LABELS YOU CAN'T GIVE YOURSELF (THE PARADOX OF ALLY-SHIP)

Ya'll should know by now that there is a percentage

of my brain that is always paying attention to labels and language.

What we call ourselves and each other

has a significant impact on how we behave,

how we relate to other people,

and how we understand events.

Sometimes those labels are helpful in getting us 

further along the stated path we say we're following.

Sometimes those labels are going to get in the way.

Sometimes it's a both/and sitch.

When I hear someone describe themselves with the label 'Ally',

I immediately get a little tense.

It's like a giant red flag and I want to 

tell you a little bit about my reasoning.

I make pictures while I listen to my friends preach

I feel very strongly that my job is

to love my neighbor as myself

but given how badly people behave,

I find this to be an endless, impossible task.

We're awful and that's just a fact.

On most days, I barely tolerate my neighbors

(both literal and figurative).

I guess that's loving them as myself since

on those same days, I'm usually

struggling to accept my own imperfections.

I will 'other' someone so fast, have at 

least 4 arguments why it's totally the cool thing to do,

and put the decision in my rearview mirror before you can

say 'unconcious bias'.

It's gross.

I hate it.

I will never fully root it out of myself

but I am changed by the attempt so I keep at it.

Doing the work to uncover my own bias and 

potentially toxic programming is a never ending buffet of humility.

The work to really see and include

all of GOD's people in this incarnation

means undoing lots of things that the world

tells us are 'right' or 'just the way things are'

or 'easier for most of us' or in some cases

'made up'.

There is no arrival gate to the destination I am seeking.

I will keep trying, getting it a little bit right and mostly wrong

for as many years as I am alive I guess.

Every time I really get a lesson,

land an understanding and get comfortable using it in real life,

I realize that there's another layer or another

out group that I've ignored or not seen.

Awareness does not equal mastery

But (I will protest), I've done some work, read a book,

made a friend, had an experience so if 

there's one thing I know, it's that I've changed.

I deserve a new name, a new label or at least a new sweater 

so that people outside of me can see the change.

I need everyone out there to be aware

that something has happened.

I will describe myself as an ally

to prove the transformation has at least started.

And that right there is the trap

that so many of us fall into.  

The idea that transformation is a one and done

combined with the need for external proof or validation

that will somehow make it stick in place.

Here's a rationalization:

I've done a lot of work, I want to get credit for it!

I want to somehow represent on the outside

the change I feel on the inside.

So I decided to call myself an ally,

a benign lover of all people as a way to 

highlight my internal changes.

But who exactly am I an ally for?

Everyone?

The particular in group I'm focused on?

My new friend?

The groups that I'm actually a part of in some way?

Is it a new kind of superlative?

Ms. Ally Mary Smith, PhD reporting for duty!

The word ally is a little too broad here

because no matter how hard I try

I can't always be on the side of the angels.

I'm not omnipotent, all-knowing or all seeing.

I often wonder if we could have a belt system like in martial arts.

I could say, for instance, that I'm a pink belt ally 

on days where I really align myself with a particular women's issue

or a rainbow day when I have really shown up for my LBTQI+ siblings.

No matter what, ally is too general to really describe

any success I've had showing up to support anyone else.

I wear a lot of rainbows.  I also wear camo-does that make me a soldier?  

Here's another rationalization:
 I decide that I will never label myself that

but this person or group told me I was an ally

that one time so now I can use it into perpetuity.

Come on ya'll.

On that day, for those people, you managed to show up

and do your best work.

They gave you a compliment.

That doesn't mean that you are that every day of the week

for every potential group that is treated unjustly.

It doesn't even mean this group would consider

you an ally on the very next day.

You didn't #wokeuplikethis.

You had a good day and got recognized.

If you're human like me,

tomorrow you will do something extra shitty to offset it.

Do what your grandma taught you and accept the compliment

but don't let it go to your head.

In particular, I want you to think about how 

lazy it is to call yourself this label

and what bias it might allow in your life.

I was having a conversation a few years ago

with a man who very clearly described himself as an ally.

During a conversation, I used the word 'mansplaining' and he spent the 

next 45 minutes telling me how insulting and diminutive

and unfeministic the word mansplaining is.

He in fact, mansplained it to me.

This man had organizational power over me

and spent 45 minutes talking down to me.

He insisted this was appropriate because he was an ally.

I suggested he maybe needed to do some more work

to understand what that label meant. 

What I wish I'd said is "No you're not and you'll never be

as long as you're more concerned with the label 

than the work of earning it."

more sermon doodles

That experience was helpful to me personally

because I used to think of myself as an ally too.

I have a tendency to go into most conversations assuming

I'm on the side of justice and I will defend those who have less than me.

My intention was to be a safe person,

a person who could hear hard things

and hold space for those that are broken or hurting.

I wanted to be someone on their side.

So I just assumed that I was.

No one was telling that I wasn't an Ally

so I felt pretty good sitting in that space.

The experience with the man above taught me that

my confidence in this label

was completely arrogant and self-serving.

If you're not actually being an ally,

people will likely avoid telling you-

especially if they can tell how important it is to 

your identity to keep that label.

By identifying so strongly with it, you're keeping yourself from actually being it.

I'm not telling you to stop working on this.

I'm not telling you to give up any hope of self-esteem in this area

when you've made progress.

I'm just telling you that if this label is truly important to you

then you will never use it to describe yourself.

It can only be bestowed by people who are not you

and that it is a specific, timebound label that evaporates.

If someone gives it on you, feel the warm satisfaction

from a job well done.

And then get up tomorrow and begin the work to earn it 

all over again.

It's worthy to work towards earning this superlative.

You will never have it for more than a few hours or days.

It is not a label you can give yourself.

Now I'm going back to book writing.

Keep trying friends.

Anyone else read 'Atlas of the Heart' by Brene Brown?