Alice Vol. 7 No. 3

are starting to wonder whether these companies are
simply profiting off the perceived trend of support.
“I think fashion activism is a really cool and
valid movement but it often gets overshadowed
by corporate attempts to profit off of marginalized
communities,” Sanders said. “True activism isn’t
profitable.”
Safe Zone Resource Center at The University of
Alabama strives to promote and implement diversity
and inclusion for LGBTQ+ students on the campus.
Counselors teach students how to be a better ally to
the community and actively work to change the way
allyship is presented.
Dr. Lizzie Smith, director of Safe Zone, said that
people put their best intentions forward by using
and wearing slogans, like Black Lives Matter and
Love is Love, but they don’t necessarily agree with
the meaning. She said people aren’t informed on
the right way to be an ally and that being an ally
requires action.
“They talk the talk, but they don’t necessarily walk
the walk,” Smith said.
Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, author of “Dressed for
Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American
Feminism” and professor at Case Western Reserve
University, said some forms of fashionable activism
come with powerful messages. For example, the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was
founded in 1960 during the heart of the Civil Rights
Movement. Women in the committee, specifically
Black women, adopted wearing denim clothing
instead of dresses to show unity with sharecroppers.
By 1973 SNCC had lost the majority of its employees
and branches which resulted in the extinction of The
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Even
though SNCC was around for a short time, their
impact, whether it’s considered fashionable or not,
influences the ways people use fashion to protest
today.
Scholar Tanisha C. Ford wrote “SNCC Women,
Denim, and the Politics of Dress” which said that
these women used the “uniform consciously to
transgress a black middle-class worldview that
marginalized certain types of women and particular
displays of blackness and black culture.”
Women gave up dresses, started to wear denim
and brought attention and change in the wake of
the Civil Rights Movement. Fashion can make an
impact, but only if it’s genuine.
“No doubt that for many companies, and even
individuals, this is not more than lip service or
virtue signaling,” said Rabinovitch-Fox. “This is
not different from changing your profile picture,
however, I do think that clothing or adopting certain
styles can have powerful messages when they are
being deployed by activists.”
It’s no question that protesting in the 2020s is
different from protesting in the 1960s, but in a world
where technology and social media are a part of
everyone’s life, wearing a shirt with a huge rainbowcolored
“ALLY” or that “Black Lives Matter” mask
isn’t doing as much as society thinks. These things
aren’t sparking movements, they are there to prove
a point and validate identities.
This idea of fashionable activism and performative
allyship play hand-in-hand. Big corporations
continue to advertise fighting for justice and being
allies, but when the fight seems to be dying down,
they put activism shirts on sale. The allies who
bought them when the issues are highlighted in
the mainstream media are the same allies that
put them in their drawers or donate them to the
local thrift store when the issue isn’t trending on
Twitter anymore. Political merchandise has a goal,
but it can’t be the only form of allyship. An ally is
correcting people and fixing injustice when it is
clearly visible and speaking up about unjust things
that silenced voices aren’t able to speak up about. If
you buy the shirt, make sure you do the work.
Ways to Donate:
LGBTQ+ Rights
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/
https://www.thehrcfoundation.org/
https://transequality.org/
Womens’ Rights
https://now.org/
https://www.unwomen.org/en
https://www.globalfundforwomen.
Racial Justice
https://colorofchange.org/
https://blacklivesmatter.com/
https://www.aclu.org/
https://eji.org/
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