Passing Down the Mic Signals Trustworthy Intersectional Allyship and Promotes Organizational Identity-Safety

Abstract

People belonging to more privileged groups are often given the default opportunity to address oppression over multiply marginalized people, perpetuating intersectional invisibility. The present research proposes passing down the mic as a strategy to disrupt intersectional invisibility. Black women (N_total = 584; Experiments 1 and 2) perceived a White woman at an organization’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) meeting who passed a speaking opportunity to a Black woman to address Black women’s discrimination compared to speaking herself or allowing another White woman to address women’s or Black women’s discrimination, as a more trustworthy ally to Black women, and thus participants anticipated greater self-sacrificing allyship from the White woman, and greater identity-safety if they worked at the organization. Such benefits transferred, emerging for Latinx women participants whether the mic was passed to a Latina or Black woman (N = 528; Experiment 3). Findings highlight an intervention route to equitably uplift multiply marginalized people and address intersectional disparities.