Bicultural Practice: Beyond Mere tokenism ● 115questions Bishop asked about oppression can be summarized as follows:
“How does oppression come about? How does it reproduce itself in individuals
and institutions? How do the different oppressions support and reinforce one
another?” The authors of this chapter would argue that it is just as important
to understand the nature of privilege and advantage and to ask, “How are
privilege and advantage created? How are they accrued and by whom? And
what underpins these processes?”
Bishop (2002) also highlighted the restorative nature of being an ally,
being a conduit for healing and consciousness raising, maintaining hope, and
through this becoming an agent of change, helping us achieve our own libera-
tion. She described several characteristics that distinguish allies (2002, 111):
● (^) their sense of connection with other people, all other people;
● (^) their grasp of the concept of social structures and collective responsibility;
● (^) their lack of an individualistic stance and ego, although they have a
strong sense of self;
● (^) their sense of process and change;
● (^) their understanding of their own process of learning; their realistic sense
of their own power;
● (^) their grasp of “power-with” as an alternative to “power-over”;
● (^) their honesty, openness, and lack of shame about their own limitations;
● (^) their knowledge and sense of history;
● (^) their acceptance of struggle;
● (^) their understanding that good intentions do not matter if there is no
action against oppression;
● (^) their knowledge of their own roots.
The ally model of social justice is consistent with Māori human service
work in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Becoming an ally requires us to look at our
own privilege and social position. To enact anti-oppressive values and practices,
we align our multiple identities with the oppressions that concern us (Gibson
2014). The authors of this chapter are of middle age, male, and heterosex-
ual, and we have good jobs at a university. We therefore occupy numerous
places of privilege. For us to stand with women in their fight for equality, for
example, we must first acknowledge our place of privilege as males. It is the
same when we fight for human rights and social justice: we must identify the
privileges that are part of our identity or multiple identities. No matter where
persons are in their study or career, they occupy a position in differentness,
oppression, and privilege by virtue of their age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic
status, and so on. Becoming an ally is a form of critical consciousness raising
(or “conscientization” as Freire [1970] termed it) that has a transformative