Changing the Conversation

The most vital thing for fat acceptance to strive for is a change in the conversation about fatness. Indeed, this is far more important than advocating or supporting individual conversion to fat acceptance because a change in the conversation ultimately needs to happen first or there will always be a glass ceiling on what fat acceptance can accomplish. It been up against that ceiling for decades and sadly shows no signs of breaking through any time soon. For all the occasional press and gradual conversions, little ground has really been won in the war on us because too much time and energy has been spent trying to reassure people that we're not really trying to change the conversation too much. Its no wonder we've done so little when so much effort has been given to promising that we'll do little.

Fat acceptance needs to embrace its radical nature. Its not that our goals really are radical, mind you. Indeed, embracing the radicalism of fat acceptance should not be seen as granting the efforts by fat acceptance's critics to marginalize it. All civil rights efforts begin as radical though they have all merely demanded equality and tolerance. Fat acceptance is no different, but we need to recognize that in the face of an oppressive society, such small requests will be seen as extraordinary and cumbersome. We need to push back against this attitude in order to progress. We need to challenge cultural dogma about fatness and dieting in order to change the way we talk about fatness and fat people as a society. That change doesn't happen by sitting around and waiting. It doesn't happen by making compromises and concessions. It happens by allowing ourselves to be seen as radical when we are anything but.

Radical is all too often a dirty word. I've bought into this myself, sometimes, as I've bristled at how the word is used to demean and subjugate moderate views in defiance of a cultural mandate. But I am beginning to recognize its value. Do I think fat acceptance is radical? No. But society does. So, the only useful fat acceptance will be a "radical" fat acceptance. If society isn't threatened by fat acceptance, it would never label it as radical. We need to threaten society as it now is constructed. We need to threaten a culture of fat hatred and bigotry. We need for them to see us as radical.

Feminism didn't get anywhere by playing nice and reassuring men that women we're going to ask for too much. It took a stand and demanded equality and its a struggle that's far from over but which has made enormous strides. Civil rights for blacks was not advanced by playing by the rules of cultural oppressors. It was advanced by taking a clear and firm stand. Always, the leaders who were viewed as dangerous radicals in their time have been come to be seen as forward thinking heroes by history. To the concern trolls, this is not saying that the struggle for fat rights is exactly like the struggles seen by women and blacks in our society. No struggle is every exactly like another, but we can learn from each other all the same. I see much for fat liberation to learn from other civil rights movement and I long for those lessons to be put to use. While we mustn't allow fat hatred to define our defiance as extremist, we must allow it to be seen as radical. We must challenge fat hatred. We must make it uncomfortable. And we must recognize that this isn't just theory. People will be uncomfortable will us. Individuals. We must allow that. We cannot do what is expected of us. We cannot bow to thin privilege, to dieting privilege. We need to stand up for something else and be willing to let people be uncomfortable with us. We need to know that its them. Not us.

Only by doing this, can we begin to change the conversation about fatness. That we can take the way fat oppression is advanced and turn it around on itself. Daniel Engber wrote an article for Slate last week that laid out a good way of doing that. He analyzes the evidence and concludes that not only are politicians wrong to scapegoat fat people, that indeed they have it precisely backwards. That instead of promoting the culture of dieting, these politicians should be asked to pledge their support for a federal ban on weight-based discrimination.

Oddly, when he suggests this he unknowingly points something out that many fat activists miss. He links to the Rudd Center at Yale University, which indeed opposes weight bias. But the group isn't fat positive. While they are genuinely opposed to fat discrimination, they are not part of the fat acceptance movement. That's okay. You can think fat discrimination is wrong without actually thinking its acceptable to be fat. I don't believe this will ultimately be a productive line of thought, but it is clearly one many believe in. Fine. That alone doesn't make something part of fat acceptance. Because ultimately, groups like the Rudd Center aren't really fighting for fat rights. They are fighting against fat discrimination. Perhaps that seems like a subtle distinction, but its a significant one and one I fear fat activists have been loathe to make in a misguided attempt to increase its coalition. In truth, that increase is a mirage. Because fighting for the rights of dieters is different than fighting for the rights of fat people. I can agree with Rudd Center that fat people should not be subjected to ridicule, but I cannot accept their view that fat people are ultimately a problem to be solved. I cannot see them as a true ally even if we agree in some limited ways.

And that's okay. Its okay to agree with some of what someone says without feeling the need to set a big tent to suit us both. Because our common denominator simply isn't enough. It doesn't challenge our society's stigmatization of fat people at its source. The belief that we are wrong and can become "right" if we just tried. That is too important a message to bury in the name of a big tent. There is too much of fat acceptance that ends up on the wrong side of that tent. We need to be willing to say, "I agree with them about this, but not that." Indeed, the Rudd Center isn't afraid and it condemned fat blogs just a couple weeks ago after the New York Times article. It did so by agreeing with us, but then not. We were right to oppose weight bias, but terribly wrong to not support the prevention and elimination of fat people. They drew a distinction. That's what fat acceptance must also do.

I get that some diet blogs follow the Rudd Center's line of thought. That fat people shouldn't be discriminated against. Fine. We agree on that. But they aren't fat acceptance just for that. They aren't progressing towards fat acceptance just because of that. And fat acceptance should not feel the need to act like that is fat acceptance just so we throw a bigger party.

This isn't a party. This isn't a social event. We can have friends we don't completely agree with. Nearly every friend I've ever had has ultimately disagreed with fat acceptance. I have countless friends who have spent years of time, energy, and money dieting. We're still friends. That's okay. But I can't redefine fat acceptance just so we can agree better. I won't limit it to the boundaries of what they'll accept. They don't believe in fat acceptance. And that's okay. They can be my friends. We can agree on elements of what I believe in, but in a fight for civil rights, I can't set the limits by what they'll be willing to accept. Even my friends, I challenge. I won't cheer their dieting. I won't bite my tongue when I tell them where I stand. I don't badger, either. I know where they stand and that's fine. They just need to know where I stand and respect that ultimately, we're in different places. Most respect that. Some don't. The ones who don't are the ones who have the problem. Not me.

Fat Acceptance, as a movement, needs to take the same outlook. It needs to stand for something, not everything. It needs to be willing to let people not agree with it, to let it be see as radical. It needs to contrast itself to change the conversation. I hope that day can come. When fat acceptance is willing to strike a contrast. Its been a long time coming and its a crucial step it trying to really take fat acceptance to the next level. Even a little fat acceptance will get dismissed as extreme, which is why we have to just go all-in on this instead of pecking around the edges of fat hatred. We need to be different, to be distinct. That is how we will grow the movement. By changing the conversation, not changing what we say in the conversation.

When a politician, even one we agree with, demagogues about fatness, we need to turn it around on them and insist they pledge to oppose weight discrimination. When a children's nutrition program defines success by an elimination of fat children, we must resist and demand that the discussion of food and eating be weight neutral. When anti-obesity programs insist that they are just trying to decrease sedentary lifestyles, hold them to their own standards and ask where is the funding for groups like Big Moves, which shows fat people can be anything but sedentary.

Fat acceptance has no donor base to fund its grass roots. It has no network of campus activists being trained to fight the good fight. It is profoundly disadvantaged by cultural forces and it is imperative on us to resist. To push back against oppression with a clarion call for dignity, respect, and equality. We must be willing to be radicals against the dieting hegemony. We must demand a change in the conversation about fat people.