Perfect World —

So, I’m having a frantic day and we’re trying to get ready to take the kids to the City Museum (which if you’ve never been and are planning a trip to St. Louis, is a must see).

I’ve written briefly today, but it’s on Facebook, but it’s extremely important in my mind and I want to share it with all you Fierce Fatties because I consider it a semi-official stance for the way I see Fat Acceptance. The subject is political differences and the aim to unify. I posted a simple request that we work together toward the goals of Fat Acceptance and some disagreed, and suggested that they didn’t want to work with people who have certain political beliefs.

I guess with my history in Fat Acceptance, I find the idea of excluding certain people from Fat Acceptance (because you don’t like them or you disagree with certain parts of their personal beliefs or brand of activism or opinions on that activism or approach to that activism or whatever) completely baffling. Unless Fat Acceptance is accepted by a sizable segment of the population, then we don’t really have the luxury of choosing our ideal coalition of activists.

We need a big ass tent for all these big ass people, and as long as I’m a part of Fat Acceptance I will never exclude anyone from my personal mission to change the social acceptability of size. And I posted a follow-up Facebook comment on that point as well. And someone (I won’t indicate who, since I’ve learned my lesson on that front) made the following comment:

I don’t disagree about the power of working through coalitions. I just wonder about “our fight” and the tones it will take. I don’t see evidence that any social movement for justice has achieved a unified front (and can’t really conceptualize such a thing given the ways in which oppressions and privilege intersect). Though it does seem that most successful social movements do achieve their gains by politically moving toward the center (consider the LGBT movement’s focus on same-sex marriage as a central aim, for example). But I believe that it often ends up being the dissidents and radicals on the periphery of that center that compel the social movement toward a broader conceptualization of human rights.

I agree completely with her point, but I wrote the following and it’s much too long for Facebook, so I just want to post it here as today’s post. Then I’m heading off to the City Museum to climb mountains of recycled junk in a 10 story building.

We have to work together people, regardless

The Civil Rights movement was a diverse, yet unified social movement that brought together people of varying political, economic, and religious backgrounds. Their purpose was singular: demand justice and equality for black Americans throughout our culture. With the passage of major Civil Rights bills, those groups splintered and focused on separate goals, but for that primary goal they were able to set aside their secondary differences to achieve their primary goal.

Every successful movement requires a robust center and an outspoken and flamboyant set of radicals who set the bar high. Society will never completely accept the goals of the radicals, but the moderates take the lessons taught by the radicals and make them more digestible to a skittish society. Moderates try to stand between society and the radicals and translate their incredible differences into real and tangible change. Radicals will never be satisfied with the compromises that moderates accept, but without compromise success will never be possible.

I’m not suggesting that radicals tone down or that dissidents shut up… far from it. I’m one of the most vocal dissidents of mainstream Fat Acceptance out there. I value people who don’t simply accept what has become “common knowledge,” even within established and respected political movements. All I am suggesting is that instead of being a thousand voices in the wilderness, we take some tangible steps toward consolidating our voices toward one or two or three or a dozen definable goals and put forth the energy and effort to achieve those goals within our lifetime.

Currently, Fat Acceptance doesn’t stand a chance beside the multi-billion dollar diet industry. Why not? Because it’s a fucking multi-billion dollar industry. We just don’t have that kind of money on our side. But we do have truth. HAES vs. Long-Term Weight Loss is a fucking slaughter. All it takes is a ten minute conversation with a reasonable person to plant the seed of HAES. HAES alone could be an enormous blow to both the diet and WLS industries.

So, I just want to encourage people to focus on what we can achieve and maybe channel some of our abundant energies through organizations such as NAAFA, ISAA, and ASDAH so that we can also have a more public voice. We need to use every tool in our arsenal if we are really going to change the way our society looks at fat people. We’ve made great strides in the past 40 years, even in the face of a national hatred and a fucking war against our bodies, we’ve made inroads that have exposed the flaws of the great lie of thin magic. More and more people are looking into Fat Acceptance because our voices alone are drawing attention. Now, if we could turn that attention into purposeful steps as a community, then we’ll *really* start seeing some cool shit changing.

My point is not to stifle dissent or discourage individuality. My point is to call on all motivated fatties to choose a few social goals and offer our own personal talents and skills (be that blogging, letter-writing, social networking, creativity, whatever!) to achieve those goals. Now, there are tons of questions this raises, such as who decides which goals and how best to achieve them. Those questions will be answered, in due time, by all of us. If you don’t read Fierce Fatties, then you haven’t noticed the democratic nature of our community. I’m not running the ship, I’m just keeping it afloat. I’m more of a mechanic than a captain. And that’s how Fat Acceptance should be: democratic and self-directed. I don’t want NAAFA or ISAA or ASDAH to define Fat Acceptance. That’s for us to do. But NAAFA and ISAA and ASDAH have the resources and tools in place to serve as a central coordinator of community efforts.

Marilyn Wann said it best, it Fat!So?, which I’m currently reading for the first time:

[F]ewer than one tenth of one percent of America’s ninety-seven million fat people are out of the closet and actively enjoying fat community… If just 1 percent of fat Americans came out of that closet, we could start to make the mainstream nervous. If a mere 5 percent of fat Americans used the F-word with pride, we would begin to generate a culture of our own. If one tenth of fat Americans came out — nearly ten million strong — we could put a serious dent in the diet industry’s ability to profit from our oppression. If one fourth of fat Americans (about twenty-four million of us) rejected the shame and the self-hatred, we could successfully lobby for laws to protect us against weight-related discrimination on the job. If one third of fat Americans came out, we could start our own chain of fat-positive fitness centers nationwide, or found our own fat-friendly HMO. (With thirty-two million members, it’d easily be quadruple the size of Kaiser Permanente. Ha! How’s that for fat health?) If half of all fat Americans took a stand against prejudice, we could colonize the state of California as the new fat homeland. If three quarters of fat Americans were out of the closet, there would be TV sitcoms with all fat actors, comfortable chairs in every public location (including airplans), and Oprah would hire a cook and a trainer to help her regain the weight. If all ninety-seven million fat Americans celebrated their luscious selves with pride, the statement “Fat is Beautiful” would be self-evident. Children would have to ask their parents what dieting means and would look at them in horror when they heard the explanation. Modeling agencies would hire on thousands of beautiful young women and men of all sizes to satisfy the public’s new, inclusive aesthetic.

She is absolutely right. And we’ve seen incredible progress on some of these fronts in the past 13 years or so (I think “Huge” counts as an all-fat cast, right?). And we’re capable of achieving the rest, but we have to get organized.

Anyway, I’m outta here. Everyone have a great holiday weekend!