I’ve been thinking lately about “allies” in the social justice sense of the word: marginalised groups who have unaligned object-level interests but aligned meta-interests. Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transfolk and [miscellaneous gender-people] may have very different object-level interests, but a very strong common meta-interest relating to the social and legal status of sexual identities. They may also be marginalised along different axes, allowing for some sort of trade I don’t have a good piece of terminology for.
As I understand social justice, that’s not what they mean by ally. An ally is a privileged person who is attempting to help non-privileged people. For example, a man trying to help women (in a social justice context) or a white person trying to help people of color (likewise in a social justice context).
Social justice is an effort to put together an alliance of all non-privileged people. This can definitely get weird,
There used to be a saying that politics makes strange bedfellows—possibly less true in the US lately, since compromise has been less attractive. Still, there can be alliances on such issues as winding down the war on drugs.
Ally is one of the most nebulous concepts in all of social justice. I’ve mostly seen it used in the way you describe it, but I wouldn’t be shocked if it was also commonly used in the way the OP uses it.
As I understand social justice, that’s not what they mean by ally. An ally is a privileged person who is attempting to help non-privileged people. For example, a man trying to help women (in a social justice context) or a white person trying to help people of color (likewise in a social justice context).
Social justice is an effort to put together an alliance of all non-privileged people. This can definitely get weird,
There used to be a saying that politics makes strange bedfellows—possibly less true in the US lately, since compromise has been less attractive. Still, there can be alliances on such issues as winding down the war on drugs.
Ally is one of the most nebulous concepts in all of social justice. I’ve mostly seen it used in the way you describe it, but I wouldn’t be shocked if it was also commonly used in the way the OP uses it.