It feels strange to be “an ally”, as if I personally have nothing at stake in how my children are treated by society, and also in how they choose to respond to it. It feels like an important part of being a father to these children to grapple with their status vis a vis society, and also to help them to do so, to provide a moral compass, and to set boundaries for them. But equally I am not black, and with that I recognize that I don’t understand the black experience from the inside, except as anyone can hope to understand another’s experience by sympathy.

Is there a set of roles for raising and guiding children that are different from the role of “ally” and “group member”? If so, what makes this relationship different in kind rather than degree from that of close friend or mentor? Surely this is exactly the experience any father of any woman has?

I can’t help but leave with conflicted feelings, and I would welcome answers that others may have.

The thing is that it may not be the end of the world for the person so called, but it might be bad moment for the collective effort that a group or movement is pursuing. Because at least some of the time, the calling out is simultaneous with a move to control something potentially broad for purposes that are far narrower or more particular.

Ok, but consider that this is just a catch-22 slightly downstream of the way demands for allyship can generally establish a catch-22: e.g., that all expression runs the risk of being called out as an attempt to dominate or control if it is coming from a subject historically associated with domination, based on a retroactive assessment of whether its content is deemed acceptable or not.

Right, this is the good-faith explanation for “All Lives Matter” instead of “Black Lives Matter”. Or the argument that discussions of the Ecole Polytechnique massacre shouldn’t have focused on the fact that the victims were women. Only it’s still misguided: injustice is not distributed equally. Focus on the universal and you erase the specific, targeted nature of injustice.

As for this:
It’s very likely that in regular reading of progressive conversations in social media you will come across many examples of white straight men or women telling other white straight men or women what it means to be an ally and what the content and appearance of proper ally behavior in the conversation at hand ought to be.

I know you don’t mean it to be, Tim, but this is a hell of a catch-22 you’ve set up. As a straight white person, tell another straight white person how to be a good ally and you’re arrogating something to yourself; don’t do it and you’re forcing members of the out-group to do something they’re probably sick and tired of doing, and are more likely to be ignored for to boot.

Yes. Compromising down ought to be a serious red flag for anyone who is being named as an ally. Any movement that is expressing the view that they’re compromising down is almost inviting allies to mark their calendar for future betrayal. Compromising up means that the movement is communicating that their goals include a better world in which that movement will remain only one of many legitimate perspectives.