So yesterday a popular blogger posted a picture of a bunch of candy bars and sugary drinks atop a magazine with the headline "Diabetes and You". Her caption for the photograph was "I went to Walgreens to pick up a prescription...and diabetes!" Here is my issue with this. Said blogger has over two hundred thousand followers. TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND!! She has published a book which is being sold in national chain stores, and she advocates for autism awareness. Going as far as soliciting money and running marathons for it. She knows how big her influence can be. She has used her platform to raise awareness for something that a lot of people are uneducated about. She has done many good things for autism. Now, the comments on her diabetes dig were things such as "mmmmm diabetes". Or you tube videos of the gentleman who pronounces it "diabeetus". Or "ha ha I told my pharmacist the other day while he was bagging my candy that I would be back for my diabetes meds". Tell me why it is ok to joke about a chronic illness that is misunderstood on a platform that you use to advocate for another chronic condition? Do any of you think the above autism meme would fly? If someone cracked a joke about breast cancer (using misinformation and judgmental material) to over 200,000 people would it be taken lightly? If another published author made the same comment about diabetes would people still defend them and say it was "just a joke"? I am the first person to get gallows humor. My God, if I didn't laugh I would cry. The problem is I am not standing in front of 200,000 people when I crack these jokes. When my daughter was first diagnosed any crack about diabetes really hurt her. People still to this day think we somehow caused her to have diabetes. People are uneducated. They don't understand. Somewhere out there in those 200,000 people is a newly diagnosed child of diabetes crying their eyes out and a parent who is still trying to figure out what they could have done to prevent their child from "getting" diabetes. These women who get "Facebook famous" writing blogs and publishing books need to be held to the same standards that anyother celebrity is held to. That or they need to go the hell home. I am sick of people making excuses for these women's cruel remarks. Have I said stupid things before? Yep, sure have. I apologized afterwards. Then I educated myself. Was I educated about diabetes before my daughter was diagnosed? Hell no! I didn't know jack shit about it! I also didn't crack jokes about it to over two hundred thousand people. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure it never entered my mind. With great power comes great responsibility, and some of these women need to keep that in mind before they open their mouths.
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