Day in the Life of an Idiot

As my fellow SF/F writer Saladin Ahmed disparagingly said on Twitter last night: "we're going to have epic debates about the relative levels of privelege involved in various forms of ally behavior when we're in the camps."

Another dear friend of mine and SF/F writer on Facebook was likening wearing the pin to Earth Day.  She felt Earth Day was a joke because people do tiny gestures once a year that are ultimately meaningless.  I get the frustration there, I really do.  

I'm wearing a pin, despite the fact that some people might see me as a privileged white woman making a hollow statement of solidarity.  

The problem that I have with that argument is the idea that ANY form of solidarity is hollow.  I'm white and therefor privileged in ways I can't even begin to always understand.  But, I'm also queer AF.  And, yeah, the comparisons to the Reagan era are bad ones, but I do remember when people were dying of AIDS at an astronomical rate.  I remember losing friends.... teachers.  I couldn't cure AIDS.  But, I could come out. I could wear a pink triangle.  We made a quilt.  Quilts are useless. This one was so big, it wasn't even good at keeping any one person warm on a cold night.  But, the AIDS quilt was literally just a symbol.  But, you know what? It was much, much more than that. It brought people together. It made communities. It raised awareness. It put a real number and real people into an abstract picture.

Did this hollow gesture of solidarity change the world?  Yes and no, but I'd like to think it helped pave the way to the victories we did win. Maybe more importantly, it helped people process grief. It helped people never forget the loved ones they lost.

Last night, I wore a safety pin on my vest at work.  I didn't work the desk, so I didn't interact with many people.  But as I was bringing an empty cart back to the work area, a woman in a hijab in the study room caught my eye. She saw the pin and she smiled. We shared a smile, without words, through a glass wall.  Did I help her?  I don't know.  But I don't see how I harmed.

I am a privileged white woman, but I'm also queer enough to know what it feels like when you think everyone automatically hates you for who you are.  I know what it's like to go through your days feeling like everyone around you potentially wants to harm you or insult you. Solidarity does matter.  Solidarity is not hollow.  

If I could make that stranger smile and feel less alone for five seconds, then I did good.  

And, yeah, it's not ENOUGH.  But it *is* something.  

I'll be wearing my pink triangle again, too.