You may wonder why I'm talking about this right now. Is this me, doing more performative ally-ship, telling my queer non-cis non-dudes that I'm safe.

No. I'm telling you, because in some spaces? I don't have that privilege. In some spaces, my brown-ess *is* a political statement. In some spaces, my religious beliefs are a problem. In some spaces, my mental health is a problem.

In some spaces, the person doing that writing off? Is me.

Like, oh, I didn't think that this thing I did would get politicized.

My friend, let me tell you the time I learned about how I figured out that that clever, witty thing I did that relied on a marginalized identity was not clever, or not witty, when I wasn't me.

Let me tell you the many, many times, I had to learn that. And let me tell you something: now you get an opportunity to learn it, too.

I hope you do the right thing.

@somethingeloquent ha! That's a totally valid way of thinking about it.

It's funny because I came to the opposite conclusion? I use “ally” as a goad to myself, as an injuction: be that ally. Ally with others. Whether they trust me? Is up to them.

I also use it because “ally” has gotten so tainted during the past decade that people are wary of people who call themselves “allies”. Rightly so! We're dangerous.

@tariqk totally makes sense, the whole vocabulary around not being shitty, as I like to call it, is confusing.

@somethingeloquent it's confusing mostly because I think the existing culture makes the shittiness inherent. So trying to figure one's way out of it is confusing and hard.