Forging Alliances
I attended the Black/People of Colour Leaders' Workshop followed by a Teachers' and Leaders' Workshop in April in Sydney, Australia. Both were inspiring and earth-shattering. Some of us formed a support group of people of Asian/Pacific descent who are allies of indigenous Australians, and we issued the following statement to the workshop:
We are the model of how to be allies:
We always look for a coloured or indigenous person because we instinctively look for an ally wherever we go. This we demonstrated at this workshop. There is nothing in us that stops us from being allies to indigenous Australians. Anything that would stop us from being allies is the oppression that white people have put upon us.
Rie Shiraishi
Annandale, New South Wales, Australia