Ok. Srsly. Let's talk about it. Allow me, if you will, to put down my diet Orange Crush and my lowfat high fiber cereal snack bar and fresh fruit so that we may have a frank, earnest discussion about what one artist notably referred to as "this jelly." I just watched a Colbert Report with a guest who wrote a book about issues surrounding the more bootylicious among us. I was right with her, I really was. Right up until the end, where she likened fat oppression to racism and inferred that fat people have better health outcomes than thin people. Let's address these two statements one by one:
First, about how fatphobia=racism. No. Just, no. I'm certainly not invalidating in any way the fact that this is a significant social problem that can affect income, what jobs you do and don't get, social standing, etc etc up to and including the fat tax one must pay to get extra large clothes. However, can we please, for the love all things battered and deepfried, at least agree that we as fat people were not, as a rule, summarily stripped of any and all civil liberties and freedoms and forced into slavery for generations? And that we can not, in point of fact, point to a relative who remembers when they had to avoid the Thin fountains and only drink from the fat ones? Can we do that? Also, while we're at it, can we pretty fucking please stop comparing oppressive states and trying to out-oppress each other like two snotnosed kindergarteners comparing scabs for two fucking minutes so we can spend that energy focusing on larger problems? That'd be great, thanks so much. Just because we're both struggling with a society slanted against us, that doesn't mean that that slanting looks the same for both of us, and it doesn't mean we understand each other's journeys or could possibly comprehend what it means for each other's cultures. It DOES mean we should be way more fucking motivated to join the other and lock arms when one of us is trying to stage a protest or sign a petition or embetter things in general. Recognize that we're fighting the same beast, but respect that we are most certainly not fighting the same fight, and understand that in the end that really shouldn't make a damn difference in how we support one another. Ok. So once again, to sum up: NO.
Second: Better health outcomes? Alright. I'm a nurse, betches. I give risk factors reach-arounds every damn day, massaging and cajoling cost/benefit analyses to give my clients the best care possible. And you know what? I am just as damn tired of the fat-power morons who scream that morbid obesity means nothing for health risk factors as I am of the brainless, hyperreactive PCP's who insist on testing a fatty's thyroid and blood sugar levels every frigging month which comes alongside a lecture about how someday soon as you lie asleep your fat is going to gang up on you in the night, kick your ass, steal your wallet, give you dick cancer and a heart attack, eat all your Pringles and rape your dog. That's right. It's climbing in yo window, it's drivin yo lipids up, and tryin to rape your dog so y'all better hide yo chips, hide yo wine, etc etc etc. So let me make this as monosyllabic as I can: If you's fat, it don't mean you are sick any more than it means you're healthy.
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