This is a post that’s been in the makings for a while inspired by things that a few friends of mine have said here and there in the past that have stuck with me.
I finally decided to write it when I went into a counselor’s office two days ago and saw a sticker on the door with the rainbow letters proclaiming “ally.”
The more I have learned about queer issues the more that I have come to dislike the term “ally.” Or rather, I dislike the manner that it feels like it is often appropriated. There’s a sort of self-congratulation and a sense of disconnect that I dislike. It feels like it’s an another separatist term that makes it All About Me And Look How Accepting I Am, Where Is My Cookie. It feels like it’s taking the idea of what an “ally” actually means. Or rather, what it should mean and what its intent is (was) as a title.
Booster said it best, I think, and please forgive me that I’m paraphrasing because I can’t remember, nor can I find the post: “I don’t want an ally. I want a friend.”
To me, by saying that you’re a “friend,” it doesn’t just mean that you “have gay friends.” To me, a friend is someone who will fight for the people that they love, whether on a personal or a larger level. It doesn’t mean marching in the gay pride parade but flinching when she kisses her girlfriend in front of you. It doesn’t mean dancing with your buddies at gay bars but using harmful language in nearly the same breath. It doesn’t mean telling them how they should feel.
It means telling off the person using slurs in half-jest conversation, even when your friend isn’t there, even when it might be awkward. It means campaigning for laws that will make your friend’s life easier, healthier, and safe. It means no justification, no “Oh, but I’m not” backtracking, it means no expectation of praise. It means I will give no unwanted advice and never push myself on you, because I want to help and care for you, but while knowing full well I can never completely understand your feelings due to my own privilege, and accepting that fact without grudging it.
It means that I will listen to you when you need and want me to.
It means I will not tolerate, but accept and love you for all you are.
It means being faithful, and loyal, and trustworthy, and kind.
All the things being a friend means.
It makes perfect sense. It makes me think of how people sometime mistake “tolerance” for “acceptance” when talking about the same thing. You can tolerate just about anything- kids screaming on a bus, the guy in the seat behind you who keeps kicking your chair, that person in your suite/building who makes a lot of noise. That’s tolerance. That’s putting up with something because you feel you’re the better person. Tolerance is not acceptance.
Acceptance is seeing that someone is different from you (and maybe from the world at large), and finding in your heart to treat them the same way you treat everyone else you care about, because in your heart they aren’t. Acceptance is seeing a gay couple on the street and treating them just the same as a straight couple. Acceptance is honestly treating people how they deserve to be treated regardless of how they’re different from you because you want to, not just because you feel obligated to.
Bluh bluh. I’m more incoherent than ever. T:
