Even Liberals Love to Fat-Shame

I’m a bit late in getting to this, but Salon has a lovely fat-shaming article up, about how the fetishizing of large black female buttocks is assisting in the obesity crisis. Supposedly, women like Buffie the Body, a black female cover girl who is famous for her disproportionately large ass, perpetuate the idea that black women should be curvy no matter what it takes, the same way that white women are supposed to be skinny at all costs.

Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder and need not justify itself. I love (non-steroidal) body builders’ physiques and, pre-kids, I was that hardcore gym rat haranguing co-workers over the contents of their lunch sacks. My own mother found my buff body distasteful, though it would have taken Gitmo to make her admit it (my family deputized a representative to ask me if I was gay). So, my issue is not with a butt fetish per se. Fetishizing large rumps (though “large” doesn’t tell you the half of it without the pix) is, of course, no better or worse than fetishizing plastic blimp-breasts, except that the latter could be considered safer. Their supply can be halted, surgeons are regulated, patients are monitored and, of course, the bearers themselves can have the implants removed. But the best way to get a gargantuan ass of urban-lad-mag size is to be obese; this is also the path to ill health and early death for black women, as Buffie’s lifestyle amply demonstrates.

I think it’s pretty safe to call this insulting to just about everyone. You’re trying to tell me that my naturally disproportionately large thighs are more dangerous to me than plastic shoved into my body for no good reason? That being overweight and happy is worse for me than the cripplingly poor body image that leads women to breast implants? Sorry, you lost me there.

Even disregarding that, this article makes a fatal flaw: assuming that black women want to be fat and that white women want to be thin. This ignores the fact that black women are almost as likely to have eating disorders as white women. It also makes a faulty direct link between a cultural ideal and what women actually look like. Yes, the “ideal” for white women is to be very, very thin with large breasts. Yes many women (of ALL colors) starve themselves and practice unhealthy eating habits to reach that goal. But a hell of a lot more white women are obese. We’re not “supposed” to have fat asses, and guess what, we do. So why are we to assume that black women have fat asses because of women like Buffie? It doesn’t add up.

And what about the “evidence” the article provides?

Womenshealth.gov reports that “compared with overweight white Americans, overweight black Americans are two to three times more likely to say their weight is average — even after they’ve been told they are overweight or obese by a doctor. It’s one thing not to “see” that you need to lose weight. It’s quite another to reject that knowledge from the medical professional you sought out.

You know what I say to that? Fabulous. Certainly some of these women are in denial. That’s bad. But a lot of them are also probably seeing with much clearer vision than most of us. I’m tired of being told that I’m fat when I’m a size 12. I’m REALLY tired of being told that I’m on a percentage point or two away from having my body fat reach “obese” proportions. I look at myself, and I realize that it’s not true. Slightly overweight, sure. Far from skinny, yes. Almost obese, fuck no. These women are likely being told that they are obese or overweight based off of a BMI chart. Have you ever looked at a BMI chart? It’s bullshit. It’s biased towards men, whose bodies naturally have less fat than women’s. It’s also particularly biased towards white women and does not seem to take bodies of color into account at all.

Of course obesity is a problem in this country. I may even be willing to admit that it is more of a problem among blacks than it is among whites. But what this article comes down to is fat-shaming. Behind all of the language about “health” and “eating right,” what it’s really saying is “we know that you think you look good like that, but you actually look like an unhealthy blubber but.” In calling these women “lard bodies” and comparing black obesity to foot-binding, it’s saying “don’t be fat to look good, because you don’t.” And if that isn’t fat-shaming, I don’t know what is.