I have observed a strange phenomenon that isn’t new exactly, but it’s more pronounced with social media. This is not a post about social media in general, though I will note that my use has drastically declined. I don’t look at Facebook at all, and I check in with Twitter maybe once a week for a quick second. I tweet roughly once every other week at the most.
This is very unusual for me as I used to be a heavy Twitter user. I just recently closed it out (I used to keep the tab open all the time on one set of tabs) because I never look at it. And, the only reason I keep a Facebook tab open is beacuse of messaging. I can’t remember the last time I actually checked the FB feed itself.
The strange phenomenon is that people want to be considered allies without actually doing the hard work associated with being allies. Again, I don’t think this is new in and of itself. The phrase ‘ally cookes’ (and various iterations thereof) has been around for way before social media became a thing.
Here’s the thing. Everyone wants validation. I have no problem giving it to a certain extent. If someone supports me, I AM appreciative. Especially if it is unbidden and the person doing it is not permative about it at all.
But. Real talk here. It’s exhausting not only to deal with all the isms in day-to-day life, but with allies who want their egos massaged for doing the right thing. Or reassurance that they are not a bad person for doing x, y, ro z. In a way, it’s a microaggression in and of itself because the ally is looking for the minority to make them feel better about themselves.
I was at a feminism as WoC meeting once at my college. It was a bunch of white women (because I live in a very white state) talking earnestly about racism. There were a few other WoC, but it was mostly white women talking about their thoughts on racism. This happens, by the way, when a social justice issue is discussed. Unless it has more people who are part of the minority, the majority dominates–as usual.
One of the white women said very earnestly that she longed to talk about real issues rather than boys and fashion and makeup all the time. She was saying how she got tired of being superficial with her friends. This was her reasoning for attending events for minorities, which wasn’t terrible in and of itself. However, I said that I spent all my life dealing with these isms and sometimes I just wanted to talk about boys and fashion! Well, not those two specific topics, but fluffy stuff in general. Cats and plushies, for example. Mystery novels.