These are some of my favorite passages in “Redefining Positive” by Nicole Raheja.
— Here are some ways that you can respect the way people identify themselves and the way that they feel about their identities:
1: Believe people about their own experiences. If one person tells you that other people discriminated against them, and another person says, “No, we didn’t,” believe the person who experienced the discrimination because only they know what they experienced. If someone punches you and it hurts, the fact that the person claims they didn’t hit you very hard does not minimize your pain. When someone tells you that they were hurt by an action, that pain is completely real even if the other person says that they didn’t do anything that “should” have been offensive.
2: Respect the fact that everyone does not consider every trait to be a major part of who they are. Do not just expect everyone who shares a particular identity to join clubs or activist communities relating to that identity, or discuss any issues in detail with you.
3: Only refer to a difference as a disability if the person calls it a disability themself. Be aware that some people may consider a difference to be a disability, while other people refer to the same difference as an advantage, or as a neutral trait. Accept however a person identifies.
4: Don’t try to convince someone that something is positive when they consider it a disadvantage, such as by telling someone who has a physical disability that they are lucky they don’t have to take gym class, or by telling someone with a learning disability that they are lucky to get extra time on tests. People may not feel lucky about these things themselves, so let them make that call.
5: Don’t call someone “inspirational” just for living their life, unless you know that the person likes being described this way. If someone has written a book or given motivational talks about how they have triumphed over adversity, or if they regularly talk about their story in a way that tries to be inspirational, then by all means, let the person know that they have inspired you. But if someone does not refer to themself as an inspiration, don’t try to make them into one. Referring to someone as “inspirational” for doing things that most people do makes it sound like you have lower expectations of their abilities, and can make a person feel alienated.
6: Accept that you cannot tell everything about a person just by looking at them, and be open to learning things about people that you never would have suspected. Think of some qualities about yourself and your life experiences that people can’t guess just by looking at you – the fact that you love peanut butter and raspberry sandwiches, that you have two dogs, three cats, and a guinea pig, that your life dream is to be a rap singer. Now, imagine that when you share a piece of information about yourself, another person’s reaction is, “That can’t be true! You seem like a normal person! You’re just using that as an excuse so you’ll get special treatment!” This may sound silly, but this is actually a common reaction when someone who appears “normal” tells you that they have an issue that you were not aware of. If someone shares something personal with you, believe them. You are not doing someone a favor by saying that they don’t seem “like that” – you are denying their experience.
7: If someone tells you that they have a physical or mental illness or disability:
Don’t:
- Say, “But you seem normal!”
- Accuse the person of making it up so that they can have special treatment.
- Say that a person doesn’t “look” like they are in as much pain as they are describing. The fact that someone has not outwardly expressed their pain does not mean that it does not exist. People will not always outwardly express their pain.
- Say that they don’t have enough bad things in their life to have the issue that they have. Don’t ask questions like, “What do you have to be depressed about?”
- Minimize their struggle by saying things like “everyone gets nervous sometimes” to someone who has an anxiety disorder, or “I’m so OCD too!” to someone who actually has OCD, when you don’t.
- Act as if the person is choosing to have an illness or disorder and can choose to “snap out of it.”
Do:
- Listen and accept what the person says.
- Validate them by saying something like, “Wow, that sounds really hard.”
- Accept that the person cannot control their illness or disability. Accept that it is not their choice.
- Ask if there is anything you can do to better accommodate them.
- Educate yourself on your friend’s condition to better understand it.
- Ask if what they have shared with you is private before you mention it to anyone else.
