So, for awhile (years), when people come to me about Allyship, I've made it a point to advise them to prioritize self-card over relentless advocacy.

I don't think that's the popular opinion; the energy I see is more....

"white/cishet/etc allies need to be putting themselves on the line all the time because black/queer/etc people don't have the liberty of disengaging"

And I don't think that's strictly true, and I think that message is very damaging.

It's true that we are still impacted if we look away, unlike allies, but that doesn't mean we can literally never look away from the horror for a minute, and I think it's absurd to expect allies to basically be like this all day every day:(

(Yes, I know Alex wasn't a Good Guy or the victim in the grand scheme, it's just for illustration.)

I think marginalized people, specifically black people, are very angry, and rightfully so, and resentful at large which is also fair.

I think in that anger it becomes very easy to take a "No Quarter" approach to everything. I'm perfectly fine with that against everyone on the opposite side; they've left no alternative.

But I see the same hardline attitude towards allies, not even for actively erring, but...

for simply expressing fatigue, for being worn down, or overwhelmed, or basically expressing any natural physiological response to taking in a deluge of horrible, terrible information, of traumatizing media, day after day after day for months or years depending on when they...

began active allyship.

And no we needn't coddle them but being so aggressively dismissive of any difficulty they encounter in it... that's conservative shit. Republican, military, fascist shit. The whole thing we're opposing, in theory.

I'm reminded of a time I told a white girl some of the highlights from racism I've experienced, and I stopped because she started crying? And that was so confusing to me? But her reaction was the normal, healthy, human one. Being so accustomed to racism that you report white...

people's attempts to harm you for being black with professional detachment isn't good. It was necessary for me to survive, but it's certainly not good. Resilient isn't the same thing as dead inside and I fear the current approach pushes people toward the latter, or....

which is what this is all really about to me, the opposite happens:

people, in trying to be truly good allies, just keep taking on an endless amount of shit each day, and the shit truly is infinite in the internet age. And at some point, they begin to snap.

Tonight, someone I follow online who's been consistently speaking up and sharing BLM stuff basically said they had to deactivate because reading the news daily was making them want to c****t su****e.

And I'm so glad they chose to do so, and wish they hadn't waited this long...

to do so. And even in explaining this, they felt the need to acknowledge their "privilege" in having the choice to be able to unplug

And holy fuck if you're thinking about s****e, please just focus on getting better, you do not need to be worrying about your privilege just then!

And I've seen a fair amount of this: people (always younger people) feeling obligated to grind themselves into the ground in their allyship

I know we're focused on black lives but I'm begging everyone to consider that many recently initiated people likely do not have the...

resilience or experience to know how to handle all this shit, and as no one else is going to provide that support and therapy is prohibitively expensive, can we *at least* reciprocate with support enough that being an ally doesn't cost them their lives?

/rant

Self-care*

https://www.wired.com/story/stop-doomscrolling/