This was by far one of my favorite live Wednesday Workshops because I was joined by my sister, Dr. Jandel Crutchfield, to discuss colorism, privilege, and how to be an ally.
Dr. Crutchfield is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social work at the University of Texas at Arlington. She focuses on school social work and recently got awarded a Million dollar grant to help students with disabilities. Before her career switch to academia, Dr. Crutchfield worked as a licensed social worker and counselor in a variety of setting and institutions.
As sisters, growing up in the same household, and having the same mother and the same father (because people often assume we’re half sisters, itself a colorist assumption) we have lots of memories. We have done a couple of interviews before, one written interview and one video interview.
and Dr. Sarah L. Webb
In many of those interviews, we touch on privilege and allyship, but we wanted to specifically and explicitly address it in this workshop because of the increased attention to the need for allyship during the Black Lives Matter Movement.
We define and ask the audience to define privilege and allyship, and offer our own definitions. Dr. Crutchfield defines allyship as being willing to put your body on the line for the benefit of marginalized groups. This includes physical time, space, money, and effort. As I say, there must be some risk involved, otherwise it’s merely performative allyship.
For the rest of this discussion, I point you to the podcast or YouTube video below. There conversation there was way more interesting than I can transcribe here.
Homework: Identify an area of privilege you have, and do one act of allyship today!
Affirmation: I have the power to play a positive role in someone’s life today!