Racial Justice Allyship Requires Civil Courage

"Facing an enemy on the battlefield took courage, but you had your friends beside you. Standing alone against your friends, that was a different kind of courage." — Joe Abercrombie

We all like to think that if we saw someone waving from the side of the road with a flat tire, we would lend a hand, but many of us have passed by someone in need and, despite a twinge of guilt, have not stopped to help. If that's you, you're not alone. Studies show that as we grow up, we become less likely to intervene when we see someone in need. But why is that?  

Research by Staub in the 1970s shed some light on this phenomenon. He found that children learn the conventional rules of helping behavior around sixth grade. At this age, they start to worry about breaking the rules, whether they're unwritten or written. In an experiment, children of different ages were told not to leave a room before they completed a drawing. In the middle of the task, someone outside the room cries for help. While younger children even went so far as to break their own pencils in order to have an excuse to leave the room to help the person in distress, older children do not.

By adolescence, most young people have lost the natural inclination to help others. It's not that they don't care, it's that they've been taught that the rules are more important. They need to be given explicit permission to intervene and help.

This is a concerning trend, as it shows that we lose our natural inclination to help others as we grow older. But the good news is that this is something that can be re-taught. We can learn that under certain circumstances, the need of another person for help overrides the rules. 

Civil Courage Means Breaking the Rules to Offer Help—It's Not Easy

Civil courage—it sounds impressive, doesn't it? But what does it actually mean? In a nutshell, it's about standing up against injustice, even when it's not easy or popular to do so. It's about taking action to make the world a better place, even if it means facing negative consequences for yourself.

But civil courage is different from other forms of bravery. It's not about putting others before yourself. It's about taking a stand for what's right, even if it means facing social backlash. And that's what makes it so powerful.

If Rules Should Be Broken, Which Rules Should Be Broken?

People like to believe that they live in a just society, where the rules are fair and everyone has an equal chance at success. But the truth is, the rules of society are not always just, and simply assuming that the system is fair can blind a person to the ways that the rules are stacked against certain groups. Unjust rules are the rules that should be broken. But not only rules imposed by authorities, but also the unwritten unjust rules of the mind and heart.

Civil courage requires knowledge that the written and unwritten rules of society are in actuality not always just. But also civil courage requires becoming so aware of this injustice that one is willing to break those rules—a much more difficult step. Civil courage also calls a person to challenge long-held social norms which are very much like rules because they lend order to daily life. Some of these social norms are more like myths than rules.

One of the social norms of American society in which many people put faith, for example, is that with hard work anyone can become prosperous. But the reality is, the opportunity to acquire wealth is distributed unequally by social factors such as location, ability, class, and race. This assumption that poverty is a result of a lack of hard work, rather than systemic inequalities, allows the unjust system to thrive unchallenged.

But there are ways to create knowledge of these unwritten rules and social norms, and there are actions that can teach a person how to break them when they are unjust. First, a person has to change their mind, then they can make the changes they would like to see in the world. By actively working to understand and challenge the social norms that lead to inequality, one can start to make a difference.

My colleagues and I have identified 10 exercises designed to do exactly this. The first six are active exercises to see injustice, and the last four are activities to learn to disrupt unjust social norms.

1. Mapping relationships: Make a diagram of your support network
2. Who is lucky? Think about chance versus effort
3. Honestly assess your dislikes 
4. Talk about race with a colleague of a different race
5. Visit a place of worship of a race and ethnicity different from your own
6. Assess your own racial identity
7. Defend your convictions in a hostile forum
8. Challenge the status quo in the workplace
9. Call out the bigoted behavior of colleagues and friends
10. Choose to live a life that includes more people who are different from you, racially and in other ways

So, when you see someone standing up against injustice, even though they know it will be hard for them, it inspires you to do the same. It shows you that you don't have to be afraid to speak up and make a difference. Everybody can learn to be the kind of person who helps others, even when it's not easy. The next time you see someone standing up for what's right, even though it's not the easy thing to do, remember that they're showing civil courage. And who knows—maybe their bravery will inspire you to do the same.

For Further Reading

Williams, M. T., Faber, S., Nepton, A., & Ching, T. H. W. (2023). Racial justice allyship requires civil courage: A behavioral prescription for moral growth and change. The American Psychologist, 78(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000940

Staub, E. (2019). Witnesses/bystanders: The tragic fruits of passivity, the power of bystanders, and promoting active bystandership in children, adults, and groups. Journal of Social Issues, 75(4), 1262-1293. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12351

Emerson, M. O. (2012, December 6). Bridging the gap between the academy and the church [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0Bgq6VlPCw

Hansen, S. (2017). Unlearning the myth of American innocence. The Guardian. https://www. theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/08/unlearning-the-myth-of-american-innocence

Foster, B., & Stevenson, M. (2015, July 1). A conversation with White people on race [Video]. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000003773643/a-conversation-with-white-people-on-race.html

Sonya Faber works in the medical department of a biopharmaceutical company and is an Associate Professor in the School of Epidemiology at the University of Ottawa.