Whose Struggle? Whose Freedom? How Community Pride Makes a "We"

Abstract

This paper asks when, if ever, people who do not belong to a marginalized identity-based group may be justified in taking that group's political struggle up as if it were their own. Standard views on allyship and solidarity typically require outsiders to defer to group members, on the grounds that they lack the relevant standing. Against this assumption, I argue that some outsiders can be pro tanto justified in participating non-deferentially in an identity-based group's political struggle. The key condition is what I call community pride: a form of pride in a community's way of life, such that the community's socially meaningful practices and values partly constitute one's identity. I first argue that out-group members can, in some cases, genuinely take community pride in an identity-based community. I then show how community pride can justify outsiders' participation in two dimensions of political struggle. Internally, it can ground standing in collective self-determination by giving outsiders direct access to identity-based injustice and the political consciousness needed to contest it. Externally, it can justify resisting group-based oppression as if it were one's own, because community pride ties one's self-respect to the dignity of the relevant community and its group members. The paper thus offers a new account of solidarity across identity differences while avoiding the risks of appropriation.