Listen Learn Speak Up Allyship Activism
repost this on your story
if you’re against sexism repost this on
your story if you’re against racism
repost this on your story if you’re
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