{"id":4252,"date":"2008-03-27T20:16:45","date_gmt":"2008-03-28T03:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/03\/27\/no-being-fat-isnt-identical-to-being-black-no-that-doesnt-make-fat-activism-illegitimate\/"},"modified":"2008-03-27T20:16:45","modified_gmt":"2008-03-28T03:36:33","slug":"no-being-fat-isnt-identical-to-being-black-no-that-doesnt-make-fat-activism-illegitimate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=4252","title":{"rendered":"No, being fat isn't identical to being black. No, that doesn't make fat activism illegitimate."},"content":{"rendered":"

(This is a edited comment I left on one of my favorite blogs.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Wonderful post<\/a>. But the comments section here – mainly B.C.\u2019s comments \u2014 make me want to scream in frustration.<\/p>\n

Fat Acceptance\u2026 Just what MLK, Jr was fighting for\u2013so chubby white women could avoid lynchings,
\nmichelin men being burned in effegies on front lawns, etc.<\/p>\n

Fat is beautiful. Just what my family who ran like hell to get away from the lynch mobs in Mississippi was praying for\u2013the rights of fat white people to feel good about themselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s true no one has been lynched for being fat (although fat people have died due to lousy good medical care for fat people). It\u2019s also true that anyone who says \u201cfat rights is just like the black civil rights movement!\u201d is being an idiot.<\/p>\n

But so what? Being Black is not like being fat is not like being female is not like being queer is not like being disabled is not like being Asian is not like being trans is not like being poor is not like being\u2026<\/p>\n

No marginalized group’s experience is exactly like any other’s. No one\u2019s experiences are interchangeable. But the legitimacy of fat activists’ complaints doesn’t depend on us showing our experiences are exactly like the black experience, or the lesbian experience, etc..<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about justice.<\/p>\n

The reason fat activists have formed a movement is that it\u2019s unjust to be denied good medical care because we\u2019re fat; we think it\u2019s unjust that we can get fired for being fat; we think it\u2019s unjust that we face job and wage discrimination because we\u2019re fat; we think it\u2019s unjust that we can be charged more for basic services (like insurance) because we\u2019re fat; it\u2019s unjust that people glance at us and assume that we\u2019re lazy and care nothing for ourselves; and yes, although you\u2019ll sneer at this as \u201cthe right to feel good,\u201d it\u2019s unjust that fat people are taught from childhood to think of themselves as deficient, wrong, and disgusting.<\/p>\n

Anit-fat bigotry isn’t wrong because it\u2019s the same as facing lynch mobs. It\u2019s wrong because it’s unjust. It\u2019s unjust because we\u2019re human and don\u2019t deserve to be treated as second-class people because of the shape of our bodies.<\/p>\n

That \u2014 not the claim that being fat is at all like being black \u2014 is why fat activists fight.<\/p>\n

See also: Kate Harding<\/a> and Red No Three<\/a>. (I didn’t read Red’s post until after I wrote this one, but there’s a lot of overlap).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This is a edited comment I left on one of my favorite blogs.) Wonderful post. But the comments section here – mainly B.C.\u2019s comments \u2014 make me want to scream in frustration. Fat Acceptance\u2026 Just what MLK, Jr was fighting … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fat-fat-and-more-fat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}