A Look Into the Ignorant Ally

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"You Thought That Protest was bad?" A Look into the Ignorant Ally Nikki Keating

Class of 2025

Featured works by Lea Crowley

Class of 2026

a hard pill to swallow to learn that your freedoms are a privilege, not a right. I can imagine it must be scary for white women right now - to know that the floor could be ripped out from under you and you fall into the hands of people who have no idea what you've gone through. I can imagine this because I've experienced it- for 18 years, to be exact.

The difference? No one gave me a glass of water to swallow the pill. This is NOT to compare trauma or struggle, as I know that leaves a mark on everyone. Yet as I scroll through Tik Toc, I can't help but notice the praise given to my white peers when proclaiming loudly that things were going to "get real" now that they were involved. As if things weren't real enough when my people were dragged through the streets and shoved into cop cars. Maybe it's only real when it affects them personally.

It is p Maybe it's ersonally. on It's ly real only r wh eal en it affects when white them people need to protest or call up their government officials. The urgency of social justice does not move the dial when POC women scream for better access to contraceptives or when "Black Lives Matter" is shouted across rooftops and streets. "You haven't seen anything yet" they chanted. But the thing is, we have. You put a cloth across your eyes and walked down a different street. POC women have repeatedly tried to make people stand up and see border control performing coerced sterilization, blocking teen migrants from accessing abortion care, and black women being targeted for birth control. Those issues fade into the background of someone's feed liked, but eventually swiped on and forgotten.

Many movements have been pushed into oblivion because the platforms that should have been given to them are given to white people, who then use their privilege and power to improve their social status. If this makes you go, "well, I'm never posting an infographic ever again if I'm going to get hated on anyways, " then you're proving my point. You were never in it for the cause; you were in it for the praise from your fellow white peers who swipe up and say, "Yess gurl rip them to shreds" when you post on your story. While you POC friends, If you have any, have to worry that statistically, unplanned pregnancy runs higher in their communities.

At the end of the day, white people need to come to the terms that protesting and posting an infographic. While not inherently wrong, taints the gesture with them expecting praise or wanting to be looked at as woke or hip and applauded for something POC women have been doing for far longer and for less credit. This article was not written to tell white people to stop protesting. If you haven't gone out and protested, you should do so! But when talking to your POC friend, you shouldn't throw out the fact that you protested when they said you made them feel uncomfortable. Landscape

You should listen and change whether or not YOU think protesting absolves you from your ignorance. Understand that you should not crave or feel entitled to the validation that isn’t given to everyone. At the end of the day, YOU should want to be a better person. Not your Instagram fOLLOWERS.