These past few years have seen a dramatic increase in people, both celebrities and ordinary people like you and me, speaking out against injustice. Rallies and movements have grown fighting for equality across the board, whether it`s focused around racial, gender, or sexual equality, or rights for those with disabilities and disorders. People are fighting harder and harder every day to make the world a safer and more accepting place for everyone, and it`s amazing.

However, just because a lot of us are fighting the good fight and want to make society a better and safer place for us and future generations, doesn`t mean that we`re automatically perfect. Being an ally doesn`t erase years of internalized racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Because in the past we have all said something at some point that was hurtful or wrong. Most of the time it`s because we didn`t know better, or wanted to believe that it wasn`t that big of a deal. A huge part of growing as a person, though, is realizing that those types of things are offensive and wrong to say, and making a conscious effort to not say or do those types of things any more. But unlearned ingrained thoughts doesn`t happen overnight—for some things it will take time and you`re going to slip up and you`ll apologize and work harder the next time and that`s okay. No one becomes the perfect, flawless ally overnight, despite what some people might have you believe.

You see it happen a lot with celebrities, because their entire lives are put underneath a microscope, when people reach back into the depths of their twitter, or find age-old interviews where someone said something that was offensive and shouldn`t have been said by anyone, let alone someone who has their words broadcasted across the world on multiple platforms. But that doesn`t mean that they haven`t learned and progressed and recognized that they had misspoke in the past. If it`s brought to their attention and they admit that they were in the wrong and apologize, as well as showing that they have otherwise simply grown as a person, there is no need to continue harping on it. Once a mistake has been recognized as just that, and it`s been apologized for, there is no need to constantly bring it up. If you keep bringing up how people messed up in the past, you`re hindering the opportunity for progress to happen, and for it to be recognized in the future.

Evolving as a person is about looking back on bad things that have been done and said in the past, apologizing for it, and not doing it again. Just because someone, whether they are on television or sitting next to you in class, said something in the past doesn`t mean that they can`t speak out against that injustice now. If we only judge people by their mistakes and not the actions they have taken to remedy those mistakes, then we are discounting how much they have grown as a person. That goes for everyone, even the person looking back at you in the mirror. Just because in the past you may have said something that was offensive, you would never consider yourself a bigot because you wouldn`t say something like that now. That goes for everyone else as well. You have to give people the chance to evolve and to learn—two things that don`t happen overnight.

If you want worldwide change to be immediate (which would be nice) you`re going to be disappointed. Progress takes time. Unlearned internalized and institutionalized discrimination takes time. Maturing enough to realize that you`ve been saying hurtful things takes time. So give people time, and assist them in learning acceptance, but you can`t expect people to be perfect right off the bat, because you weren`t at first either, and realistically none of us are perfect even now. And that`s okay. It`s all about constantly growing and getting better.