What it means to Me to be an Ally

An ally can have a number of meanings, for example, a sovereign or state associated with another by treaty or league, or one that is associated with another as a helper : a person or group that provides assistance and support in an ongoing effort, activity, or struggle, or a plant or animal linked to another by genetic or taxonomic proximity.  In this Oratory I want to talk about what it means to me to be a person and group that provides assistance and support in an ongoing effort, activity, or struggle - which includes marginalized groups of folks for the various ways we are different.  

I want to start by talking about two good friends of mine, Jade and Cody, I have changed both those names to protect them.  I knew Cody for about 6 years, and I have known Jade for a bit over a year.  The thing that leads us to know each other was technology, we are both technologists in one form or another and we share a love of all things nerdy and technical.  

When Cody and I first met she identified as male.  When she decided to come out and that she also said she was going to transition and would start identifying as female.  Our conversations were definitely different and took on new meaning for me.  As someone who identifies as a CIS gendered, as a white male in a position of power and privilege.  I did not fully understand and am a naturally curious person and she helped me gain a different perspective and a better understanding so… 

Those early conversations were a bit uncomfortable for both of us I think.  That discomfort is all gone now btw.  As I listened to story after story about her having to hide and never being able to be authentically herself, it was all very sad and hard for me to hear.  I never even thought this much about the experiences of someone who changes how they identify if I am being honest because I was not aware of any of my friends that had.

I was and am profoundly disappointed and sad that ANYONE would have to hide who they truly are.  For those who know me, you know I am not a hider of any damn thing, and my privilege has allowed me that luxury in life.  I simply cannot even begin to understand what it would be like to not feel safe enough to express myself in a way that was not authentic and true to who I am.  I recognize that as a privilege and realized that many do not get the chance to truly be their authentic self. 

Jade is the first person, at least that I aware of, that I had a relationship with that was transitioning.  She is the first person I have been able to be a tiny part of (observationally for the most part) a transition like that.  This experience was all very new for me.  Over that transition I got to watch my friend evolve from who she was into who she is now.  It has been an amazing experience for me to watch her turn into someone completely different.  The years of hiding behind a façade and dealing with the fear mostly melted away, at least from my perspective.  It was like watching a caterpillar going through its metamorphosis into a butterfly and I was honored to be an observer. 

As a 58 year old white man living in America, I cannot recall a time where I was unable to be 100% myself.  As flawed as I am, I have a certainty about who I am in the world that has never been questioned and I have never been marginalized for any of the ways I identify and operate in the world.  Well, I am sure most of my friends have said on multiple occasions, what the fuck Smitty but that is more related to my outlandishness vs the ways I identify myself. 

Jade’s journey is still a difficult one, mostly because of the prejudice, intolerance and hate and that makes me both sad and angry.  And why, simply because someone has some prejudice or hate in their heart?  Or because their particular religion tells them it is immoral?  What bullshit!  I get mad thinking about it, who the fuck is anyone in this country to impose their baggage, in the many, many forms that takes, on anyone else, regardless the reasons.         

I want to be clear in saying that I am an ally to those in marginalized groups, regardless of the group.  Or at least I am committed to be the best ally I can be as strive to be better at it.  And when I say marginalized, I mean any group who has not experienced the world in the same ways I have. 

I will defend and fight for anyone who cannot flow through life in this country in the same ways I can and do.  I don’t care if it is race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or across any of the myriad differences that exist.  I am here for you as an ally because I believe strongly that you deserve the same rights and privileges I have enjoyed, and mostly taken for granted, my whole life.

I feel that way for a few reasons, first and foremost is empathy for another human being struggling along in life carrying whatever weight they happen to be toting around in life.  And make no mistake, every damn one of us is struggling with carrying our own bag of things, some more like a small carryon and others have packed up a whole moving truck full.  Regardless, we all have our own shit we struggle with and deal with on our journey in silence so…  I try to live by this simple rule – BE KIND! 

As decent humans I feel we have a responsibility to pause, put out our hand and say “what can I do to help you in this moment”.  Simply because as humans we need to look out for each other.  This is exactly how we outlasted all the things that wanted to eat us on our way to the top of the food chain.  We relied on someone to holler – LION, RUN.  Humans are built to help each other out when the road gets rough, and we always have been. 

So as we rolled into June, National Pride month, I decided this was an opportunity for me to step into my role as an ally for LBGTQIA2S+ community by making a statement.  For those who don’t know, LGTBQIA2S+ is an acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Two-Spirit, and the countless affirmative ways in which people choose to self-identify.  The statement I decided to make was to fly both the American Flag and the Progress Pride Flag on my truck for Pride month. 

I did not want to make permanent modifications to my truck for the gigantic flags I see on trucks, so I decided to order smaller ones, the ones that go in when ya roll up your window.  Both were made in America and our country’s flag was one inch larger in both dimensions, making it slightly larger and placing it slightly above the Progress Pride Flag.

As I did this, I was reflecting on the lived experiences of my friend Jade.  When I told her what I was doing with the flags she shared she would not feel safe doing something like that, and that was again profoundly sad to me.  Bride actually said to me “you are going to get shot”.  I doubted that would be the case but did suspect there would be reactions to them flying together.

As someone who served our country for 10 years under the ideals our flag represents, I find the overall intolerance and judgement about Pride month particularly offensive.  I feel like our flag over the last few years have come to represent the opposite of the ideals our flag represents, and I spent time defending, American values or whatever you want to call them. 

Much of my irritation was around the feeling that our flag had been co-opted by group(s) who do not, in my view, represent the ideals that our flag represents.  I mean think about it, when we see a vehicle flying the flag now (not on a holiday) it is mostly understood, at least to me, that that person is probably white, probably republican, probably some version of a Christian, and most seem to be angry.  Before ya say I am stereo typing folks, I would add that generally speaking there are other iconology present on the vehicle that would reinforce that idea.  One can see what color the person is, I can see the maga sticker or hat on, usually there is a cross or other religious reference and in my experience they tend to be argumentative.  So while I am stereo-typing it is based simply on what I have observed.

So when I talk about ideals the American flag stands for, I wanted to share with you how I think about those ideals.  We are all created equal, we have certain unalienable rights, such as life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.  When I think about freedoms, I am of a firm belief that we have freedom “of” things not freedom “from” and there is wide gulch between those two things.  We literally formed this country because we were sick of folks in power (King George III) telling us how we should live and how we should go about our lives.

In freedom of, we each have the right to be whoever the hell we want to be and do whatever the hell we want to, and obviously there are limits to that as we cannot go around plundering, maiming and killing.  Individual freedoms are a key part of that declaration, we are meant to be free from ANYONE applying their bullshit on us.  Key to that was freedom of religion, so key as matter of fact it was adopted in the very first amendment of the Constitution.  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. Meaning we can practice whatever religion we want to, and NONE AT ALL if we so chose.

The none at all folks, which I consider myself, have their freedoms protected by the constitution, freedom of choice, the choice not to be governed or oppressed by someone else’s beliefs and morals.  That by the way was a key part of the conversation back in the day as that is exactly what the King and church of England were doing to us, one religion one voice.  Our Founding Fathers did not ever want the religious establishment power to tell the rest of us what to do, based on whatever particular religious dogma rose to prevalence in that moment.  Not from the government or anyone else.

I wanted to set a baseline for what the United States is as a country and why we did not accept the oppressive life that being a simple colonist was, based on the original governing documents.  That also is where my views are formed on most things in my life.  Most of the opposition I hear around LGBTQ rights are morally based.  Moral grounding in my experience tends to be tightly interwoven with religious beliefs, not that heathens like me cannot have morals.  I have been pointed to various passages in the bible that tell me why something might be wrong through the lens of that particular religion. 

I find that hilarious in most cases as there is a lot of other things in that bible I find even worse, stoning wives, killing everyone on the planet with a flood and on and on.  Religion only has the value we place on it, and while I admire those who are true believers the religions themselves have no inherent moral certitude or value nor do they get to decide what is moral or not for anyone else.  My understanding is God is all about Love, not hate, of ANYTHING – at least from my reading of the bible. 

Back to our declaration of Independence, for which we recently celebrated the signing of, I hold these truths to be self-evident, that everyone is created equal, that we are all endowed by whatever Creator or no creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness - I think we need more of that, a lot more of it.  And a note, it does say creator and not God on purpose.

So let’s fast forward a bit to the end of pride month and I realized it was time to take the flags off my truck.  I am not a fan of any adornments on my vehicles, bumper stickers, flags or anything else that does not belong so there is also that.  As I took them off I realized how simple it was for me to take them off and walk away and my life goes back to normal, or whatever version of normal I live. 

I could simply walk away from all the mean ass people who flipped me off, cursed me, and all the other intimidation tactics deployed towards me over the month of flying those two flags.  I got in that month a VERY small sampling of the abuse endured by those in the LGTBQIA2S+ community and I did not like it, I was stunned by the abuse and intimidation endured on a daily and regular basis. 

This experience has absolutely solidified my allyship for anyone who may find themselves in a marginalized group, for whatever your differences happen to be.  The fact you are not allowed to simply be yourselves is offensive to me in so many ways.  While not an exact fit for this conversion, I was reminded of one of Brides favorite songs by Kris Kristofferson called  Jesus Was A Capricorn.  So, I say to Y’all, if your looking for someone to look down on, help yourself to me Brother! 

And please know, I am an your ally if you EVER need one.

I wanted to share a couple of examples of the reactions to flying both those flags.  

·  ** The most common reaction was to simply flip me the bird, which I received multiple times a days.  I  also got what I considered glares and animated conversation in that car with passengers. 

·  ** I was sitting at a light turning left and I saw a woman giving me two thumbs up and smiling ear to ear.

·  ** I received heartfelt thank yous from so many folks, not quite as many as had a negative reaction but they were there supporting my decision to be an ally.

·  ** I received a text from a friend of mine who simply said “thank you for not letting the bigots co-opt the American flag, nice statement.”

·  ** I pulled into the Lowes and parked behind a truck that had a Trump sticker on the bumper, I parked there because it was a Veteran spot, not to provoke a reaction.  He was just getting out as I was and took a look at my flags and I could tell he was not happy.  Sure enough he asked why ya flying those together, to which I responded it is about being inclusive of those who are different than us. 

He then asked where is our flag, he was a white man about my age I guessed.  I found that an ironic question as he was wearing a shirt with the stars and bars emblazoned on it, so of course I said isn’t that what you have on your shirt?  I followed up with that I felt like that flag represented exclusion of those who may be different and I stood for something different. 

Well, he got loud and angry and I thought for sure he was gonna whip my ass right there in the Veterans parking spot in the Lowes parking lot.  His wife or girlfriend helped deescalate and then went on into Lowes, I waited a minute or two and went in a different door to avoid any further confrontation, as getting my ass whooped was not part of my plans for the day.   

** I was down in Portland running an errand when I had an interaction with a person asking for money at a corner by a traffic light.  I have always kept cash in my truck so I can offer assistance to anyone who is asking because who am I to judge their predicament.   Anyway, I handed him 4 bucks and he said thank you.  Then he said I DO NOT approve of your flags, to which I asked which one?  He mentioned the pride flag, I let him know that it was technically the progress pride flag.

I said “I notice you waited until I gave you a few bucks before saying anything.”  He looked a little shocked that I said anything and stared for moment.  Then he said “fuck you” and took off like Jessie Owens running for gold.  I just laughed at how silly I thought that whole interaction was.  

·    And I think my favorite one, I stopped to let someone turn left into my lane because traffic was an absolute mess and I knew it would be a while before he could get out.  I flashed my lights and he started pulling out, then saw the two flags, stopped and flipped me off with both fingers and would not pull out.  Hahahaha, it seemed so silly to me.

So, I ask each of you to ponder ways you can be an ally for those who are marginalized in the myriad ways we marginalize folks.  If ya can’t find a path to do that, I ask that you please follow my Mom’s advice when I was a kid, if ya got nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.