Practical Tools for Immediate Use
Becoming a Cultural Ally
Tips for Talking with Youth about Race and Culture
Setting the Tone for Dialogues on Race and Culture
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Becoming a Cultural Ally
“A cultural ally is someone who actively supports and defends the rights and dignity of individuals from social groups other than their own, especially when these individuals are not present or otherwise able to represent themselves.” (Doreen Cato, Nadine Shiroma)
A cultural ally works to understand how power imbalances originate, are kept in place
(often inadvertently), impact the individual, and impact the organization. Hope for change is maintained at all times.
Examples:
- Rather than waiting for a person from a particular group to defend themselves, speak out when someone behaves or comments in a way that is demeaning to another social group.
- Notice the racial, gender, and cultural makeup of boards and policy making groups that govern organizations, cities, and countries and nurture diversity.
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Tips for Talking With Youth about Race and Culture
- Consider these conversations a journey. Questions and identity development will change over a lifetime.
- Help children develop a strong and positive ethnic identity.
- Teach young people that we see life differently based on our life experiences and how we make meaning of them.
- Avoid overwhelming child with more information (substantive and emotional) than they are cognitively able to handle.
- Practice active listening.
- Discuss racism as a social problem. Check in with your own children to make sure that they do not personalize negative situations.
- If you are white, explore the concept of unearned privileges (for example that most of the teachers and administrators in your child’s school will look like you) and related feelings. If you rarely think of being white, what about your environment allows that to happen?
- If you are a person of color, when are you most aware of it?
- It is OK to feel that you belong to several social/cultural groups at the same time.
- Envision how exciting a future built on the best of the past and including freedom, democracy and equality for all would be!
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Setting the Tone Prior to Dialogues on Race and Culture
(Developed for City of Bellevue, Conversations on Race and Culture)
- Suspend judgment
- Assume differences
- Be curious
- Practice “safe landings” (risks accompanied by forgiveness)
- Be ready to “unlearn to learn”
- Speak from your own experience and perspective
- Embrace ambiguity
- Realize that emotions both block and offer opportunities to learn
- Expect and accept non-closure
- Listen with ears, eyes, mind and heart
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