Be a Better Ally

As most people do, I think of myself as a good person. I’d like to think I’ve always been a good person, but I know my actions in the past haven’t always lived up to my ideals of the present. One regret, in particular, is that I haven’t always been the best ally. You see, I’m a well-educated, middle-class, straight, white male in America, and that means I’ve received a lot of support and deference from the world around me. My life has been enriched by many people, some who do not share all those traits and have faced greater challenges than I simply because of their skin color, gender identity, or sexual orientation. They deserved more help from me along the way. I grew up without racism mostly because my town was all white so it was nowhere to be seen. We did have one black kid in school but he was a couple years behind me so it was easy enough to never notice him. In junior high an Asian kid moved to town. I liked him well enough and we treated him like every other boy on the playground - meaning we teased him mercilessly. His nickname was Gook and I didn’t even know what that meant, much less had any incentive to rebuke my peers for using crude racial slurs. It barely occurred to me that it would be hard to be the new boy in school, much less to have to smile and laugh along with jokes about your slight accent or clueless questions about life in the jungle. He deserved more understanding. My college was far more diverse and liberal, but I didn’t have time for politics, too busy on the tennis court and in the physics department. Science didn’t care about personal identity, at least so it seemed to me with a Korean advisor, a hippy lab professor, and the rest of the good guys on the faculty. We even had a solid 25% female class (2 out of 8). I was surprised in my senior year to discover that both of the women were also applying to graduate programs; more surprised to learn they both had GPA’s comparable to my own; downright shocked to learn they didn’t receive the same support and encouragement from the faculty that I, the golden boy of the department, had. They always seemed so quiet in class and never joined in our study groups. It wasn’t until much later I realized maybe they were quiet because I spoke so loud, and maybe they didn’t feel welcome at our beer-and-pizza study sessions late at night at the far side of a dark campus. They deserved more consideration. My graduate school class only had one woman (out of 25) but lots of ethnic diversity (mostly foreign nationals), yet without trying I ended up with a circle of white, middle-class American friends. We were the cool kids - cool as far as physics grad students go. When one of the guys came out as gay in the second year I had the same reaction as the rest of the group: so what, no big deal. Science didn’t care about sexual orientation. When he drifted away from the group I eventually understood it was a big deal for him and that was the whole point. He deserved some caring. It wasn’t until after more life experience, more interactions with the big, broad world of people that I woke up to the little differences that separate us in vast ways. I had always been too busy working my ass off to get ahead to really stop and consider how I had gotten to be a frontrunner, that perhaps I had a head start and an easier road. I try not to beat myself up too much over my failings. I was young. I treated everyone with the same respect and consideration that I would have wanted. Now I know that all those people actually deserved better. They had accomplished much more just to catch up to me. I should have known, should have understood. I was young but not stupid, and it doesn’t take much smarts to know you should help those less fortunate than yourself. These days I try to be a better ally. I try to pay attention to the differences even when I can’t see them right away. I withhold judgment until I have the full story. I try to listen more. When I do speak up it’s to magnify the words of those whose voices are often ignored - especially the ones I don’t even know. Everyone has their own struggle and the world is much bigger than the people you interact with personally. The faceless masses often need more help than your neighbor down the street and the only way we can help everyone is to expand our range of compassion beyond our line of sight. I can’t change the past, I don’t know the future, but I can do what I can in the present. Maybe some others can learn a little earlier than I did. Take a moment and think about the people around you and how their world might differ from yours. More importantly, think about the groups of people who are affected by policies which you vote on, through officials you elect, and consider them as individual human beings who struggle to make the best of their life, the same as you and I do. If you don’t see those people, can’t talk to them and get to know them personally, read about them. Read what they have to say. Listen with an open heart and mind and consider the person, not the people. We live in an age where ignorance is a poor excuse for anything this important and our quick reaction based on personal experience is simply not good enough. It’s time to stop demonizing the other, it’s time to stop ignoring the powerless, it’s time to start making equality a reality. Whatever social capital you have, whatever gifts hard work or good fortune have blessed you with, use your power to raise up those who still face challenges from an inequitable world. Now is the time that matters and the good people need all the allies they can find. Even if you’re already a good person - you deserve to be better.