her, which sometimes makes speaking important hard truths difficult.

And here’s the other challenge: because of tokenism, someone may feel obligated to speak of their lived experience with marginalization as opposed to contributing to an issue or a conversation through the sharing of their expertise. For example, if there’s one marginalized person on a panel with non-racialized panelists of policy makers, their skills and capacities are trivialized by way of pigeonholing. “And then you have people who don’t have those identities who come across as experts,” explains Bahubeshi.

Things are changing in the sector, she adds, but just a little too slowly, “to the point of actual meaningful representation versus tokenization.” And don’t forget that bringing people from different backgrounds to the table is not sufficient to tackling the issues in the sector, Bahubeshi says. We must also keep in mind that a lot of resources were amassed in problematic ways. “There needs to be an opportunity to really ask questions about fundamental systems.” The question isn’t ‘How do we use these tools to move forward” but “Are these the right tools?’

Despite the emergence of a big solidarity movement, with more and more people speaking out, it’s hard for people to change, adds Elmasry. “Once you have a position of power, it’s hard to let go of that.”

But it’s important to recognize that we all have some kind of privilege, some access to certain things that others don’t. The question then becomes how we use our access, our privilege, says Elmasry. Do we use it to support and stand in solidarity with others who have less or lack certain privilege?

The next step is to reach out to those underrepresented communities and marginalized people to determine what barriers are standing in their way. “Some of it is structural racism and other times they’re just not invited,” she says, adding that sometimes microaggression is not even meant to harm.

“Settlement agencies [for example] are trying to help and genuinely want to help but they don’t see some of the practices and structures doing more harm than good.” But, she adds, no matter from whence or why these barriers exist, it only takes one person in a leadership position to notice and say, “Ok what are we going to do about it”.

Elisa Birnbaum is a freelance journalist, producer and communications consultant living in Toronto. She is president of Elle Communications and Publisher & Editor-in-Chief of SEE Change Magazine and can be reached at: info@ellecommunications.ca.

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