Creating Allies: It doesn't just mean teaching straight people

I really have to get this off my chest. I'm queer. But sometimes, I really hate queers. And that isn't internalized homophobia talking. Now before anyone jumps the gun, let me explain completely. I have a very valid reason for feeling that way. My best friend is a straight white male. But he's also an amazing ally, always willing to learn, and almost always stands up against homophobia to his friends, also straight white males a lot of the time. Any time I've told him something is offensive, he's corrected his language and then moved on to correct his friends' language. This is the kind of man I would want standing next to me at my wedding, while I'm getting married to the girl of my dreams, because if it weren't for him, I probably wouldn't have had another straight male friend for the rest of my life. He's such an amazing ally that he actually renewed my faith in straight males all together.

Recently he posted a status saying this: "In my opinion, I really think that when LGBT people (or any minority) hate the 'straight white man' or disengage with them, they lose out on a lot of their support or lose out on seeing people as individuals. I get that a lot of people out there hate, but my dad is a straight, Irish man and he is on your side. I certainly see the LGBT (minority) point of view, but let's remember to not discriminate please (keep in mind I know the difference between racism, and discrimination)."

He posted this because another mutual friend, who is also queer, said he was done with straight white men. Now, in my queer female opinion, when LGBT people hate on straight white men and disengage because they are straight white men, they lose out on a lot of support because now you are seeing that person as a stereotype and not as a person. You shut them out, and of course they are gonna shut you out. If you're ever gonna try and make allies, you need to treat every straight white male as an individual and not just assume that by being straight white males, they automatically don't know what they are talking about.

Granted, the point that a straight white male has no right to tell the minority how to feel about their oppression is totally valid, but the problem is when you assume that his claim is automatically wrong because he doesn't have the right to say it. Because I would readily -and have in the past -make the same claim that if you don't dialogue in a smart way with straight white males, and treat them with respect, you're going to burn bridges. So when I see a queer person then, in response, post this: "Can't really tell a minority how to feel about the majority - check your privilege please." and then this:  http://thefeministhub.tumblr.com/post/2850213187/healthy-cultural-paranoia-and-why-it-is-not-reverse
 and then this:  http://wtfwhiteprivilege.tumblr.com/post/15789319530/so-you-think-you-are-a-good-ally
  and then this:  http://sapphrikah.tumblr.com/post/10572480627 , that, to me, is the worst possible thing you could do. Bear in mind these are all by the same person. Within a matter of minutes of each other.

You could have explained to him in a nice way why you didn't think it was okay. You could have left it at "check your privelege please" and it would have been mildly rude but understandable since you -at that point -were right. You could have come out of this with a stronger, smarter ally. Instead, you have guaranteed that you lost a friend. Because you just accused him -and his father- of being a bad ally, and of being ignorant, and of falling into all the pitfalls of a typical straight white guy, because apparently that's all you can see.

But you know what's the kicker? It doesn't matter if he was in the wrong. What matters is how you handle it. Because regardless of whether we want to or not, at any given time we can be seen as the voice of the community. And this straight white guy who plays football has about fifty other straight white guy friends who just saw you, a queer person, react in a very hateful way to a straight white guy bringing up a queer issue. What are all his friends gonna think, except that you don't want straight white guys as allies? 

So it doesn't matter if he was in the wrong. Instead of reacting to it hatefully you could have calmly said, "I'm sorry, but your status as a straight white male means that this post is a little hurtful to me, the minority. As the straight white male, you don't have the right to tell the minority how to feel about their oppression" and that would have been fine. But no. Instead, you took the hot-headed approach, and not only burned a long-standing friend and ally, but potentially a lot more people who would have otherwise been great allies because of this guy. I've met half a dozen people through him this summer alone, and his presence is what allowed me to safely have conversations with them, from time to time, about women's issues and queer issues. He facilitates those conversations, and he has those conversations regardless of whether or not a queer person is there. So all those potential allies that he could have converted now have just been introduced to the angry queer, and all their stereotypes about you have been proven right.

This is why it's so very important to shut up if you can't say it in a nice way, because no matter what we say, no matter who we are, someone is always watching, and you don't want someone's first opinion of queer people to be this. There are so many better ways you could have handled that situation. And if I hadn't been there, in person, you can guarantee that you would have lost an ally permanently just because of how badly you handled that situation. 

I see this happen time and time again. Queer people get so offended so quickly by the things the "straight white males" say that they just shut down right there and don't dialogue about it. If we are gonna teach people how to be allies, then the first step to doing that is to teach queers how to make allies. Because this isn't it.