The conversation took place in the home of a woman I was meeting for the first time and included two of her close friends. The occasion was a small, intimate reading from my memoir, To Drink from the Silver Cup: From Faith, Through Exile, and Beyond. As the subtitle suggests, this book is a story about a spiritual journey. What it doesn't say is that the exile and what happens afterwards took place because I was a queer woman. The home where we met was in the Michigan city of my birth, which is the center of the very evangelical, once mainly ethnically Dutch-American church I was raised in. This church, fifty years after my exile began, is still in deep, one could even say extreme, conflict over LGBTQ+ inclusion. All three women had close ties with that church. Our host was Black, the other two women were White, and all three presented as heterosexual. These facts are important because they provide context to the discussion that ensued.
One of the women asked the action question, "What can we do to make it safe for LGBTQ+ people to participate in our church?"
My initial reply was, "Until there is full inclusion, it isn't safe." Then I suggested an intermediate step––something simple, like wearing a rainbow ribbon to let queer people know that it was safe to come out to the wearer, safe to expect support from them. At the same time, they'd be letting other non-queer people know where they stood. Wearing the ribbon would become an invitation to others to join in support of inclusion.
The bottom line, though, as internationally renowned education and racial equity consultant Dr. Muna Abdi said, is, "Inclusion is not inclusion if you invite people into a space you are unwilling to change."
Our host said, "I have a rainbow button that says, 'Ally.' I think I might start wearing that at church."
Then someone raised the question, "Who gets to decide whether you are an ally or not?"
I understood the point of the question. What if the person who says they're an ally sabotages you in some way? What if they do or say something that's counterproductive to the cause? But it was also a question of political correctness.
I come down on the side of welcoming people who want to be allies. Soon after that reading, my friend Monica Friedman, who is Jewish, and I talked about the question. She answered it regarding racism, saying she'd thought about it a lot because, "I've frequently seen people who think of themselves as allies, or who want to be allies, get shouted down or shamed out of the work because they're jumping in from a place of good faith without having read the right books and adopted the right vocabulary and unlearned 100% of systemic racism. And potentially that means that people who could be good allies are excluded from the work and lost to the cause because they're sent packing, licking their wounds and resolving not to try to help people who treat them in ways they aren't ready to parse. Of course, people don't want 'allies' who make them uncomfortable or who don't understand who they're talking to or what they're talking about. But as you say, intention and meaning no harm should count for something, especially if the problematic ally is interested in being educated."
On the other hand, correcting mistakes and educating people who want to be allies can be exhausting, and I have compassion for that, but as Monica added, "I would rather have an imperfect friend in my corner than make enemies of a goodly percentage of the people who think they're on my side, just because they aren't getting it right."
I'm sometimes afraid to step up when I'm needed as an ally, afraid I might say or do it wrong when I witness discrimination. It's because I'm afraid of getting called out for doing it wrong. So I say or do nothing, when something is absolutely needed, and I know it. We who have privilege, whether because of the color of our skin, our gender, or our sexual identity, need to step up and leverage our privilege on behalf of someone who is being marginalized or oppressed. To become what Dr. Bettina Love, in her book, We Want to Do More than Survive, calls "co-conspirators."
There can be a cost for being an ally, a co-conspirator––being called out by the one we're trying to support when we hate to be imperfect; losing status or valued relationships. The woman who followed her intention and wore her ally button to church was asked to stop wearing it or lose her leadership position in which she had formed deep and meaningful relationships with fourth and fifth grade children. She chose to make a stand and ultimately left the church after going through several heart-wrenching processes. She had proclaimed herself an ally and paid a heavy price. She hadn't waited for me or any other queer person to sanction her choice; she made it herself.
There can also be rewards for taking a stand. Just knowing we didn't let something evil go by uninterupted. Knowing we've been a refuge in the wilderness. When a Native friend thanked me for being an ally, that was more than enough.
When have you acted as an ally?
When have you been afraid to be an ally because you might not get it right?
When have you been afraid to be an ally because of the cost?
When have you been an ally and experienced the reward?
Another time, I'll share some of what I've been learning from Dr. Love about being a co-conspirator, which is a step beyond being an ally.
