You see something absurd. You hear something absurd. You read something absurd = Yeah,TNTG. Posts tagged ally.
im so inspired by allies. i think its really touching, the sacrifices and struggles that they go through each day. im so moved by stories of allies who are kicked out of their house by their parents or bullied at school just because of the way they are. its just, so inspiring to me how they can live with how cruel society is and how they manage to stand up against how miserable their existence must be. i really empathise with that, ive been bullied too.
i think i can connect with the ally community on a really deep, personal level. i have so many friends who are allies. i even have a couple of uncles who are allies, and i think that’s really cute. speaking of cute, i have so many pictures on my blog of these two penguins that are allies! its adorable how stuff like that happens even in the animal kingdom.
5 Signs You’re a Bad Ally For POC
1. You enter safe spaces for people of color to talk about your own experiences, saying you understand (when you don’t) to derail a conversation (ex: in middle school, I was bullied for being blonde so that’s kind of like racism).
2. You feel the need to constantly point out you’re one of the “good” white people.
3. You tone police (ex: maybe people would listen to you if you were nicer).
4. You you’re “color blind”, don’t see color, or anything of the sort (it is just a nice way of saying you don’t care about racial issues).
5. You use your Black best friend (or Native American grandmother, Latin@ significant other, adopted Asian child) to validate anything you say.
#2 thooo. Like just because you make a “White people, AMIRITE?!” joke doesn’t mean I’ll like you or that you’re not one of those offensive/ignorant white people you think you’re distancing yourself from.
but seriously tho the word privilege came about cause people wanted a word for those advantages that didn’t imply that the person was at fault
but
you are at fault
if you accept ill-gotten goods your ass is at fault
even if you didn’t know the stereo was stolen, no one cares
you still have a stolen stereo in your possession
no more of this privilege shit
call it like…supremacy benefits or smth
check ur supremacy benefits; it’s like welfare for the oppressive
check ur supremacy benefits.
Men who want to be feminist allies do not need to be given a space in feminism. They need to take the space that they have in society and make it feminist. That’s what women had to do in the first place, and women have fought much too hard for what little space they have to be giving it to men.
^^^^^^^^^^
So much truth.
“i have no problem with homosexuals my best friend is one” says the tumblr user, causing angels to descend from heaven playing gorgeous harps and drape them in garlands of flowers, proclaiming them the number one gay rights activist of all time, literally incapable of homophobia, infallible and the winner of all internet arguments until the end of time, filled with the light of pure social justice righteousness, and the next coming of jesus christ himself
Gold. Want a cookie?
RIGHT-CLICK AND SAVE ALL THE THINGS.
this…. this is great
Bless
Saving all of these for when someone wants a damn cookie for being slightly less of a terrible fucking person than they could be. Oh wait, no, they really aren’t if they’re using someone else’s identity as their shield.
Saving every single one of these…..
Note to white allies: Stop comparing your experience with a marginalization to PoC’s experience.
Repeat after me:
IF I AM WHITE, MY MARGINALIZATIONS ARE ALWAYS COLORED BY MY WHITENESS.
Say it again.
Say it a third time.
Say it a FIFTIETH TIME.
No matter what marginalization you have, your experience is tainted by your whiteness. You get the BEST average experiences in your marginalization, and you CONSISTENTLY forget this when you generalize and assume that your experience is the norm.
This goes for ALL marginalizations. There is NO marginalization in this world where white people do not receive the BEST average experiences of the group. If there is success in the group, it will be YOU. On the SMALL chance that one of you is attacked, your justice will be more often than not delivered to your door in a timely fashion. When someone discusses “group” issues, they will discuss YOUR issues, often leaving out any additional issues that people who are NOT you experience. There are experiences PoC go through that you will never even know existed, that you will not be required to know exist, and that you will ERASE repeatedly because you never knew and never cared to find out.
And here’s another thing you don’t know, white people:
Sometimes the experiences of PoC in a non-racial marginalization will be so COMPLETELY DIFFERENT to yours that you will literally have NO idea what they actually go through. SO different that it will sometimes be damn near in OPPOSITION to the information you’ve been hearing!
NEVER assume that your white experiences can be correlated to PoC experiences. NEVER assume that you have anything in common with all or most people along your marginalization. Most PoC within a certain race have more in common with each other, over ALL other marginalizations, than a white person in 2-3 of the SAME marginalizations will have with them.
THAT IS WHITENESS.
notes on being an ally to People of Color
Unapologetically Indigenous & Proud: notes on being an ally to People of Color.
These are some things that I have discovered or have been informed of over the last few months on this blog, and I wanted to pass them on in one place. I hope they can help you in the ways they’ve helped me, and I thank the people who’ve patiently helped me to understand them.
1. ‘Ally’ is something that you do, not something that you are.
I don’t call myself an ally. I appreciate it when I am referred to as such by my friends/followers who are People of Color, but a label such as ally isn’t something that a person can apply to themselves. It’s a liquid term that may or may not apply to me at any time depending on my personal behavior, and to assume the term is to assume that I am then incapable of wrongdoing or racism. I’m not. I’m simply not. You cannot label yourself an ally, all you can and should do is be one.
2. We’re still white, folks.
Far, far too often I see white anti-racists referring to all other white people as ‘you’, ‘they’, ‘them’, etc. We’re still white, y’all. We still have white privilege. When we tell white people to stop doing things, we have to say we have to stop doing this, we have problems, we have privilege, we don’t experience racism, we will never understand, we, us, ours. Rejecting whiteness and white supremacy does not strip us of privilege or somehow remove from us our ability to white.
3. We must work in the interests of all People of Color, while understanding that PoC are human beings who do not always agree with each other.
Simply put, it’s not our place to step into conversations between People of Color who are discussing racism to agree or disagree. Remember, we don’t experience racism. We can’t pick between the viewpoints of people who, from birth, understand racism from experience. As white people, and as anti-racists, we deal in our own. There are plenty of white people upholding white supremacy, we have plenty to do. And, in the rare case that this happens, if a Person of Color tells you that racism happens to white people, etc, thank them for their opinion and move on. We simply have no place to argue.
4. We support, defend, and battle. We don’t validate.
When we reblog something about experiences with racism/whiteness from a Person of Color, we don’t do so in order to ‘endorse’ or ‘validate’ their experiences, or to say that ‘as a white person, I agree that this happened to you and I say it’s awful and therefore it really is’. We must understand that these experiences are valid by the fact of their existence alone. We pass these things on because they’re real, and because people need to know. Not because we need to put our white stamp of approval on it.
5. Intersectionality.
In other words, to work in the best interests of People of Color we must also work in the interests of queer people, trans people, women, disabled folks, etc, but we must remember that these battles often share the same front. There are queer PoC, trans PoC, Women of Color, disabled PoC. Homophobia, cissexism, misogyny, and ableism work against People of Color as much as they do anybody else.
6. It’s not about us.
It’s just not. When whiteness is rightfully attacked, we have the choice to continue to battle whiteness or personally defend ourselves. We can only do one at a time, and there’s only one that we can do while calling ourselves anti-racists.
Who gives a fuck if we’re not all like that? There are still an overwhelming majority of white people who are. See point 2. We’re not here to defend ourselves or present ourselves as good people or ‘better than the other white people’. See point 1. We don’t determine the legitimacy of our ally status, and to derail a conversation on racism by defending ourselves is to say that the fact that I don’t see myself this way is more important than the fact that whiteness prevails, which is whiteness prevailing in action, and is racist.
Signal boost!
Columbia University’s ROOTEd (Respecting Ourselves and Others Through Education) is currently seeking a panelist to speak on the topic: “THE NEVERENDING STORY: CONTINUOUS ALLYSHIP.” We’ll be addressing the following questions: Why do people choose to ally themselves with specific communities? What motivates people in their allyship?
The event would be a sit-down dinner and panel where we are having community organizers and activists to come speak and share their experiences and stories as well as interact with the audience.
The event is taking place THIS SATURDAY, APRIL 7th from 5PM to 7PM at Barnard College’s Event Oval (118th and Broadway, take the 1 train to 116th St. — Columbia University station). Panelists receive a free catered dinner and we are willing to cover travel expenses as well as a small honorarium.
Send me a private message on tumblr (fuckyeahjoshlin.tumblr.com) or send us a message on our facebook page: https://www.tumblr.com/ROOTEdsAlliesSeries2012
