I’ve gotten a bunch of followers lately and I feel it is only fair to warn you that I don’t normally post about social justice / queer politics at this length, if that is why you are here.
always popping up at inappropriate moments, wanting to “help” in ways that hinder your overall goal of actually getting shit done, then wanting constant reassurance that they’re doing shit right, but the system won’t let you get rid of them
umm. well. I guess the question is: would you rather not have them at all, then?
i think the point is—be our friend, not our caseworker. the above describes the type of ally who calls identifies as an Ally, expecting a pat on the back and speaking for minorities when minorities can speak for themselves.
Then perhaps it would be best to express it that way, then. Because, honestly, if I replace “allies” with “volunteers”, that would also be true… but no charity is going to turn away them just because they need a little guidance.
except we don’t need any guidance…we’re not a charity.
Sugarpie, honeybunch, sweetpea, the number one thing you need to understand is that by viewing minorities as a charity in need of your volunteering, you have automatically placed us at a place below you, a place where you’re better than we are, a place where you want to play our savior.
Here’s the thing. You should never have to replace ally with volunteer, if you are talking about people who are real allies. You should replace it with friend. And friends who tell you how to live your life and act like they know better than you what to do with your life and never let you speak for yourself and go around generally being obnoxious and then loudly announce that they’re your friend? is a lousy goddamn friend.
Have a super nice day, jellybean!
1) I’m queer and a visible minority, so saying that I’ve placed myself below myself is a bit of a problem.
2) The original statement does not talk about “real allies”. It speaks to all allies in general, indicating that all of them should just go fuck off because they’re a hassle and they hinder the queer rights movement, rather than helping at all. And talking about your “friends” like that is kind of fucked up.
3) Maybe my viewpoint is skewed, because, honestly? In a battle of this scale and magnitude, I will take any help I can get, because making friends is a secondary motivation at this point. Even if their attempts to help are a bit misguided and condescending, and even if they may be annoying sometimes, every single ally is one more helper, one more voice and, most importantly, one more voter. And goddamn, but I will take legal rights and protections before I start alienating any of those, because those basic rights and protections that are needed right now.
But hey, it looks like we have different priorities when it comes to this kind of thing.
All right, I concede point one, that I made assumptions due to the way you were speaking. However, it IS possible for those of us who belong to minorities to perpetuate problematic attitudes, even about ourselves, so I’m going to maintain that my point is still valid, that that phrasing still places us as being “less than” our allies.
Point two, the original statement put “allies” in quotation marks, which I took to mean people who behave as I described.
Point three, the original post describes people who hinder your objectives while calling themselves allies. So I don’t think these are the people you’re talking about. I agree that it’s great to have people helping! But allies who are truly allies also need to learn to sit down, shut up, and listen when minorities are telling them what needs to be done, and the original post, in my understanding, was complaining about people who do not do that and still insist they’re allies. And if you’ve never met anyone like that, then you are truly, truly lucky, because I’ve met more than my fair share.
Okay, so let me reblog this and properly express myself without the incoherency and tendency towards hyperbole that often hits me when I get excited and overly emotional about things. I hope this post clarifies things, because I know some of my wording lead people to make assumptions about my views that aren’t correct.
(And I’m going to link here because I’m going to reference that response as well.)
1) Like I mentioned, I do not think that the queer community is in any position to be turning down allies, even ones who aren’t perfect. And, while I don’t think that grovelling is necessary at the moment, I mentioned it because I would, in fact, go to that extent if it was necessary to get the rights and safeties that I want and need. Because the queer community is not in a position of power here.
Yes, it has more power than it did, and yes, things are getting better, but we cannot stand alone. There aren’t enough of us, and there probably won’t be for a while, or ever. And because of that, every ally counts. Yes, even the ones who are a little condescending and annoying and need reassurance, even the “bad” ones… because every person who backs this movement is another person who is voting pro-rights and spreading the pro-rights message. And at this point, we need that. We need voters to push in the politicians who support us and push out the ones who don’t. We need voices to spread our message to politicians, to get them to realize that we are important.
2) I am not saying that allies ought to be able to do whatever they want, and I certainly don’t think that we should bow to them and simply be glad that they exist. What I do think, however, is that posts like this are unhelpful and are ultimately going to hinder us.
The point I was making when I said “replace allies with volunteers” is that both kinds of people are doing what they do out of good intentions. By mocking them, the only thing that is achieved is to drive away supporters and people who are thinking about being supporters. It makes us look stuck-up and snotty — like we’re too good to accept other people’s help. This does not help anyone, especially not us.
While we do not have to bow down to “allies”, what we do need to do, what every decent person, in fact, needs to do, is keep manners in mind. Be polite, for god’s sake! Yes, I realize that the queer community has been treated like crap. So have many others. That does not give us an excuse to act like assholes in return. That cycle only leads to chaos.
3) As an aside, the fact that people are questioning whether or not I’m white/male/cis/het/non-disabled/neurotypical/middle-class/whatever is making me extremely uncomfortable.
I hear you on this. I hear what you’re saying about needing all the support we can get. And I know what it’s like to cling to somebody, anybody, who isn’t actively spitting in your face because damn the world can be a scary place for us.
And I’ve already responded saying about as much to you, but I want to say it again because this is a mistake a lot of people are making. Our issue is not that we can’t get married. It’s not even that there are poor anti-discrimination laws. That sort of thinking leads one to think that oppression happens because of a few bad people who just need to be reeducated and brought over to the side of the light.
That’s not the case. Our oppression happens because systemically there is no space for us built into the way our society functions right now. Our oppression happens because we are targeted, medicalized, institutionalized, incarcerated, by the world we live in. It’s not individual people, it’s the fact that the entire system is set up to privilege a particular kind of body, a particular kind of mind, a particular kind of gender expression, a particular kind of relationship (and I’m speaking even more broadly here than just LGBTQ oppression). People exercising their privilege over us is them using that system to hurt us. I know they don’t mean it. I know they can’t help it. I know they’re not all bad people. But it doesn’t change the fact that as marginalized people, somebody is almost always exercising their privilege over us. Actively harming us.
The solution is not to throw the baby out with the bath water or to start telling every single person with privilege over you to fuck off, but it also certainly not to be thankful to the self-professed allies who are actively working against our goals. I don’t dislike allies, I dislike allies who only want to help on the surface, but won’t go the extra step to find out how to be helpful instead of harmful. If you care, you find out how to not kick us in the shins when you’re trying to help us across the road. Otherwise thanks, I’ll get across on my own.
At its core our disagreement is that you think that every ally is doing some amount of good when that’s just not true. An ally can be harmful. An ally can oppress the person they claim to be allies of. I am against blanket saying “if you say you are an ally, I am thankful”. No. I reserve the right to be a human being with feelings and to tell people who claim to be helpful but are hurting me to get lost. It’s almost worse when they do it while smiling and expecting to be thanked.
And finally, I want to point out there are actually tons of resources made available to queer people by queer people. We’re not all that helpless:
Callen Lorde Community Health Center
This is literally about 1% of the LGBTQ-run organizations out there meant to help queer people. I tried to get a sampling of a bunch of different topics being addressing by activists and this alone is heavily New York based because that’s where I live. The point is that, it’s not that we need people to “help” us, because we don’t really, we need people to understand how and why the system is broken and stop exploiting it.
I want to read Treason’s Shore but I got so little sleep that the very thought of concentrating on a book makes my head explode with pain
A New Queer Agenda, a collaboration between the Scholar and Feminist Online and Queers for Economic Justice, has been launched. It is an only journal for queer scholarly work. It is open source, and individual essays are downloadable and emailable. Documents, photos, interviews, and many essays by activists both well-recognized and never before published, sharing their knowledge and experience with us for circulation.
Fucking bureaucracy.
I’ve legally changed my name. This means that I have to approach every single federal and state department that has issued me a form of identification or documentation as well as every independent institution and have them change my records. You know what that means? Shelling out LOTS of money.
So I’ve changed my driver’s license and I have a court order. You’d think that would be enough, but apparently my employer specifically wants a social security card with my new name to alter my records. Because it’s really easy to get one and I can definitely afford to pay for it on top of rent, food, transportation, and medical expenses.
What does this mean for me? It means that I don’t know if I’m going to get paid because my bank account bears my legal name and my work place is still using my old name.
But god forbid they take any other documentation.
The fact that this country is all about documenting your every move, everything about you, always, everywhere, makes it really fucking hard to function when you’ve been misdocumented.
It’s Saturday why am I at work.
Sobs
Blinded by your computer screen? -
Turning the brightness down doesn’t alleviate that, does it?
Recently, researchers have found evidence that suggests the colour temperature of one’s monitor can effect on your circadian rhythms, headaches, etc.
Obviously, it’s not a cureall, but it goes a long way to help. I’ve been using it for years, and it helps avoid headaches and other annoyances.
Here’s what f.lux has to say:
Ever notice how people texting at night have that eerie blue glow?
Or wake up ready to write down the Next Great Idea, and get blinded by your computer screen?
During the day, computer screens look good—they’re designed to look like the sun. But, at 9PM, 10PM, or 3AM, you probably shouldn’t be looking at the sun.
F.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer’s display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.
It’s even possible that you’re staying up too late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could just use it just because it makes your computer look better.
It’s available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and iPhone/iPad.
HOLY FUCK
THIS HAS MY ENDORSEMENT 110%
i’ve installed this twice and it uninstalled itself both times. mysteriously. fuck f.lux
Hm. I’m going to try this.
always popping up at inappropriate moments, wanting to “help” in ways that hinder your overall goal of actually getting shit done, then wanting constant reassurance that they’re doing shit right, but the system won’t let you get rid of them
umm. well. I guess the question is: would you rather not have them at all, then?
i think the point is—be our friend, not our caseworker. the above describes the type of ally who calls identifies as an Ally, expecting a pat on the back and speaking for minorities when minorities can speak for themselves.
Then perhaps it would be best to express it that way, then. Because, honestly, if I replace “allies” with “volunteers”, that would also be true… but no charity is going to turn away them just because they need a little guidance.
except we don’t need any guidance…we’re not a charity.
You don’t need guidance. “Allies” do, though.
And queer people aren’t a charity, but they sure as hell need help and support.
look i know you have the greatest intentions right now and you’re a wonderful person—you’ve certainly always been wonderful to me, but i think you need to step back and read what’s being written here by queer people in the community. i think they know what is best for themselves. again, you’re wonderful, but right now you’re sounding pretty ignorant and condescending toward the queer community.
I guess the fact of the matter is that I have a different opinion from the queer community, and a large part of that is that I don’t value dignity nearly as high as others do. In my worldview, sometimes grovelling is necessary if it’s going to get what I need. Once I get that, I can work on getting my respect back, but the pyramid of needs places things like personal health/safety, food, and shelter as more important and, well. Not all of those things are stable for the queer community. Not at all.
Here’s the thing though: yes and no. There are enough privileged queers out there that we have the resources to organize and help our own. There are actually plenty of LGBTQ-run organizations that provide housing, food, etc.
Allowing well-meaning but ultimately ignorant allies to run rough-shod over us is not only an insult to our dignity, as you put it, but it is actually counter-productive to our own cause. We want to combat systemic oppression. We don’t want to be helpless at the hands of those who have privilege over us because having that privilege wielded against us is exactly what makes us need the extra help. It’s what makes us a marginalized group to start with. Relying on them, no being thankful for allies trodding on us even while meaning well, actually actively prevents our goal.
So if I have the time and the energy and the spoons and the desire to educate a potential ally, I will. But I have a life to get on with. And I appreciate the good intentions but if you’re serious about wanting to help me then you won’t make yourself a nuisance. Otherwise, you are literally contributing to my oppression. So no. I’m not thankful. And I’m certainly not groveling thanks for hurting me.