Dear Ally (Skills Teacher), I am a socially awkward, queer fat white woman working at a government agency in Canada. I would like some advice about what to do as a bystander when my white colleagues of any gender are engaging in subtle (or not so subtle) racist behaviour against my women of color colleagues.Continue reading “#17: How do I stop being “nice” and start standing up to racism at work?”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Learn about microallyship
We’ve almost worked our way through the backlog of questions for Dear Ally Skills Teacher! We are now switching to a “when we feel like it” posting schedule. In the meantime, here is another ally skills resource for you: “Microallyship: micro servicing your team’s culture” by Neha Batra (@nerdneha). Neha shared the slides for aContinue reading “Learn about microallyship”
#16: How do I correct sexist language without scaring my report?
Dear Ally (Skills Teacher), I’m a white man in a leadership position at a tech company. My team is unusually diverse and we talk about diversity fairly often. A few months back one of the men on my team used the phrase ‘girls’ when describing young women (in their early twenties) who work as professionalContinue reading “#16: How do I correct sexist language without scaring my report?”
#15: What term should I use when talking about people who have disabilities?
This week’s question is an amalgam of several different questions: Dear Ally (Skills Teacher), Can you tell me once and for all what the proper term is to use when talking about people who have disabilities? I see “people with disabilities,” “disabled people,” and “differently abled” most often. Whatever I pick, half the time someoneContinue reading “#15: What term should I use when talking about people who have disabilities?”
#14: How do I talk to people who are against allyship as a concept?
Dear Ally (Skills Teacher), I am a cis-gender, heterosexual, white, male, working in academia (pursuing a PhD in Computer Science at a US University) so I am very aware of my privilege. I’m a huge advocate for ally work as I myself struggled immensely in the early phase of my doctoral studies and through thatContinue reading “#14: How do I talk to people who are against allyship as a concept?”
#13: Can I do anything about my rude, sexist, racist boss?
Dear Ally (Skills Teacher), I am a white, university-educated woman and I recently started a new job based in Europe. The issue is my boss, who is a rude, sexist, racist white man. He is much older than me and is viewed in our industry as a merely strong-headed, kinda grumpy guy who achieved aContinue reading “#13: Can I do anything about my rude, sexist, racist boss?”
#12: When should I hold the door for someone using a wheelchair?
Dear Ally (Skills Teacher), I’m a woman with no disabilities living in a mid-sized city. Today while I was leaving the library, a woman using a wheelchair was entering. Someone else had pressed the automatic door opener several seconds ago, but the door was starting to close as she was going through. I held theContinue reading “#12: When should I hold the door for someone using a wheelchair?”
#11: How do I choose which activist to trust?
Dear Ally (Skills Teacher), I’m a feminist woman in tech, and I recently turned down an invitation to appear on a panel with another feminist activist. The reason I turned it down is that I don’t trust the other activist, don’t want to give them my social capital by appearing on the same panel, andContinue reading “#11: How do I choose which activist to trust?”
Learn more about the Ally Skills Workshop
I hope you enjoyed the first 10 columns from Dear Ally Skills Teacher! As the next few months are the busiest time for ally skills training, Dear Ally will switch to a biweekly posting schedule. We still have a number of good questions in the queue, but I plan to end the column in aContinue reading “Learn more about the Ally Skills Workshop”
#10: Should white people use white skin tone emojis?
Dear Ally (Skills Teacher), I’m a cis white man in the U.S., and I have a leadership role at a tech company that uses Slack for communication and has many employees from marginalized groups. Slack has a default “skin tone” for emojis, which is a cartoon-y yellow by default but can be set to anotherContinue reading “#10: Should white people use white skin tone emojis?”
