Tea Time: Being an Ally

Heyoooooo. It’s your favorite segment written by your favorite author. That’s right I’m Jaz and I’m proud to announce the first official Tea Time of the academic year.  I know Tea Time is usually on Tuesdays; however, this year I decided to spice things up a little and change it to Tea Time Thursday, new day but with the same great alliterative appeal.  Anywho, on to this week’s topic: (not) being an ally.

Repeat after me: your allyship should not be contingent on how nice I am to you.  Imma put it in bold for the people in the back. Your allyship should not be contingent on how nice I am to you.  To be an ally, for any marginalized identity (e.g. race, gender, sexual orientation, ability) is to completely believe in their rights, and support them in their effort to alleviate their oppression. You do it because you know it is right, not because you think it is going to win you some brownie points, or make you the oppressed individual’s best friend.  If your first reaction to me being mean to you is to stop protesting against my oppression, you were never an ally, and you never believed in the cause.  You just wanted to look cute in your Black Lives Matter shirt, or rainbow paint, or posing next to the newly installed wheelchair accessible ramp. In other words, you did it for you, not me. And I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that’s not how allyship works. Surprise.

“Well how do you expect people to support you if you are being an ass.” Because it is the right thing to do? I’m not saying you have to support me, individually, if I have wronged you. However, I am saying that, as far as my oppression goes, you should still be against it.  By all means, don’t write me a letter of recommendation for my next job endeavor,  tell your friends about how terribly I treated you, those are all good responses to me being a jerk. Calling me the n-word, however, or saying “that’s why gays should go to hell” isn’t an appropriate response. Ya feel?

To be honest I can’t believe I even had to brew this pot of tea. I thought it was common sense that your allyship can’t have conditions and still be considered a valid form of allyship. But y’all are really out here getting your feelings hurt by trans individuals and just misgendering them out of spite.  Grow up. No, people shouldn’t be assholes. No, being oppressed does not give somebody a reason to be an asshole. However, the fact remains that conditional allyship is a fake self-serving allyship, and if that’s all you have to offer, you can keep your Facebook filter to yourself. I’m not interested.

Whelp. That’s it for this Tea Time folks.  And always remember:

“When one is thirsty for the truth, the tea brews itself.”

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