It’s “Say Something Sunday,” a day dedicated, at least on this blog, to personal Size Diversity activism. I’ve got some suggestions below and/or of course you can do your own thing and feel free to leave a comment about it. If you have ideas of things to do for Say Something Sunday I’d also love for you to share those.
I did the math and if everyone who views the blog each week did one piece of Size Diversity Activism a week, it would add up to over 1.5 million body positive messages put out into the world this year. Multiply that times the number of people who might see each of those messages and things start to increase exponentially. To be very clear, nobody is obligated to do activism so if this doesn’t appeal to you that’s totally cool, I’ll be back tomorrow with your regularly scheduled blog post!
The theme this week is fat jokes. Often people couch fatphobia in so-called humor and jokes, and then defend saying cruel and disrespectful things because “it’s just a joke” and try to make the issue that we aren’t willing to laugh at a joke that stigmatizes us, rather than that they are actively stigmatizing us. Nobody is obligated to celebrate jokes made at their expense and making stigmatizing and bullying sentiments into a “joke” is not a get-out-of-jackass-free card. (More full explanation of this can be found here) Suggestions of what to do with this:
When you see or hear a fat joke/meme etc. say something. You can say something direct like “fat shaming isn’t funny” or something softer like “I wish we lived in a world where people didn’t try to be funny at other’s expense.”
Another option if you want something that works in a professional situation, if there is an in-balance of power, or if you just want to be more subtle, is fighting this kind of bigotry with confusion , for example smiling sincerely and saying “I’m sorry, I don’t get it – can you explain?” because nothing makes it clear that a joke is stigmatizing faster than someone having to explain it.
If you want to do more of this kind of thing, consider joining the Rolls Not Trolls group on Facebook, it’s a group created for the specific purpose of putting body positive things in body negative spaces on the internet and supporting each other while we do that. It’s a secret group so if you want to join just message me on facebook (I’m Ragen Chastain)
Have a great Say Something Sunday!
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Book Me! I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information on topics, previous engagements and reviews here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!
Dance Classes: Buy the Dance Class DVDs or download individual classes – Every Body Dance Now! Click here for details
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