Dear Dude Who Likes Fatties,
It’s not your job to tell fat people how sexy fat people are. We don’t need you. You’re not a fat activist because you have a blog full of fat naked girls that you jerk off to. You’re just a pervert.
I’m not being rude, you’re being rude, appropriative, and ignorant. And it’s not my job to educate you.I just kinda cringed because I think about the fact that she used the word “appropriative”. I’m not understanding the context at all of appropriating. Maybe I don’t understand “fat culture”? Or maybe fat culture as it is on tumblr (and everywhere), is largely white, and rooted in a lot of ways in white supremacy.
I see that she’s trolling the “bbw” tag and I’ve said this before, bbw is used by a lot of people as a source of pride and empowerment. In my experience, I see a LOT of people of color use that term to define themselves and own the power in it.
There’s also shaming someone for being a pervert. Again, being perverted isn’t the issue here. There can be mutual and consensual perversion. The issue isn’t with the fact that this person is a pervert, it’s the fact that the perversion is without consent. Which I don’t think the above really addressed.
This post represents a lot of what is wrong with fat activism. Which is not understanding intersectionality and not understanding how fat folks are ridiculously oppressive of others who aren’t just oppressed on the grounds that they’re fat.
So I guess I’m kinda here to say, I don’t see the point in calling someone out when the person calling them out isn’t checking themselves/ I’m not giving you any cookies.
I feel like this is taking a whole lot out of me. I am not surprised that white dude is defending the personhood of white girl. I’m just not. I was not talking about “fat admiration” in the context of the “admirer” or someone on the outside looking in. I’m talking about woc taking ownership of that word and not using it negatively. I’m talking about the pervasive use of bbw in the negative by the white fat women who have dominated conversation about fatness for too fucking long. I’m talking about “fat culture” being “white culture” and how “white culture” can not be appropriated. I’m not here to call into question whether the op’s opinions are valid or not. It’s clear she doesn’t like that term being used against her. When certain people don’t like that term being used against them that’s very valid. What I’m calling into question here is the fact that I do strongly believe that the term bbw started in of color communities and how much white people resent it and are framing it as a negative bothers the fuck outta me. If you don’t like the word used against you that’s fine, but what I’m seeing a lot of in white fat spaces is totally ignoring the histories related to that word and saying it only means one fucking thing and dominating the conversation. which surprise! is exactly what happens with everything else. I also resent the fact that bringing up this issues seem to be implied as being “derailing”. No, it’s not. It’s addressing some shit that a lot of y’all need to start talking about.
Im also a fat woman and I’m telling you these are all issues too but it’s weird how it seems to be that far women has very much been framed to mean fat white women. Also, not surprised that “bbw” is trademarked by a white guy as red3blog mentions in a more recent blog. That don’t mean shit. White men take ownership of everything. Including this conversation.
I could say so much more but I’m not here for this bullshit.This response by Quelola is really spot on and once again highlights the ways in which fat acceptance as a movement continues to erase and invalidate certain bodies, lifestyles and groups of people. There is a lot of white, cisgender able-bodied women in fat acceptance spaces and although this has been empowering for many white cis women it continues to miss the mark when it comes to applying any sort of race/class/gender/disability analysis to itself as a movement. I try not to engage in stuff like this too often because I don’t believe that singling out individuals really gets to the root of the issue. However, this is about whiteness and I feel really sad and surprised by the original posters silence on this issue. I believe that part of shifting a social movement means making visible and privileging subjugated (in this case, non-white) knowledges and the way in which the original poster deleted their post and refused to acknowledge, respond or apologize seems like a deeply insufficient response to me. Nolose just released a statement titled “a response to white fat activism from People of Color in the fat justice movement” and in it they note:
“We see white allies depending heavily on POC and poor people to discern, direct, and implement the work of addressing these concerns within our communities only after or in response to work being presented that does not include their voices. We see white allies responding defensively and closing down conversations when presented with clear questions about taking steps to do their own work of finding ally mentors, addressing the ways their own acknowledged and unacknowledged privilege directly affects members of their community, and engaging in thoughtful dialogue about the interconnectedness of oppressions and the diverse ways those oppressions affect different members of our communities”
This is a powerful statement because it highlights the ways in which white fat activists are continuing to chose silence when asked to address issues of race and class (etc.). Here is another relevant quote from the nolose statement:
“Overly simplified analogies of power and privilege are no longer the face of fat activism. We, as a large and diverse community with a vast wealth of life experiences and resources, can do better. We can go deeper; we can form authentic and strong coalition with one another”.
This original post shows a lack of desire to engage in more complex and holistic political struggles that include a diversity of bodies and experiences. I want to align myself with political struggles that bring people together and break silence and create space for rage and dialogue and healing. Our bodies are political and deserve love and respect. White fat acceptance has a long history and its time for a new wave of people who are willing to engage with and reformulate the movement. That means a willingness to listen to people of color, politicize and destroy whiteness, take accountability, stand in solidarity and acknowledge and make space for the vastly different ways we experience our bodies or understand how they should be empowered.
SPARKS NOTES: fat acceptance doesn’t look critically enough at how it is enmeshed with white supremacy, silence is never the answer
a million times YES. i have a lot of thoughts about this (white supremacy in FA, not this post specifically) also that i hopefully will be able to articulate well and soon.
let me first say that my silence has been unacceptable and it stops today
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