Listen Learn Speak Up Allyship Activism

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against ableism ageism or homophobia

whether it’s in the form of black

squares forest fires or

other emotion provoking images our for

you pages are constantly seeing this

kind of content

now how many of you posted a black

square

okay great now how many of you know of

the 2013 event that actually started the

black lives matter movement

our social medias are constantly under

an influx of information

about different issues and different

movements so it’s understandable that

sometimes we get lost

but when we look at the black lives

matter movement and the black

squares we can see that a lot of people

use this as an excuse to

share their support without taking any

of the needed

actions of being an ally this is called

performative activism

performative activism is when someone

goes through the motions of being an

ally without

actually taking in the actual

information

needed and putting in the effort that’s

required of being an ally

over the summer a lot of us learnt about

how the black squares were actually

harming the movement because we were

drowning out

black voices this kind of activism

is not okay it’s not true

activism because allyship

is not about convenience it’s not a mass

that you can put on and take off

whenever you feel like it

when a friend says a slur and you let

him go because he’s a

really nice person deep down that’s not

being an

ally you have to speak up

even when you feel uncomfortable

when a bank in massachusetts put up a

sign for black lives matter

they were quick to take it down after

just

one complaint well what does this tell

us about our society

it tells us that we are quick to assign

our support to

popular movements but it’s contingent on

the fact that no one ever questioned it

we see this in many different things

with companies like disney

patting themselves on the back because

they have poc characters in their films

but are silent when people point out

that these characters

are animals for most of the film

companies were quick to put out lgbt

plus clothing

or march in pride parades but only after

it became socially acceptable

a few years ago when i was in one of my

classrooms a few of my classmates were

coming back from their sex

ed class that was discussing the

different types of sexualities

one of the kids walked in and said

loudly

well what even is pansexuality

it sounds like someone’s just making it

up for attention

and i wanted to disappear

because i had been openly pansexual

since the seventh grade

and that boy he knew that

and so i had to watch while the same

people who claimed to be my friends

nodded along and the teacher simply

started her class

so i had to ask myself why didn’t they

speak up

why didn’t the teacher speak up why

didn’t i speak

up well it’s because of this culture

around performative activism

the same people who nodded along to his

comment were the same ones to claim that

they couldn’t be homophobic

because they supported me they used

their kind of faux support of me

to defend themselves and that is not

being an

ally we have to

listen we have to learn and we need to

speak up

no matter how uncomfortable it may make

us feel but this isn’t the only thing

holding us back from progressing as a

society

in 2016 when hillary clinton and donald

trump

ran for the u.s presidency a large

percentage of women

said that they wouldn’t trust hillary

clinton to make the important decisions

an even greater amount of those same

people

said that they wouldn’t trust a woman to

be president

at all now why is this it’s because of

something called internalized

sexism it’s when a woman

holds prejudice against other women for

being women

we see this in many different areas with

internalized racism

internalized homophobia or internalized

ableism

it’s one of the reasons why we have

colorism in india or the trope of the

homophobe being gay in the us

when i was coming to terms with my own

queerness i was under the impression

that to be queer one had to be hyper

masculine

or hyper feminine those were the only

two options

but it took talking to others and

sitting down with myself

to realize that that wasn’t true

it’s not glamorous to have to assess

your own language your behaviors

and your tone but it’s necessary

so that you can improve your

relationships with others but also your

relationship with yourself

but look i’ve given you a lot of

problems and

not a lot of solutions so let me give

you three steps to being a better ally

step one be willing to listen to both

sides so this means even if you may

disagree

with an issue or whatever is going on

be willing to hear out and read both

sides of a story

and yes that does mean sometimes

listening to fox news

or buzzfeed step two

tackle your own biases like i said

it’s not a glamorous process no one

really wants to admit

that they may hold some kind of

prejudice but it’s important

that you sit down and realize why you’re

thinking things

why you’re saying things and why you’re

behaving a certain way

so that you can be a more empathetic

person

step three listen to

others whether you agree or disagree

on a certain topic that doesn’t really

matter

just be willing to listen to those who

are experiencing an

issue so that you can learn more and be

more understanding

don’t perform just act

and that’s why you have to listen you

have to learn and you have to speak

up thank you