Thank you for writing this.

No, I would not agree with commentors below who are arguing that “any support is better than none”- the kind of support you offer does matter. How you use the voice you have does matter. Let’s not forget that in the past week, in some parts of the country cops have taken a knee, let the media capture this, and then have proceeded to mace those who come to protests. Did they show support? Briefly- but it was fake. If they were true allies of the BLM movement, maybe they would have thought about what the protestors wanted rather than using their grief to get good publicity.

Lea Michelle, who is very popular and has a huge voice, recently voiced her support of Black Lives Matter. Thousands liked her tweet, but her fellow cast mates called her out over her racist behavior on the set of Glee (Samantha Marie Ware, for example). Did she show support? Yes. Does she have a big voice? Yes. Is she truly a supporter of Black Lives Matter? I don’t know if I can say yes for that one. I think this is the kind of performance allyship this article discusses.

Tweeting and sharing articles and info is one thing, but real change starts by examining what aspects of your life you should be focusing on changing before you tell other people what they should change. So again, thank you for this powerful read. I’m going to continue working on myself to become a better ally and I hope that others take the advice offered by this article to do the same.