RDBlog week day 4 – Community

Today is Day four of RDBlog week. The annual time when those of us who blog in the Rheumatic Diseases space blog about our condition.  Today’s prompt is:

Community – Our community is often hard on each other, even going as far as accusing others of not having RA when they can physically do more than others. How can we educate our own community on RA and how it affects each one of us differently.

The person (I do not know who it was) has likely heard these accusatory remarks.  I know this because I have also heard them.  They are never about me directly, but I feel like if I was not sitting face to face with the person making the statement, it could be and that hurts.

The question today is how to educate our community so we can stop these remarks.  That is a tough order.  But I suggest three ways.

1. Take a stand. If a comment would hurt your feelings if it were said about you, then the best thing we can do is say so.  Remarks like these exist because we allow them to survive. Merely saying no, this is not OK is the best possible education.

2. Stop doing it yourself. I know everyone reading this says, but I  would never do this.  Still, someone must be doing it.  I bet if you think long and hard enough  you will think of a time you said something like it.   So stop saying it.  It will be amazing how little you will hear of it if you stop saying it.

3. Write about it. If you are interested in making a change, use your blog, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to give uplifting messages about people and this condition.  Take time to knock down stereotypes or challenge speech.  You will be shocked at how much less you will hear if you challenge such rhetoric.

In making these challenges, we need not be mean or upset with each other. Just remember you have likely said or thought these things as well. We can approach this from a position of friendship, at least at first.

For me, the way to educate is to make such thought unacceptable.  We humans typically only say what we believe is acceptable.  It is the reason people tell off-color or sexually discriminatory jokes in the presence of people of the same sex.  They assume it is permissible in the social norm.  The only way I see to combat this is to make it unacceptable.  But that takes standing up for the idea that not every thought is shared and that takes conviction of purpose.

I am not preaching from on high here.  I have thought these things, and they are wrong.  So I am speaking it to myself as much as anyone.  I vow to call myself out, and if I make these comments, I hope you will call me out as well.

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