Allies - (probably going to be my most mis-understood and hated post yet)

Don’t ever try to judge me, dude,

You don’t know what the fuck I’ve been through.

Don’t like it?   Don’t listen.  Same as all my writings.   I get plenty of hate mail.  I’ve long ago stopped holding my tongue at left leaning events (which most are in the lifestyle, these days.  *dramatic sigh*)

So.

“If you really wanted to be an ally to POC, you’d give…”

“If men were actually allies for women, they would…”

“If you ever want to be an ally to <insert group>, you have to…”

Okay.  Here we go.

You ain’t gonna like this.  I’d say trigger warning – but I only give those when I’m already halfway through the trigger squeeze.  (And it sounds like “drop the weapon!”, not “be careful of your feelings!”)

Preamble.   I’m Native.   My people were here before yours.   ANY of yours.  Yet we still have the highest poverty per capita (by person, AND household) in the US.  We receive the lowest (just about none) help from any government or private group.  The weakest college and high school graduation rate.  By far.  High School diplomas and GEDs are still considered a “solid, upper education” by many.  A shitty mortgage on a cheap double wide trailer is “rich”.  So don’t give me “all men are”, “all white men are”, or “all non-POC are”.   Without reading my blog, none of you even know what race I am.  So I’m not going to hear it.  Save your breath.

Now.  Again, repeating –

 “If you really wanted to be an ally to POC, you’d give…”

“If men were actually allies for women, they would…”

“If you ever want to be an ally to <insert group>, you have to…”

…who the fuck says I want to be your ally?   Why should I?   Have you been mine?   Ally is synonymous with allegiance – if you show none to me, why should I show it to you?  When’s the last time you were an ally to a white man, a heterosexual man, a native man, a domestically abused man, or a “man’s man” in general?

Be your own ally.  Support your own sisters.   Support your own causes, votes, initiatives, rallies, events and fundraisers for political goals.  Until you’ve run out of support in your own community (your specific “whatever”, not your actual physical location) – then why are you going at others? 

And don’t you dare play the “we’re all Americans together,” card.  You aren’t here for anyone but your own group if you’re pulling this “ally” shit – don’t you dare play that tune.  It’ll fly about as well as the “you owe us for centuries of…”.   No, we don’t.  Deal with it.  Nobody said life was fair.   Or if they did, you were a fool to believe it.

So go.  Support businesses that are women owned, POC owned (don’t you DARE call it minority owned, my people don’t count as part of your POC and you know it), LGBTQIAA owned, Queer owned, trans owned, feminist owned, pagan owned…etcetera.  Natives do it for ourselves everyday. 

If you really want to make a difference, then make a difference.   Don’t let a sense of entitlement turn you outwards into expecting everyone else to make the difference for you.  Make change in your own community.  Raise the expectations of people in your own group, and then meet them yourself. 

Don’t expect other people to be your allies just because they “owe you”.  Because they’re white, non POC, or male, or heterosexual, or wealthy.  Don’t think they owe you something due to their “guilt”.   Almost no one is alive today who owned slaves.   None of our age generation were at Stonewall.  We didn’t fight the League of Women Voters, or own segregated businesses.   

Are the KKK, Stormfront and Westboro still out there?  Yes.  So are other racial supremacists, Black Panthers, and militant feminist extremists too.

Pause for a great quote from Mark Twain.

      “The world doesn’t owe you anything.   It was here first.”

You’re not owed a damned thing in these times save those things given to you in the Constitution (“life, liberty, pursuit of happiness”) and those given you in the Bill of Rights.   And those only if you’re in the US or US-territories.  

So make what you can of them.   What YOU can of them.  Don’t expect white people or rich people or the US government to do it for you because they "owe" you in order to be your “allies”.  Don’t expect any other group, regardless of race, gender, identification, et.al to do it because they “owe” you in order to be your “allies”.

They don’t.   I don’t need to be your ally, either.  I don’t want to be your ally.   I don’t owe you allegiance or preferential treatment.  I don't intend to give it to you, until you show you can give it to others.  I don’t have a shred of guilt regardless of your gender, my gender, your race, my race, your sexuality, my sexuality…

Nor should anyone else.   They want to be your allies willingly?   Fine.   Let them be.   Don’t extract a “price” for it.  Don’t guilt them into it.  Because then you’re either creating someone who secretly despises you for making them feel bad, or someone who is being beaten down into hating themselves.   Neither of those are particularly healthy for your cause.   The second one is outright harmful to a fellow human being.

And before you go there – why no, I don’t know what it’s like for you to be you.  You don’t know what the fuck it’s like to be me.  Piss off if you want to use the “you haven’t walked in my shoes” argument.   My people fucking invented that argument - it started as "walk another man's moccasins".  I guarantee that you haven’t even bothered to look at my shoes.  You don’t even care that I have them – you’re too busy having a PLOM party about your own.

(Sorry.  I know, I know – I took the shoe analogy too far.)

I don’t need to be your ally.

Neither does anyone else.

Want us to be?   Want me to be?  Stop setting demands, and handing out “good boy” merit badges for it.  Stop setting laws about how they have to act, and show some appreciation for their effort.  Be grateful for what they’re trying to do, and accepting of their efforts, even if misplaced.

Because the reality, honey child, is that your time in the spotlight is coming to an end.  For everything a season, and the seasons turn.  So if you want allies who actually stand by you when things change, who stand there for more than a blue checkmark on Twitter and some applause for their self-abasing writings on how much they “owe” you – you need to start acting like an ally yourself.