A White Guy’s Thoughts on Safety Pins

I am a white people.

Some of us have decided to wear safety pins as a symbolic gesture, indicating we are a “safe space” for people of color, LGBT people, Muslims, the disabled, and everyone else who’s currently in grave danger from a Trump administration.

It’s a very kind idea. It comes from a wonderful impulse. I want people to know that they are safe around me, and that I will act to keep them from harm if someone harasses them. I have more privilege than most, and I am willing to use it.

But the problem in the above paragraph comes from the words I want people to know.

Lara Witt wrote her own opinion piece about the safety pin idea. In it, she (very correctly) states that the safety pin is not enough. We must take more concrete actions if we really want to help. If we actually want to help—not just be seen as being “a helper.”

This form of performative allyship is rooted in a pathological need that white people have for praise. But your safety pin is lazy.

Those are Lara’s words from her article. Are they harsh? Yes. Are they as harsh as the discrimination she and people like her are feeling in America right now? Not even close.

Look at the responses on that article. People—mostly white people—are attacking Lara for criticizing a movement that’s designed to help. “We’re trying to help!” they say. “You should be grateful!”

Um … you’re being problematic as hell.

I am always incredibly hesitant to call myself an “ally” to marginalized groups. That is not a self-assumed title. It is bestowed, if anything. Because too often, people who claim the “ally” title are satisfying their pathological need for praise.

And allies have hella tendencies to attack anyone who criticizes their allyship.

In which case, you’re not actually being an ally.

Anything you do to help the less fortunate should always—MUST always—be open to critique. If you are not willing to listen to how your actions may be insufficient, or how they may actually be harmful, then you don’t really want to help. You want to be praised for helping.

No one in those comments who yells Lara is actually an ally. They have turned from “support” to “attack.”

If we have a desire to assist others, and they tell us they need something else, our response MUST be, “Okay, I will do that.”

In the case of the safety pin, it CAN be, “Okay, I will do that, too.”

Lara doesn’t even say we shouldn’t wear our safety pins. She only puts it out there that if that’s what we limit our activism to, we’re fulfilling our own desire to feel good, rather than a desire to make real change.

Responding to that statement with negativity only reinforces her point. She doesn’t give you a gold star, and you turn her into the enemy.

Wear your safety pin if you want. But don’t expect the people you’re trying to protect to fall at your feet and praise you for your help. (Especially since it seems white nationalists may already be co-opting the symbol.)

If you want to help, find out what the people you’re trying to help, ACTUALLY need. Then deliver that.

Otherwise, you really are showing off your pathological need for praise.