I’m using the word ally today for that work, bearing in mind Becky Cory’s thoughtful explanation of why we must use that word with caution. Today I want to use that word to include everyone in this room: gay, straight and pansexual. Gender queer and cisgender. All people have multiple interlocking privileges and oppressions. And each of us has opportunities to “create new ways of being with ourselves and with others”[ii]
Recently the ministers of this area attended a workshop lead by CB Beale, a UU religious educator, who shared some really helpful insights about how we can be effective allies, and helped shape what I want to share with you today. First, they asked those of us who want to be allies to create a braver space. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable to be an ally. It’s particularly uncomfortable when we realize that that we are part of systems of oppression. It’s particularly uncomfortable when we realize our inadvertent actions or words have hurt someone. We might even feel shame, and shame feels yucky. A very common response to that discomfort is to turn away. If we allow shame to keep us from looking at the things we need to look at to create a more equal world for all, then it becomes a tool of oppression. But if we think if shame as showing us where the work is, then it can be a tool for change. Beal calls us, whenever we feel discomfort, whenever we feel shame, to be brave.
Another part of being an ally is to allow one another to bear witness. To allow one another to--as we feel safe, as we feel ready -- tell our stories. And we who are allies will listen, really listen. We are not always very good at this. Because if someone tells us a difficult story, we want to fix it, we might even minimize it, or compare it to our own life story. Allies learn not to say: “I’m sure she didn’t mean it” or “that was just one bad apple.” Allies learn to just listen. If someone shares an experience that was hurtful, we learn to simply say “I’m sorry that happened to you. It sounds like that was really hurtful.”
Even when someone says “your words hurt me” we don’t explain, we don’t excuse, we don’t make it about our own discomfort, we just listen, and apologize for harm we have caused. When someone bears witness, we must always remember that intent is not impact. As people in community we bump against one another all the time. If I accidentally drop my water bottle on someone’s foot, even though I had no intention to hurt them, it still hurts. Similar actions can have very different impacts, depending on who experiences those actions. If I dropped my water bottle on the foot of someone who’d just had their cast removed, the impact is larger, more hurtful.
I get people’s names wrong all the time. I call my son by my dog’s name, and my husband by my son’s name. It’s awkward, but they know what I mean and it doesn’t hurt them. When I get the name or pronoun wrong of a transgender friend it has a completely different impact. As Rev. Sean Parker Denison mentioned in their recent article in the UU World Magazine the hurt of having to “ask my mother again, after 22 years, to call me by my name and use my correct pronoun.” Many transgender folks have experienced repeated pain of parents, bosses, relatives intentionally using the wrong names or pronouns out of a refusal to honor their identity. The impact is heartbreaking and exhausting. Being an ally means owning and being responsible for that impact.
My whole life people have called me by my wrong name, and spelled my name wrong. The first time I ever appeared in the local newspaper I was listed as “Marcy.” The fact that I can brush that off, the fact that there is no lingering bruising from that is because of my cisgender white privilege. So if a genderqueer friend bears witness to the pain of their grandfather stubbornly refusing to call them by their true name, I should not tell them that story about being called Marcy. It’s not the same. When a friend bears witness to their own experience, CB encouraged us not to compare, but simply listen, and open our hearts and minds to understanding and growing.
When someone has the courage to bear witness to the impact our actions had on them, we need to be brave enough to listen. Not to make excuses. Brave enough to learn and change. Dennison continues:
“As I look out at the world and wonder about Unitarian Universalism’s place in it, I am more and more convinced that we must stop excusing ourselves from the world- and life-changing work of justice by claiming that we don’t know what to do because we are beginners. There is no excuse for refusing to learn, when there are teachers all around us. The person saying, “Hey, call me by my name and, yes, my pronoun is they,” is your teacher. The person saying, “It’s not good enough to quote all white men in your sermon,” is your teacher. The person saying, “I can’t get into your building and, when I do, you ignore me,” is your teacher. The person saying, “It’s not about your comfort,” is your teacher. The teachers and the lessons have been here for decades. It’s time to learn.”[iii]
One of the most important things we who would be allies need to learn is de-centering ourselves.
“’Centering’ is a concept that speaks to whose worldview is most affirmed and whose voices are loudest; whose perspective is treated as “normal,” and thus at the center, and whose perspective is treated as “different,” and thus at the margins.”This definition comes from the transforming hearts collective in response to an article that appeared in the UU world while I was on sabbatical. The article was written by a Cisgender UU woman about her own experience of relating to her daughter’s transgender friends. The article caused an impassioned response from the UU Transgender community. As UU Alex Kapitan wrote in response “an article written by a cis person, that centers cis people and cis perspectives, about trans people, is not incremental progress—it’s harm.”[iv] Because people of privilege are used to being at the center, it didn’t even occur to the author or to the editor that the perspectives of cis people are less relevant than the perspectives of trans people when writing about trans people.
CB Beal wrote in a powerful response to the article: “In this case, the assumption is that the “default” reader is a cis person who struggles to understand and interact respectfully with trans people, just like the author. This assumption renders trans people invisible or further pushed to the margins. It’s not that cis people can’t ever talk or write about trans people, it’s about how they do so—and whether they are adding to and uplifting a conversation started by trans people or displacing the voices and agency of trans people.”[v]
This important practice of centering and de-centering is a critical part of being an ally no matter what kind of oppression we are talking about. Consider the penguins in our children’s story today. Some of us have been at the center of the huddle for so long, that it just seems “normal” to us. We don’t know that while we are warm, there are others on the margins who are cold and need their turn in the center. In the case of the UU World article, being in the center means getting to have your voice heard. De-centering means inviting in those whose voices have been silenced, allowing them a platform in the main magazine of our UU denomination, while those of us who have many opportunities to be heard and respected are quiet and listen.
Whenever oppressive behavior is called out in our community, it is going to make some folks uncomfortable. But remember we are called to create a braver space. If anything you’ve heard today made you feel uncomfortable I encourage you to welcome that feeling! It that shows us where the work is. It means that you are in the right place right now, thinking about the right things. Of course it’s going to be uncomfortable dismantling structures of oppression. Being an ally means staying in the struggle, because we know it is our struggle. Being an ally means lifting up the voices and perspectives of those who spent too long in the cold, of shuffling them to the center, of celebrating their wisdom and gifts, of accepting their leadership and perspectives, and supporting them in the way they ask to be supported.
Whether we are Gay or straight, cisgender or genderqueer, white people or people of color, temporarily able bodied or disabled, all of us experience a complex web of privileges and oppressions. We need to know when to step to the center and bear our truth, and when to de-center ourselves. We need to know how to listen, how to hear things that make us uncomfortable, And we need to let ourselves be changed by what we hear.
Endnotes
[i] https://www.uua.org/central-east/blog/better-together/one-trans-uus-story?fbclid=IwAR1RWLcwBHL5oTY0mVQi-fJGbioy-Tg3bwqc8T_cGi0VD2cwglKQDg2UaV8
[ii] https://www.racetalk.ca/2009/11/whats-wrong-with-being-an-ally/
[iii] “It’s time to learn: There is no excuse for refusing to learn, when there are teachers all around us.” by Sean Parker Dennison. UU World. 6/1/2019 https://www.uuworld.org/articles/time-learn
[iv] https://rootsgrowthetree.com/2019/03/06/what-it-takes-to-de-center-privilege/
[v] https://www.transformingheartscollective.org/stories/2019/3/8/tips-for-talking-about-the-uu-world-article
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