I was pumping gas on Peterson Ave. near the Metra Station today when I overheard a conversation at the next pump. Two people, one in the Ford pickup and the other fueling up, were talking about local queer volunteers who help feed our neighbors. The tone was nasty. One of them laughed and called the volunteers “a bunch of t***** woke virtue signalers.”
I flinched when I heard it. It felt like a physical blow. I wanted to say something. I wanted to tell them that those volunteers spend hours packing boxes and standing in the cold to make sure families do not go hungry. But before I could muster up the words, they were driving off westbound passing Rosehill Cemetery.
This moment stuck with me because of something that happened just two weeks ago while I was visiting my parents. I was at a restaurant in Honolulu and I witnessed an act of racism. I spoke up and called it out. Later, when I shared the story, a reader dismissed my actions as “merely virtue signaling.”
I have to admit that the comment stung a little. It hurt because it dismissed the real anger I felt in that moment. It also ignored how hard it was for me to speak up. I am not a naturally confrontational person. In fact, I fear it. It’s led to some bad decisions on my part in the past. I had to muster up a lot of confidence to say something in that restaurant.
My heart was racing and my hands were shaking. It was not a performance for an audience. It was a difficult choice to do what was right. But it is what it is.
The phrase virtue signaling used to describe someone who bragged about being a good person but never actually did anything to help. Now the meaning has changed. People use it as a weapon against anyone who shows they care.
If you speak up about unfair laws or try to help a struggling family, critics say you are just performing. They claim you do not really care about the issue and that you only want your friends to think you are a good person.
This is dangerous because it changes the subject. It stops us from looking at the real problem. If someone points out that a group of people is being treated badly, the response should be about fixing that bad treatment. Instead, the critic makes it about the person speaking. It becomes a fight about personality. This allows people to ignore the actual suffering of immigrants or minorities. It is a convenient way to avoid hard conversations.
The truth is that the work being attacked is not a performance. Real advocacy is hard work. It is usually boring and happens when no one is watching. It looks like volunteers packing boxes of food at Care For Real or Edgewater Mutual Aid. It looks like standing up to a bully in a restaurant even when your voice is shaking. This is not a show. It is real effort that takes time and energy.
We cannot let their cynicism stop us. Caring about other people is not a weakness. It is not a trend. It is simply the right thing to do. We have to keep doing the work even if people call us names. The work is too important to stop just because someone else thinks it is fake.
