Mark Berrios-Ayala, Allyship

Mark Berrios-Ayala, Lawyer, is a Board Director of the Gwen S Cherry Black Women Lawyers Association, Regional Vice President of District Three of the Puerto Rican Bar Association of Florida, and author of ‘Let’s Get Sincere’, a book on being an ally.

Allyship is basically helping a resilient or disadvantaged community that is not your own.

There is something of a history of allyship in the Puerto Rican community in the United States. Mark makes reference to The Young Lords, a group that supports neighbourhood empowerment for Puerto Rican and Latinos communities, but also women and LGBTQ.

Mark’s book covers the political, social and spiritual dimensions of allyship. He makes the distinction between de jure, that is officially sanctioned, discrimination and de facto discrimination, which though not officially sanctioned is still real.

Social discrimination is about, for example, being the only person in your workplace that is from your community. In this situation differences can lead to a lack of promotion opportunities or unfair termination. The spiritual dimension concerns the complications that faith can bring to allyship, particularly if the ally or the resilient community are eager to convert others.

Good reasons to be an ally are if you have connections with a particular resilient community, for example friends, a job within the community, an affinity for their culture. Above all, you should have sincere motives and not hidden ones. And you should recognise that an ally cannot fix every problem for a community; for example mentorship does not feed people, mend broken families, provide stability and structure, or provide access to health and education.

Mark lists nine behaviours that are helpful in an ally: courage, compassion, honesty, loyalty, consistency, selflessness, sacrifice, perseverance, and sincerity. There is a degree of overlap between these.

Mark has experienced allyship in his own life, though at the time he may not have recognised it as such: one ally was a teacher who gave him guidance and widened his horizons.

His proudest achievements to date are writing the book, becoming an attorney (five years ago), and sitting on various volunteer bar associations.

In most instances his biggest mistakes have been associated with letting the advice of others override his personal intuition. This is one of the reasons that his book is written as a guide to help people think through the issues and come to their own conclusions rather than a set of rules.

Apart from his own book, Mark would recommend ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ by Dale Carnegie, and ‘The Art of War’ by Sun Tzu. The latter emphasises the importance of knowing yourself and also the obstacles you face, which is quite relevant to allyship.

He would also recommend ‘The Art of Seduction’ by Robert Greene, a book on how to manipulate and use people. If you are a member of a resilient community or an ally to one, it is helpful to understand the behaviour of predators. Mark says “if you want to learn you to defeat an manipulator you have to learn how they manipulate.”

Mark’s self-care regime includes the gym, healthy eating and meditation. Spending time with friends and watching sport are other self-care activities. In addition, being involved in various voluntary organisations provides him with social support, new places to go, and fun.

His advice to his 20-year-old self is quite specific: take a different prep class for law school, be more ambitious in your applications for law school, relax and spend more time on physical exercise in your first year. And his advice to his 25-year-old self would be “you will find a job but it won’t be exactly what you think it is, and that’s OK.”