Here Comes (My Musing On) Honey Boo Boo!

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo airs on TLC and is in its second season.

For the ridiculous sum I pay for cable, I watch approximately 5 channels: Food Network, Cooking Channel, Investigation Discovery, the Oprah Winfrey Network, and any random channel that might have a show that lets me get my crime TV/forensic fix. When these channels simultaneously broadcast shows that I have seen or that I don’t like, my life is thrown into an uproar. I typically throw down the remote and pick up a book. Occasionally, I go channel-surfing. During one such surfing-in-desperation episode, I stumbled upon the premiere of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.” I saw people on Facebook writing about it and got the gist of the background of the Shannon/Thompson family (if you’re not familiar, the show is about the now-seven-year-old Alana Thompson, who competes in children’s beauty pageants and her family, including her mom and dad, three older sisters, and new born niece). I expected to be critical of the beauty pageant element, in particular, and what I thought would be the drudgery of it (I don’t like reality TV), in general. I do have a lot to say about the children’s pageant element, but I found that, overall, I liked the family. One of the main reasons is that, as rural southerners, they are familiar to me. I found the mother, June Shannon, funny, confident, and patient with her girls. I watched more than one episode, a true sign of my interest.

But… within a few episodes, I realized, to the producers of this show, my feelings about June and her family must seem an anomaly. In my opinion, whoever is staging this show goes out of hir way to make this family a subject of mockery, ridicule, and disgust. From the opening montage, the audience gets a clue of what to expect—the family is first gathered, all smiling, as if they are posing for a portrait. And then, someone passes gas and they dissolve into arguing amongst themselves. Why, you may wonder, are they repeatedly cast in such an unflattering light? I believe we are meant to be repulsed by them because of a number of social characteristics of the family members: they are southern, working class, and some of them are fat.
I cannot list all the tropes trotted out to play on stereotypes of people who fall in the aforementioned category, but let me try. We see June, the heaviest member of the family, eating. No shame in that right? But we see her eating in ways that we can look down upon. We see her eating with her hands. We see the show edited (for example, the Thanksgiving show) to make it seem that she eats non-stop. We see her eating large portions (as on her date with her partner, Sugar Bear). And we are encouraged to make judgments on how she cooks for and feeds her children, some of whom (including Alana) are heavy. She sprinkles sugar on their already sweetened cranberry sauce and says it’s how they get their servings of fruit. She makes a dish called “sketti” that includes spaghetti, ketchup, and butter. She tells us about feeding them venison culled from deer killed in car accidents. As if that does not drive the point home enough, Alana laments the fact that they haven’t had venison in a while, noting that, “It’s been a while since I had road kill in my belly.” Largely ignored is June’s comment that she is trying to feed a family of six on $80 a week, leaving little room for gourmet fare, and that she cooks almost everyday to control food costs.

And, oh, these uncouth southerners! The children curse. The parents curse. They argue and laugh loudly. The camera makes sure to document each time they pass gas or burp or pick their noses. They play in mud on several episodes (I mean, you know how we southerners love our dirt—food, toy, flooring—it’s multi-purpose!). They go to “Redneck Games.” The editing of one episode emphasizes that gnats fly around them. When Alana meets the current Ms. Georgia, Ms. Georgia notes that she is unsure of how far the little girl will go in the pageant world because of her lack of refinement. And attempts to teach Alana “proper” etiquette seem exasperating for the child and the instructor, as if the little girl is hopeless!

The presented image of Sugar Bear, too, is often unflattering. He is always shown with a pinch of chewing tobacco in his mouth, leading to comments about his breath. He speaks softly and seems shy and, quite often, scenes are edited to emphasize that June is the “boss” and the girls pay him little attention. This further contributes to the appearance of the family as disordered, given our culture’s creation and castigation of “matriarch” figure and common lamentations about men losing their status in various ways. But I don’t see Sugar Bear as weak because he is quiet. In fact, in Sugar Bear, I see my own dad and my favorite uncle. My dad was a quiet man who loved pickup trucks and hunting and fishing and dealt with my sister and me gently. My uncle is much the same way and, like Sugar Bear and many southern men, he’s usually chewing a pinch of tobacco and clamoring for a “spit cup.” I do not find him disgusting. I have never been repulsed by his breath or his tobacco habit. A quiet disposition does not indicate a lack of engagement or importance in a family circle. Sugar Bear’s love for June and those girls is obvious. He works hard for his family. And when June’s oldest daughter, his step-daughter, has a baby, his sweet words about how she reminded him of Alana and seeing him cuddling the newborn reinforced the comparison I made between him and my dad.

The Shannon/Thompson family has a strong sense of themselves as working class southerners and are even untroubled by the term “redneck”—and why should they be, given “redneck’s” origin as a term to describe hard-working farmers whose necks were burned red by exposure to the sun? But given all the negative connotations that label has, it seems outside the realm of possibility to the producers of the show that one can be comfortable and even proud of a rural southern identity. In comments of posts or articles that talk about the show, you will commonly see them called “white trash,” as well. Now, I have to say, first, that while I understand the sentiments of poor white people and scholars who have tried to “reclaim” the term “white trash,” it is a very problematic term, particularly in its implication that “white trash” is such an anomaly that we must include a racial marker. Most white people are not perceived to be trash, thus the label; but what does this say we think about people of color? The racialized terms by which we are referred have been constructed in ways that imply an innate subordination, impoverishment, “less-ness” in a way that the term “white” has not been constructed. In fact, so anomalous is “white trash,” that scholar Matt Wray explored the idea that people given this label are often perceived as “not quite white.”

For the purposes of this essay, I want to focus on another adverse meaning of the labeling of the Shannon/Thompson family as “white trash”: in the words of Matt Wray and Annalee Newitz, “white trash” is often the “white Other,” “the difference,” indeed, the “threat” within the bounds of the privileged status of whiteness. There is no clearer evidence in “Honey Boo Boo” that the South and, in this case, white southerners are being othered, portrayed as foreign, unknown, and unknowable, than the fact that the family’s speech is captioned, as if our English is any more accented than that of people from other regions of the United States! But those other accents are normative, unnoticeable, default, and, in the end, not an accent at all, but the way “real” USians talk!

I think the whole family is portrayed in a way to make each member an object of ridicule, but I believe our greatest disgust is supposed to be reserved for June. June seems, to me, to have a great attitude. She finds the humor in many situations and she is affectionate with her girls. She is confident about her relationship with Sugar Bear and her attractiveness to him. She is a bit adventurous and she likes to have fun. June is also money savvy; she endeavors to be an “extreme couponer”: “You save money for your family — that’s what it’s all about,” she said [on Jimmy Kimmel Live]. “I could be a multi-millionare and still want to get the best deal for my family.” Additionally, “she’s putting the show’s earnings into trust funds for her children,” noting that, “I want my kids to look back and say, ‘Mama played it smart.’”

Funny, confident, beautiful, smart… apparently, those are all things forbidden to fat southern women. When June decides to have fun on a water slide, the camera focuses on the fact that she struggles to climb it (even then, she laughs amiably at herself and is clearly having a good time, but the joke is supposed to be on her—HaHa! She’s too fat for this!). She notes that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that she and Sugar Bear both appreciate her beauty (a fact that he confirms). Yet, she is shown as the opposite of all those things that are constructed as beautiful in our society, from her disdain for makeup to her refusal to obsess over her weight. And, true to common characterization of southerners, there are plenty of “duh” moments when we are given the impression that the family members are not intelligent. I cannot, in one post, catalogue all the ways this woman is mocked and cast as the butt of some joke that everyone else is in on.

But, what really endears June, and indeed, all her family, to me, is the fact that, in the face of a country that derides most things about them, they STAY proud and true to who they are, something that I understand as (and I deeply, deeply hope is) a refusal to accept the mandate that they apologize for being themselves, for being working-class and southern. When I see June, I am reminded of Liss’s post about having the audacity to be fat and happy and I can’t help smiling myself. For me, the othering of the South and southerners, the positioning of us as inferior to northerners, the constant stream of jokes about our stupidity and “in-breeding,” our “strange” food (and even deadly, until soul food and southern food are properly gentrified by northern chefs—but that’s another post!) and weird customs, means that I proclaim my southern-ness often and loudly, from the language I use on social media to referring to myself as a southern (b)elle to making a conscious effort to use my “real” voice in my classes and other settings so that my accent, which I find lovely and luscious, shines through. And while part of that has come from the process of being comfortable in my own skin, part of it is DEFINITELY a “Ha! I am progressive, smart, funny AND southern”-thumbing-of-my-nose at those who would believe such a person cannot exist. I read June’s actions and attitude in the same light.

I have a delightful feeling that I am right.

Cause We Represent!

Just because I love it and I wish I could dance like this...



Yes, I know that part of the amazement and cheering is probably because, "Wow, they're big and they can move like that?" because fat people don't move and dance and exude such confidence, of course. But I like to pretend that it's an ideal world and the cheering is all because this is some bad-ass dancing by some bad-ass women.

And speaking of full figured and beautiful...




Yeah, I know :-p

Kindergarteners, YOU'RE DOOMED!!!!

One of the things I most hate is hearing my younger cousins (always female, and I mean elementary school age) bemoan their "fatness" or their need to lose weight. I want to keep them from falling deeper into the pit of despair that is the fatphobic-and-dieting culture.

As of today, I think I have finally lost. I just learned, via the NY Times, that "Baby Fat May Not Be So Cute After All."

Scientists are worried that their efforts to "end childhood obesity" aimed at school-age populations "may be, if not too little, too late." Too stop the horrible, horrible curse-of-fat, we must begin at birth:

Things are starting to change: late last year an Institute of Medicine study committee was charged for the first time with developing obesity prevention recommendations specifically for the 0-to-5 set. The report, due in about 18 months, will look at the role of sleep and early feeding patterns, as well as physical activity.

I don't have much comment, except to note, there is always room to blame mamas:

Many doctors are concerned about women being obese and unhealthy before pregnancy because, as they point out, the womb is the baby’s first environment

[snip]

“The intrauterine environment of a woman with diabetes overnourishes the fetus,” said the study’s author, Dana Dabelea, an epidemiologist at the Colorado School of Public Health. And that, she added, may “reset the offspring’s satiety set point, and make them predisposed to eat more.”

I think this could quickly take on class and color connotations as well, in a society in which the mothering of poor women, particularly poor women of color, is constantly assailed and called into question. One of the doctors quoted worked on a study that asserted "compared with their white counterparts, black and Hispanic children exhibited a range of risk factors related to child obesity."

One of the "solutions" suggested for lowering the "risk of obesity" was breastfeeding. Black women (in the U.S.), in particular, have much lower rates of breastfeeding than other women. This might be tied up in a number of factors like the fact that many black women have low-wage jobs which don't allow for purchase of expensive pumping equipment (or breaks to pump) or the historical stigma attached to forced wet-nursing. But this could fuel the sometimes-present argument in the to-breastfeed-or-not debate that mothers who don't breastfeed don't care as much about their babies' health.

Given the blame-the-fat-mother meme, we can expect the continued condemnation of poor mothers and black mothers, who are more likely to be fat than mothers in other socio-economic and racial groups. Also, poor mothers might be eligible for programs like Food Stamps and WIC (which will provide infant formula), putting them in a position in which many people feel that their food choices should be scrutinized and judged.

Obviously, this is just what we needed: another way to assess how horribly mothers fail.

And, another way to tell kids, at an even younger age, that they fail, too. It isn't as if schools or scientists or Michelle Obama are couching their programs or suggestions in any other terms. "Prevention," "risk," "epidemic," etc. Kids are not clueless--even the little ones know when they've been judged deficient. To be fat is to be bad and immoral.

How sad that they're getting that message earlier and earlier.

One Guess...

As to why I grumbled at this Ebony cover featuring Gaboure Sidibe:



It's the caption.

Because when I see the words "Gabourey Sidibe... What's precious about her? Read on..." what I read is "Let us tell you what's 'precious' about her, because you obviously can't see it from just looking at her."

Apparently, We Forfeit Our Right to Respect and Love

**Trigger Warning**

One of things I notice most, while living as a fat girl, is how often I am invisible until people want to express their disgust/pity or marvel at how ____________ I am (for a fat chick, of course). That blank has been filled by all sorts of adjectives during my life--smart, happy, well-dressed, pretty. But backhanded compliments like that are the flipside of the expressions of disgust/pity. Both are rooted in my perceived lack of self-respect. How can I have any respect for myself if I've "let myself get like this?" And, more importantly, how can I expect anyone else to have respect for me?

So, I witness disrespect expressed towards fat people in this life almost daily. For me, the cost of living under and resisting the disrespect, the disgust, the dehumanization is so high sometimes.

Especially when I realize the hatefulness follows us after death.

Teresa Smith died Tuesday in Indianapolis. Because she was a large woman, the police and the coroner did not feel the need to treat her with respect.

The Marion County Coroner's Office has come under fire after it was revealed that an obese woman was dragged from her home and hauled away on a trailer in front of family members following her death.

[snip]

[T]he deputy coroner made the decision to call a towing service to remove the body from the home.

"We debated for quite a while about how we were going to get her out of there and so we finally decided, since we didn't have a van that was large enough to carry her, it was decided between (the police) department and the coroner's office to use (the truck)," said Detective Marcus Kennedy.

Smith's boyfriend and the couple's 13-year-old son, along with several neighbors, watched as Smith's body, still on her mattress, was dragged across the courtyard of the apartment complex, strapped down on the wrecker and covered with a piece of carpet.

Lest you have sympathy for the supposed dilemma faced by the police department and the coroner's office:

Former Chief Deputy Coroner John Linehan said he was shocked and dismayed that appropriate steps weren't taken to remove the woman from her home.

He said that fire and medical personnel have equipment available for handling patients up to 1,000 pounds and that moving obese individuals is not all that rare of an occurrence.

"When they scoop up dead dogs off of the street they don't treat them that way," he said. "It's just not the way to treat a human being."

But therein lies the rub, Mr. Linehan! She forfeited her humanity because she was fat.

I usually avoid comment sections at most places, but because I thought I knew how these would be, I peeked. I don't advise you to. One commenter argued that she forfeited her right to respect because, obviously, she did not have self-rspect. Another opined that her boyfriend was there just for rent--so much embedded there. How could he find a fat woman attractive? How could he have sex with her? How could he love her?

That last assumption brought me back to one of her neighbors' comments about the dirty carpet slung across her body: "I would have never let them throw that on my loved one."

It would not surprise me one bit if officials from the police department and the coroner's office treated Teresa Smith this way, in part, because they could not fathom that she was someone's loved one.

H/T to my cousin, Tren, via e-mail and to Laurie.

(Crossposted)

Water

When I went to the Organization of American Historians conference, I attended a panel by black women professors telling their stories of what it is like for us in the academy—the challenges, the classroom questioning of authority, the dismissal, the please-can-you-serve-on-every-committee, the isolation, the feeling of being an impostor.

But that is another post. I bring up that panel because of what happened to me when I heard Dr. Ula Taylor speak. She spoke about all those pains and about the hurt that results from the much-too-soon loss of black women like VeVe Clark and June Jordan. But she also spoke about healing, about how she soothes and comforts and heals herself by swimming.

And I started to cry. Because for the longest time, I have wanted to write about water.


Yes, water.

Because of my heat- then chemically-straightened hair, I was taught that water was my nemesis. I could not lie back and pretend to float in the tub. My sister and I could not run under the water hose or the sprinklers on sweltering Louisiana summer days. I could not play in the rain. On Memorial Day or the Fourth of July, when our family went to the park, the girls could only go so far into the water.

And I could not swim. Never even learned.

I wanted to so badly, because somewhere along the way, I realized I loved water in my hair, on my scalp. I think it was when I first had to wash my hair on my own—I’d always believed I didn’t have the expertise necessary to deal with that “difficult” part of me, but college-induced poverty changed my mind.

That water on my scalp--the first warm rush, the later, slow trickles--made me think longingly of swimming. What it would be like to immerse my whole body, to have water move in its gentle lap-lap-lap as it caressed my skin?

But my "whole body" was the other issue. How could a fat girl learn to swim? What would I wear? I was (am) too fragile to reveal myself like that. I do not want the pitying, disgusted gaze of others.

I am afraid the pitying, disgusted gaze will be mine.

So I learned to suppress the desire to swim.

Mostly. Sometimes it overwhelms me.

Like when my son is swimming and I dangle my feet in the pool, bathe them in the cool, silky water while the sun warms my back.

Or when we spend holidays near the water and I, very quickly, trail one of the babies’ feet or hands through it. Just so they’ll know the delicious feel of it.

Those moments are fleeting, subordinate to my attachment to my bone-straight hair and my internalized body shame.

But I want to be like Dr. Taylor. I want to find healing and peace in the water. It's not that I think water is somehow magical. The appeal is rooted somewhere in something both literal and figurative--how the weightlessness we feel in water is a temporary reprieve from all that we carry, all that brings us/holds us down. So, I know there is something there for me.

Why else would I crave it so?

When Fat Hatred, Emotional Blackmail, and a God-Complex Meet...

... you get this result as evidenced by the story below, taken from an issue of the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, dated 23 July 1960. Without further comment:

Man, Wife Lose Weight in Order to Adopt Baby Girl

LOS ANGELES (AP) Months of rigid dieting paid off Friday for an overweight man and wife when they gained permission to adopt a 1-year-old girl they have raised from birth:

After shedding 159 pounds between them, they vowed to keep on dieting “until we get down to a decent size.”

“I’m too happy to say anything,” said Mrs. Bernice Sherman, 37, as she blinked back tears after a closed hearing in which Superior Judge Ben Koenig approved the adoption.

“It was a long struggle,” concluded her husband, Frank, 39, “but it paid off,”

Three months ago, Koenig ordered the Shermans… to show they could lose more weight before he would allow them to keep the child.

They weighed 320 and 250 pounds then and had been watching calories since last November 27, when they weighed 369 and 281. After hearing Koenig’s ruling they stepped up their dieting.

At Friday’s court session, Sherman, a truck driver, weighed 277 and his wife 214. Between them they had lost 79 pounds since April alone.

“We make no further objections to this adoption,” announced Walter A. Heath, director of the adoption bureau, His agency had opposed their petition to adopt little Janet when they came before him April 8.

The Shermans were told then because of their excess weight they “might not live to be good parents.” But a doctor examined them and said they both were healthy, and “they could outlive us all.”

All Up in My Space!

I need some pants. Some for work, some for play, just some damned pants.

I've been in a quandary for the last year though, every since Lane Bryant rolled out their new "Right Fit" sizing. They were all excited, too, with tape measures tossed stylishly around the associates' necks and color- and shape-coded signs. They had my cynical ass all bubbly. Right Fit doesn't come in the sizes I'm used to, so I walked up to an associate and asked how could I find a pair of these "revolutionary," bubbly-elle-making, change-my-life-forever pants in a size that fit? How did the new sizes correspond with the old?

I thought she'd just tell me.

She didn't.

Therein lay the catch.

Apparently, Right Fit is so damned new and unlike-anything-in-the-history-of-fashion that I can't just try to find the size that corresponds.

I have to be measured. In the store. By another person.

That is too much for me. I'll admit that I haven't thrown off the well-instilled practices of not discussing my size (I tell y'all I'm fat but I don't tell you what size I wear, now do I?) and treating my measurements as if they were the combination to a safe at Ft. Knox or something. After a lifetime of that, I've made a lot of progress but I am NOT about to go in a store, fling my arms open, and say, "Measure me, baby!" I imagine a lot of women are hesitant to do so. And it doesn't matter whether we should or shouldn't be, that's just how it is.

Then there's the fact that I don't like people putting their arms around me, especially strangers. Yeah, we can brush cheeks, exchange pecks, give a quick squeeze to acknowledge each other, but a full out, prolonged hug--not my favorite thing. I'm not a touchy sort of person--again, I know a lot of it's related to body image issues. I remember a long time ago, seeing a weight loss commercial in which the mom was in agony over how she had failed as a mom--the proof? Her (very young) child couldn't get her/his arms around mom!! I have never forgotten that and though I thought it was ridiculous, that lingers in the back of my head when people try to hug me. Sad, but true.

So yeah, pants. I need them. I can find the cute specialty ones, but most of the denim and increasingly the career pants are Right Fit. I know there are other stores, but the stuff at Catherine's is not my style and the pants at Avenue always look as if they go with something specific. I'm going to look more the website to see if they'll reveal the secret that is Right Fit sizing.

I am very hesitant to buy clothes online, so that option is (mostly) out.

If not, I just don't know!

Wow, They Really Can't Win

I never expect to say that too often about thin, rich, beautiful women, but in one area, at least, they're damned if they do and damned if they don't.

I'm talking about post-pregnancy weight loss.

Now we all know the way it works. Celebrity moms already lose hotness points for being pregnant, though part of the sex goddess status is reclaimable if teh guys should so deign to name them a member of the "sexy swollen ankles club," apparently. People anxiously await any change in their figures, then speculate about whether or not they are in danger of becoming "too fat" during pregnancy--the fact that Gillian Anderson decided to wait until after she has her baby to work out merited a number of posts and articles. And my God, just google "Milla Jovovich pregnancy" to see how obsessed people were with the fact that she gained 70 lbs!!!

Within about five minutes postpartum, they are scrutinized for any sign of "pregnancy/baby" stomach. When no such flaw is found, media outlets ooh and ahh over how they got their bodies "back." I mean the Parents.com article linked quotes Jada Pinkett Smith:

Matrix mama Jada Pinkett Smith admits that celebrities are masters of illusion who get a lot of help from nannies, personal chefs, trainers, cleaning services, the works. "All moms struggle. Celebrities just know how to conceal it," says Pinkett Smith, who has two children with husband Will Smith and is stepmom to his first son. "While motherhood is a beautiful thing, it's traumatic to the body and the mind. I had some really down days after my kids were born. I thought I would never recover, even though I had a lot of help." Emphasis mine

Then goes right on to outline how you, yes you, can achieve these amazing results at home.

But now, the same media that praise the "willpower" needed to lose forty pounds in two weeks are pursuing a new angle. Some headlines:Celebrity mamas fuel post-baby body blues: Stars who are bikini-ready right after birth inspire fury in many new moms

"Pregorexia" Inspired By Thin Celebs?
Moms-To-Be, Obsessing Over Weight, Diet, Exercise So Much They Put Baby's Health In Some Jeopardy

Pregorexia is an oh-so-cute-and-appropriate play on the word anorexia, so I don't think I need to define it. The gist of the news coverage? Moms who "under eat" or "over exercise" are "thinspired" by Nicole Kidman, Nicole Richie, Angelina Jolie, and other celebrities who regain their pre-baby physiques in a short amount of time.

I'd like to suggest that perhaps it's not the fact that these women seem to get "back in shape" so quickly that's the problem, but the media coverage (and adulation) of it, the way it has become an expectation, and cultural messages about the horrors of being fat that long precede the obsessive coverage of celebrity moms postpartum.

Don't worry--the same media that are spreading the pregorexia warnings should be instrumental in helping them blow over. In its coverage of the article about the pregorexia threat, AOL gushes,

Stars like Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman have managed to stay fabulously thin while pregnant and seemed to pop back into their pre-baby physique days after giving birth.

And according to Salon, it's not pregorexics but "Growing numbers of obese and overweight women, and mothers who gain more weight during pregnancy than is recommended" who are the real problem. You know... same ol' fatties.

Letting go of the "you can never be too thin" motto is impossible.

Fast Food Moratorium

I’m no great fan of fast food. My personal tastes lie elsewhere. I’ve done the obligatory reading of Fast Food Nation. I think it’s repulsive that so many food ads target kids. I also know the hell that McDonald’s Chicken McNugget and subsequent “further processed” items have wrought for poultry processing workers—think I’m kidding? Read Steve Striffler’s Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America’s Favorite Food.

But something about this is not quite reassuring:

City officials are putting South Los Angeles on a diet. The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to place a moratorium on new fast food restaurants in an impoverished swath of the city with a proliferation of such eateries and above-average rates of obesity.

Maybe it’s the reporters “cute” use of the word diet, when we all know how well those don’t work.

My real complaint is that banning fast food restaurants seems just to skim the surface of this issue. How will the city bring more healthful alternatives to poor communities? More importantly, how will people in South L.A. afford it? Closing fast food restaurants does nothing to address the underlying issue of poverty. Residents will still have limited resources for buying food, as one man attests:

South Los Angeles resident Curtis English acknowledged that fast food is loaded with calories and cholesterol. But since he's unemployed and does not have a car, it serves as a cheap, convenient staple for him.

On Monday, he ate breakfast and lunch -- a sausage burrito and double cheeseburger, respectively -- at a McDonald's a few blocks from home for just $2.39.

Emphasis mine. With less money to spend on food, people typically by cheaper foods. Inexpensive foods are packed with fat and sugar, the cheapest additives, Striffler argues, to give them taste.

Relatedly, how will declaring a moratorium on fast food restaurants help people who can’t afford to eat out anywhere? Within this group, if we focus on the subset who receive food stamps—and I say subset because many, many people who qualify for food stamps don't receive any--and get most of their foods from local stores, a moratorium will not bring more grocery stores with better fresh food offerings to the area. Lack of access to such stores is a problem in South L.A.:

South Los Angeles lacks grocery stores, fresh produce markets and full-service restaurants with wait staff and food prepared to order.
South Los Angeles only has four major grocery stores, as compared to 13 in West Los Angeles

The emphasis on fast food obscures at least one other detail, as well. Fast food restaurants, defined “as those that do not offer table service and provide a limited menu of pre-prepared or quickly heated food in disposable wrapping,” aren’t exactly unique in their less-than-healthful alternatives. The menus at so-called “casual dining” and upscale restaurants can be daunting.

In our e-mail discussion of the article, Liss noted that the moratorium brings up employment issues. Fast food restaurants offer entry-level jobs to unskilled workers. I do not claim they are pleasant or particularly fulfilling jobs, but that they are often needed. My co-blogger, mrs. o, helped her mother care for a family of five by working at McDonald’s. And for a few people, it offers some upward mobility through management jobs.

Finally, this sentence aggravated me:

The moratorium, which can be extended up to a year, only affects standalone restaurants, not eateries located in malls or strip shopping centers.

I’m assuming that it’s not poor people who are spending lots of money shopping; I wonder why the city exempts malls. It gives me a whole, “Let’s regulate the poor,” feeling.

Or, more specifically, “Let’s regulate the brown and black poor.” Speaking in terms of substances that are legal, we have constructed the process of taking things into our body as highly personal, a matter of free choice. The limitations that the government places on our alcohol consumption or where we smoke, for example, are primarily to protect the safety and well-being of other people. Americans, as the myth goes, are individualists who would not take much more governmental interference with such intimate choices.

Yet, the symbol of that rugged American individual who gets to choose and to benefit from free will has, by default, been white and male. I think it is no coincidence that officials in South L.A., which is overwhelmingly Latin@ and black, decided to enact this moratorium. I think one very valid question is would it be suggested or implemented in poor area composed of primarily white residents? In a country that has typically held the choices and bodies of white men in highest regard? A healthy dose of skepticism is absolutely required when the government claims to act in the best interest of the health and welfare of people of color.

In the same vein, we need to examine other motivations behind the ban. As South L.A. is an impoverished area, many of the residents are probably eligible for Medicaid and Medicare programs. According to one 2005 article, these two programs paid for half of all health-care costs attributed to obesity (quite the blanket category and one of which I am particularly wary given my own experiences with doctors who fault patients' weight for a wide range of problems).* Is this moratorium, then, about a nanny state protecting people from themselves, as the link Petulant posted earlier suggests, or is it like other governmental limitations protecting the (economic) well-being of others?

Either way it is framed is problematic. Either people who are black and brown, poor and fat, cannot be entrusted to care for themselves--a framing that ignores the very real lack of choice mentioned earlier and other obstacles to quality health and health care. Or, their fat, black and brown bodies represent a threat to taxpayers' wallets--and "taxpayers," when we talk about funding of social programs like Medicaid and Medicare, are constructed as white and non-poor.
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*Eric A. Finkelstein, Christopher J. Ruhm, Katherine M. Kosa, “Economic Causes and Consequences of Obesity,” Annual Review of Public Health, 26, (April 2005): 239-257. Can't find this article for free online, but Dr. Michelle Mello mentions the statistic here.

They Learn It, Too

I'm a fat girl. Pretty much always have been. I don't spend as much time consciously thinking about it as I once did. The way I am usually affected these days is much more assiduous. I have accepted, for example, that I am sort of invisible. I've seen people that I know from high school and college, people that I've met in other places for more than a moment, and while I remember them, they look right past me. They remember Kim. They remember Mrs. O. But it is if they've never seen me before, and in a very real sense, I suppose they haven't. (continued under the fold)

This is only one example, of course. Suffice it to say, I have grown accustomed to not being seen. Except, when I suddenly become hypervisible. In a restaurant or any place where I might eat. In a grocery store where people not-so-subtly look at the contents of my basket. On buses and vans where I am judged to "take up too much of the seat."

While I might not talk much about my weight, the one thing that I do complain about at length is my stomach. It's not only that I have a fat tummy; I have a somewhat large lipoma on the right side that pushes out a little bit against my clothing so it is sometimes visible. When I'm unclothed, I look at it and think that it distorts my stomach. My doctor told me it was harmless a few years ago, so I didn't worry about it. A couple of years later, he was surprised I still had it. I repeated what he told me. He then said, "I didn't mean for you to walk around with it forever."

My mom tells me every once in a while to have it, and the one under my arm (that I've had for over half my life), removed. When I was in grad school, trying to write, I wondered when I'd have time to take a few weeks to recover. Plus, I don't like going to the doctor's office.

So, I just routinely complain and move on. I notice that I try consciously not to complain in front of the girls in my circle of family and friends. They are aged from six to 17 and the complaints they make are enough to make you cry. In their words, they are too fat, their butts are too flat or too big, their hair is nappy, they are "black" (meaning dark-skinned), and so on. So, while I try to encourage all the children academically, I will admit I especially try to get the girls not to think about themselves in terms of "what's wrong."

But I had this moment a few nights ago when my nephew came to me and said,"Guess what the Kid did when we went swimming today?" "What?" I asked, expecting that he got in a section that was too deep or held someone under water or breached some other example of pool etiquette.

Turns out he went swimming with his shirt on. So I called him in to ask why. And he mumbled to me that he didn't like his stomach because it sticks out a little bit.

Nine-years-old and he doesn't like his stomach. And I know he learned it, in part, from me.

UNC-Chapel Hill: Obesity May Keep Some Women from Getting Screened for Breast, Cervical Cancer

From Newswise:

A review of cancer screening studies shows that white women who are obese are less likely than healthy weight women to get the recommended screenings for breast and cervical cancer, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Public Health.

The trend was not seen as consistently among black women; however there were fewer high quality studies that examined black women separately.

Let's, for a moment, ignore the disappearing of women who are not black or white and the curious "healthy weight women" remark, shall we? Within this study, women who are labeled obese are less likely to get pap smears and mammograms. When asked why, Sarah S. Cohen, lead author of the article, replied, "Our review doesn’t tell us why larger women are not getting screened as frequently for these cancers. It only reveals the trend."

I'd like to offer a couple of suggestions. Maybe it's because doctors make us feel similar to the little things that crawl out when you turn a rock over? (Until you get the stern "Shame on you, fat girl, you might die tomorrow!" lecture, you haven't experienced a doctor's visit!). Maybe because we're taught to hate our bodies and the idea of getting naked in front of anyone is terrifying? Maybe, deep down, given the fact that we're taught fat is bad from, oh, say, the womb, we might believe being ill is our just due for being fat?

Zan says what so many of us feel here:

I hate seeing new doctors. There's always the hesitation, the worry -- is this doctor going to take me seriously? Is she going to believe me when I describe my symptoms? Or is she going to dismiss it all because I'm a fat girl? Is she going to try to sell me on weight loss as the cure-all for my ailments -- which she doesn't even believe exist anyway.

I went to doctors for four years before I was initially diagnosed with Fibromylgia, then with Lupus. They all told me, to the man (and funnily enough, they were all men), that I was just stressed and overweight. If I learned how to relax and lost some weight, why all my pain would just disappear!

And so, I have a great fear of being dismissed and reduced to my weight when I see a new doctor.

And a couple of years ago, I talked about my experiences:

My PCP in my late 20s was a brusque woman who was absolutely appalled by my "choice" to be fat. I went to her for over a year, feeling that I deserved her insults, hoping they would spur me to do something. Some of the most memorable:
(When having me stand and stretch) "Stand with your feet together. Well, as close as you can get them."
(When I went to her crying with back pain) "You should really consider getting your breast size reduced. If you lose weight. As far as the pain, I'm not going to treat the symptoms if you won't remedy the underlying cause."
(During a routine check-up) "Your knees and back are going to be gone in a decade.
(During a painful Pap smear) "I'm sorry, but I have to press harder and really search for (whatever the hell she was looking for) in a woman your size.

Only after talking to some friends, who looked at me as if I was crazy when I talked about my experiences, did I realize I didn't have to take that treatment, that maybe every complaint I had was not an outgrowth of my being big. I mean, I went to the ER after the back fiasco and found out I had pulled a muscle and I'd never had a painful Pap before. I could be hurt or sick in a way unrelated to my size. That was amazing.

The latest incident involved an ER visit with a seemingly nice doctor who apparently decided I was a moron:
"What's bothering you?"
"Abdomen and lower back hurt badly. Really bad nausea. My doctor can't see me til Wednesday."
"Does it hurt when press here? Here? Can you jump? Does that hurt? Can you bend? Does that hurt? Has it gotten any better? Are you sure it's your abdomen and back? Do you think you could be pregnant?"
I answered each question patiently. Then he asks:"Have you eaten?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because of the nausea."
"What about it?"
"If I eat, I'll throw up. If I throw up, I can't stop."
"Oh. Well, are you hungry?"
"Um, no."
"Okay. Would you like someone to bring you something to eat?"
"No!"
"Fine. Are you sure you're not just hungry? Have you eaten anything?"
Five minutes of this until he decides that, despite the fact that I'm fat, maybe, just maybe, I'm not currently interested in food. Eventual diagnosis: bladder infection.

So many times, for me, going to the doctor has been like getting every negative message ever aimed at me for being fat condensed (and sharpened) into a 15-minute block. It's overwhelming, shaming, draining.

And it's why I hate going to the doctor's.

Lord, I'm Feeling It Today...

..fat, that is. And not for any reason like my pants won't fit or something.

Ok, promise not to fuss. I know I publicly swore off radio stations a while ago, but I was weak this week--I've been having the Hooked on Phonics Multiplication CD in my car since Christmas and I'm tired of it.

But anyway, witness godforsaken Station #1: Last night, they apparently had people call in who were basically saying, "I'm fat and I'm proud," or "I'm not ashamed." Okay. But then the DJs suggested that, since they had fat people representing, "Are there enough anorexics and bulimics who could call in and represent?" To which they all laughed and one guy said, "Nah, man, they're probably too weak from throwing up dinner." And the original DJ said, "I'm just saying, since anorexics and bulimics are the opposite of being fat."

Mmph.

Horrible Station #2: Topic for the morning? How do you feel about fat people? Chosen because one listener called in and complained about how she was sick of seeing fat people at buffets with three or four plates. And that she was tired of fat people because they were lazy and they stink. And I thought, my God, what other group could you get on the radio and say this about and have the hosts laugh?* I turned it in the middle of one girl, obviously young, who called in with tears in her voice to defend herself, "I'm fat and I don't stink. I make sure I shower everyday." I really felt sorry for her.

But really, this time, I am through. Multiplication facts never sounded so good.
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Of course these are people who noted on air that the "gay brigade" was going to be after Isaiah Washington. And once the woman host thought about that, she appended, "But I love the gay brigade."

Why My Sister Does Better Recaps than the News

Sis: "You know that ol' birth control patch that was too good for us fat women?"

elle: "Mm-hmm."

Sis: "Why..." she smiles, then shakes her head, "I don't mean this in a bad way for the women who used it. But why they cause pulmonary problems and blood clots?"

elle: "Girl, for real?"

Sis: "Mm-hmm. They already being sued. That's what they asses get, trying to leave us out."

Resolutions

Speaking of resolutions, let me give y'all some inspiration. See, each year I still half-heartedly resolve to lose weight.

I went to the (yes, THE, as in only) clinic in my hometown the Tuesday after Christmas (had a jaw problem that made it feel like my head was about to explode each time I pressed the side of my face or behind my ear--which is why I thought it was an earache). Just so happens that I'd also been there December 29, 2005. Well, when comparing my statistics, lo and behold, it turns out I lost weight over the last year.

A whole one-and-a-half pounds!

Now, if someone as haphazard (trust me, that's a perfect adjective) as me can succeed, so can you!

Why Is This Video...

...so threatening to so many youtube viewers:



Would to God that it was because of the offensiveness of "Tip Drill." Or if some commenters decided they find "booty dancing" troublesome. Nah, what upsets the commenters at youtube is that these women

Are fat. FAT. And apparently having fun. And doing something as sensual as dancing. And by God, they have friends. Who the hell wants to be seen with a fat girl?

The comments are rife with "nasty," "disgusting," "gross," "wrong" and observations about vomiting and gouging out one's eyes. And then there is the ultimate: "You should be ashamed of yourselves." Because we know how shame works to immobilize and silence women. And I can tell you how it works to immobilize and silence fat women, how it makes all eyes turn upon you, how it makes your skin crawl, how it makes you wish you could just disappear.

That is exactly what these commenters are wishing on these women. Oh, a few of them are careful to disguise it in that "I'm so concerned for your health..." And, lately, my ultra-concerned brothers and sisters of color have added a new twist: they are concerned for our health because we're killing the black community.* You talk about a guilt inducer. Oh. My. God.

But come on, if we're really concerned about people's health, would we be turning up our noses and insulting them? Since we believe fat is solely the product of overeating*, if we wanted to encourage people to eat more healthfully, wouldn't we be asking our government officials why, since the mid-1990s, meat and dairy have received 3x the subsidies of grains and why "fats and oils [have] collected 20x more government handouts than fruits and vegetables"? Wouldn't we be demanding that the media curb the 70% of food advertising that is controlled by convenience and "junk" foods?* Wouldn't we ask food processors why they lie and say they're adding "value" to our food when what they're typically adding is sugar and fat?

So, nah. I don't think we're all that concerned with what people eat; what we're obsessed with is how they look and the connections we make between that appearance and food.

Over at Trash Talks Back, Elaina gave me another idea for why this video is so upsetting (please go read her whole post!):

I'm relearning that fat people are expected to be losers. People think that we are fumbly or we are lazy, or that we are afraid to do outrageous and energetic things.

The women in the video defy that assumption, and apparently it's creating a sort of dissonance that is unbearable. Elaina also said something that I think is another clue into the mindset of the commenters:

People constantly wave their own fears of becoming what you are in front of your face, without a thought as to how you will feel about it. Anti-fat thought is presumed to be correct thought.

Oh, and don't think fat people don't have fat phobic thoughts. My first reaction to this video was, "I can't believe they had enough nerve to..." 'Cause we're not supposed to, you know, have nerve or willingly display our bodies--I say willingly because whether we want them to or not, our fat bodies have been co-opted for the purpose of showing people what they want to avoid. My second thought was, "Ooh, I'm so glad they did."

It's a strange position fat people occupy, taking up more space than what society has decided is your right to have while simultaneously being invisible... until someone wants to point out what not to become. And apparently that concept is so sacred that youtube commenters believe that fat women should be excluded, invisible, on a site designed for anyone to share video. But fat women aren't anyone, of course. We're those pesky "others."

Elaina had a few tips I wish I could go post in the comments at youtube:

6. You have no right to presume that our fatness means anything more than we weigh a certain amount over what's been deemed by capitalist white supremacist patriarchy as the "norm."
7. Do not assume that we are lazy or unintelligent.
8. Do not assume that we are weak.
9. Do not assume that we are obsessive-compulsive about food.
10. Do not assume that we are desperate for your friendship and/or your sympathy.
11. Do not assume that we think that we are less attractive than you are, or that we hate our bodies, or that we strive to be like you.

And please, do not assume that we don't dance* and that we don't laugh and that we're not sensual. Keep your issues and your projections to yourself.

And, no, the commenters at youtube didn't get these women down, because they also posted this:

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*I don't doubt that some people genuinely have health concerns and I don't discount medical evidence that links obesity to some illnesses. But this is often the most convenient excuse for fat phobes.
*And of course overeating is nothing more than a lack of willpower which "proves" how weak fat people are.
*All from the intro to Steve Striffler's Chicken.
*Yes, in the company of supporive friends and family, ms. elle has been known to shake her moneymaker then drop it like it's hot.