Why don’t more white people effectively act as allies for people of color?

What’s the difference between a straight person who doesn’t hate lesbians and gays, and one who is actually an ally?

What does it take for men to stand up for women’s safety?

Are you a bystander or an ally? 

Most people I know have had a personal experience of witnessing violence against a woman, and doing nothing.  I’ve done nothing more than once.  I remember standing silently on a street corner in San Francisco when I was 19, and watching a man drag a screaming woman down the street by her hair. I didn’t know what to do.
 
What’s the difference between a bystander and an ally?  Is it that the bystander doesn’t care or can’t be bothered?
 
I think it’s fear.
 
Fear that if we intervene, we’ll be hurt too, or killed.  It’s a very real fear.  Police officers have shared with me that the most dangerous part of their job is trying to intervene in domestic violence assaults.  Sometimes the perpetrator turns on them.  Sometimes the victim turns on the ally too, terrified that she’ll be beaten even worse later because someone tried to help her.
 
There’s social fear too.  You may suspect, rightly, that if you say to your sister “I don’t like the way your husband talks to you” or “Have you noticed the kids are afraid of him?” that you won’t be invited over on weekends anymore.  And you might really need your sister’s love, or approval, or a place to go for Christmas.  That’s fear turning a potential ally into a bystander.
 
There are lots of good reasons to learn how to be safe, effective, and meaningful allies, but one that I’m particularly interested in is the trauma that we experience as bystanders.  The experience of failing to act can have devastating, long-term consequences for the witnesses.  It can haunt us, leaving a sense of shame, inadequacy, impotence, even terror.
 
When I finally got realistic and meaningful self-defense training, it not only taught me how to save my own life, but freed me to be an ally.  For the first time in my life, I was free to make choices.  I could choose when to speak up.  When to ask for help.  When to refuse to back down.
 
Knowing I can physically protect myself if someone tries to hurt me has increased my choices in all areas of my life.  Now I know that I can find support, love, and acceptance even if someone rejects me for speaking out.  Now I’m free to tell the truth in all my relationships.  I no longer have to live small and quiet -  whether that’s staying inside because of a fear of parking lots, or shutting up when I hear a racist “joke” or learn disturbing information about a friend.  When we are free to choose, fear no longer gets to run our lives.  We become better allies and safer in the world.
 
“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”  Albert Einstein