On the importance of allies

Diversity Alliance

On the importance of allies

The Diversity Alliance’s mission is to promote a positive, safe and welcoming environment for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community at MSL and their allies.

After three years at MSL, it strikes me that MSL is a pretty good place to be a member of that community. I’ve never faced much harassment or heard of much harassment based on sexual orientation, though I have faced a fair amount of ignorance. I’ll take the latter; ignorance strikes me as something we can work with. It’s frustrating at times, but so long as there’s not a fist in my face, I can do some work.

When I started checking the Alliance’s e-mails last year, I was surprised to hear from a number of allies who supported the organization but didn’t want to be seen as gay for joining the organization.

A couple things about that: first of all, who cares; second of all, if you’re not LGBT, you’re not LGBT. In considering both these parts, I think of my family.

My family is full of allies. With nine sisters and four brothers and two parents who are mildly obsessed with me, it always struck me growing up that I could be anything, and my family would support it. It also struck me that if someone gave me a hard time about being something, they’d have to answer to this formidable gang behind me. It gave me a great and maybe overestimated sense of safety.

When I was in third grade, and I wrote a story about my niece’s death, and I let out the emotions of that on the page, and read it to my class; one girl in particular made fun of me. She found it, and me “gay,” and she let me know. I, through tears, told my big sister Chantel. The next day, Chantel arrived on my school’s playground, asked me to point out that girl, and all I saw was the girl hoisted into the air and shoved against a brick wall. I am not sure what Chantel said, but I then made it through high school with that girl acting really nicely toward me.

My family’s a big old bastion of allies. While the road was difficult at times for each of them to take me as differently than I assumed I was, one thing that never came up was anyone’s concern that they’d be thought of as gay. So, I can’t help but be confused at the thought.

After college I taught a Hip Hop dance class to 10 of my nieces and nephews. During that class a couple of my nephews though it was funny to call each other “woman” as an insult. I had to pull them out of the group, talk to them about how using woman in that way made it sound like being a woman was a bad thing, and not only was I sick and bored of it and they were embarrassing themselves, but also my nieces might be insulted by that, and that wasn’t going to fly in Uncle Jason’s class.

One of my nephews bawled about being called out for his sexism, and his father got upset, too. But, it was important to me to be an ally to my nieces at that moment. It never crossed my mind that I’d be assumed to be a woman because I supported women. And if I was, who cares? The concern would have been its own form of sexism.

While at MSL I’ve been surrounded by LGBT allies; I hope that in the near future the Alliance swells with more of them. I’ve met a handful of LGBT students at school who could use the backup. And with more allies, we could do more good for the larger MSL community. So here’s hoping that if you support your LGBT brothers and sisters, you show up. All it tells us about you is that you’re awesome.

Jason Prokowiew, President