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keiyokoi · 3 years

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Reflection “Essay” #2

Hey everyone! I just wanted to take some time this week and talk about something that I think is extremely important, so buckle up, because this piece is kind of long.

Activism is something we encounter in our everyday lives, whether it be in social media, the news, or something ordinary like laptop stickers. Most recently, Black Lives Matter was under the spotlight (as it should) in the wake of America’s track record of police brutality and George Floyd’s death. Unfortunately, the movement that was fueled by public outcry and outstanding shows of allyship in the early summer months has largely vanished.

The voices of many celebrities and influencers on platforms Instagram and Twitter have gone silent, moving on as the news turned away from BLM protests despite the thousands of people that continued to rally around the country and the world. As we wrap up election season and move into December, what the US is focused on now is the soon-to-be former POTUS and other political news. (My point is that the world of media has largely deemed BLM “no longer relevant” despite the ongoing struggle BIPOC folxs continue to face even after thousands of protests nation AND worldwide.)

To all the people who posted black squares with the hashtags #BlackoutTuesday and #BlackLivesMatter, where are you now? Where is the support, the public outcry that had been so loud in June? Why do civil rights only matter when they’re relevant in the media, when you can score easy clout from it?

I’m sure most of them had their hearts in the right place, but the fact remains true that they fell victim to ‘ally theater’, a term that Anderson and Accomando credit Princess Harmony Rodrigez for coining. The two authors go on to say, “The concern here is about activists who focus on performing an identity for an audience of disadvantaged folk rather than doing the hard and often unseen work of social change.” (P 713) and “To get out of the surface-level ally theater loop, white people need to challenge other whites about racism—even when no one else is watching.” (P 714) in their article The Pitfalls of Ally Performance.

That’s where many people fail the first step of being an ally; they mistakenly believe that for a month of sparse posts concerning awareness, they gain the privilege of being an ally. They forget that allyship is a title that needs to be earned. It’s not enough to play activist for a month and then move on with your life—to be an ally, you must continue to be an activist, even if that’s something as simple as shopping at BIPOC small-owned businesses instead of Amazon. (Here’s a little help for those of you who don’t know where to start: 42 Black-owned beauty brands to shop at instead of Sephora, and 108 Black-owned businesses you can check out.) You have to acknowledge the hard work of POC the exact same way you praise white celebrities and influencers for being ‘woke’. A fantastic example is Harry Styles.

For the 2019 Met Gala, Styles showed up to the red carpet in heels and a sheer black Gucci blouse. This made fans go nuts; they praised him for being a camp icon but glossed over equally stunning outfits like Billy Porter’s golden, winged ensemble (who was carried in on a litter!!! by SIX MEN!!!) or Lena Waithe’s suit. This year fans ran to social media again, this time to gush over the photo spread of him in a dress, thanking Styles for ending toxic masculinity (yes this was a Tweet I read with my own two eyes), congratulating him on defying gender norms, and completely forgetting about others who did it before him.

Male and AMAB (assigned male at birth) non-binary stars like Billy Porter, Jared Leto, Ezra Miller, and JVN are only a handful who’ve appeared in public in dresses and/or skirts before, making it unfair for people to heap gratuitous praise onto Styles’s photoshoot. I’m not trying to bash him or anything and I think that cover was gorgeous, but you can’t be an ally while you idolize Harry Styles for wearing a dress but ignore POC/queer folx who did too.

Now, the second topic I wanted to address: a second helping of fake allyship, this time in the corporate realm.

I love June, but it’s also a mentally exhausting month queer individuals who are sick and tired of fake allyship. Cisgenderists crawl out of the woodwork to whine about ‘straight pride’ as if they don’t have enough of it, influencers capitalize on Pride’s popularity to promote their brand, and large corporations break out the rainbow merch to make a pretty penny off the same people marginalize the other eleven months of the year.

June is for people like me to celebrate our identities together, whether it be at a public Pride event or in the privacy of our own homes. It is not for big businesses to slap rainbows on their merchandise and boast false claims of LGBTQ+ support when corporations like Walmart and Starbucks have done nothing at all to support the message or the mission of Pride.

Building an Abolitionist and Trans Queer Movement With Everything We’ve Got by Bassichis, Lee, and Spade writes “transgender and gender-non-conforming people are repeatedly abandoned and marginalized in the agendas and priorities of our “lead” organizations” (P743) and I couldn’t agree more. The fact of the matter is that under this capitalist regime, queer individuals are just another tool for the privledged elite to take advantage of.

Mega corporations claim to be on our side for a month, playing at queer allyship with rainbow beer cans and happy ads that feature more rainbows and scripted proclamations of LGBTQ+ support, but disappear just as quickly come July.

Certain celebrities tweet during Pride, garnering the applause of the public and cause people across social media to ‘stan’ celebrities that post “Happy Pride!” just for the shallow allyship it grants them. And it’s so normalized for public figures to post all month long about Pride, and suddenly stop in July that we don’t question it.

Donald Trump occasionally preaches about his support of the queer community (which we all know is a joke) and how he’s “the first president to openly support the LGBT community” despite the fact that he gutted LGBTQ+ legislation and his terrible track record concerning queer folx. If he really was a queer ally then why, as Bassichis, Lee, and Spade say, is there “ no inheritance, no health benefits from employers, no legal immigration status, and no state protection of our relationship to our children.”?

That’s why I want to put the spotlight on a game called The Last of Us: Part II. It’s a post-apocalyptic survival horror game so it’s the last place you’d expect to find LGBTQ+ representation, but the main character is a lesbian who has a (Jewish) girlfriend and has an Asian (not white!!) transman, along with another character I strongly believe is aromantic and/or asexual. Their character arcs tie into the story well despite many fans calling out the game developers for pandering to the queer community, and the exhilaration I felt when I saw myself (mostly) represented in a character (who was voiced by an Asian transman!) is unparalleled.

They didn’t have to include any LGBTQ+ content or accurate representation, could have left the main character’s sexuality presumably heterosexual, but they went where most bestselling games don’t, because they’re genuine allies. They brought in voice actors who were Black, Asian, and Latinx to voice characters who were Black, Asian, and Latinx.

That’s what we need more of, not trendsetting celebrities and people who say trans rights just to feel better about themselves.

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