There was a time in American history when African-Americans were completely, down to their genes, inferior in the public’s mind. If you’d asked any doctor, he would have told you that, “Yes, the “Negro” is a genetically inferior being. He is less than human. His blood, his mind, even his internal organs are not the same as the white man.” These ideas were completely accepted “facts”. There were studies and charts and think-tanks and all manner of bodies of medical evidence supporting these ideas. Everybody “knew” they were true and no one in society openly questioned them. Those who did were seen as traitors to their race or deluded idiots.

African-Americans obviously weren’t inferior “sub-humans”, but they would have to CONVINCE society of this fact. Sure, it would have been nice if everyone had just woken up one day and decided to stop being racist but that’s not reality. So it was going to take a fight and lots of struggle. Before anyone would take their fight seriously though, they had to take themselves seriously, THEY had to know they weren’t inferior. (Hmm, kinda sounds familiar…)

Now there were some white people in society who, although well-meaning, didn’t really understand the struggle or the goals of African-Americans. They thought that African-Americans should no longer be slaves but certainly didn’t see them as equals. “Black people should be hired hands but certainly not friends or neighbors or in-laws or whatever. They’re simply too simple-minded to be left to their own devices, to make their own decisions and need kindly white people to do it for them.” In these white peoples’ minds, they thought, “I’m a friend to the “Negro”.” These white people were just the sort of friends African-Americans did NOT need. Allowing those voices to infiltrate the fight for equality would have only succeeded in keeping African-Americans inferior in society forever.

The mind-set of those “friendly” and completely racist white people is really no different than those people who totally disagree with FA but claim they support us and our message. They treat us like we need them to be our nannies and teachers to show us the “right” way to live and tell us the “right” things to think. To them, we aren’t able to be our own people, we simply aren’t smart enough. They also try to saddle us with the guilt that “they’re friends to the “fatties” and it’s only right that we let them have their say. I mean, if we’re so all about equality, isn’t it only fair that they get to be heard too?” No, it isn’t.

Allowing them into our fold, to publicly voice their ideas under the guise that their messages are our messages, would be exactly the same as if African-Americans had allowed those “well-meaning”, racist whites to be a voice for their cause. They would have lost their cause, just as we would lose ours. The message would become something completely different, twisted and counter-productive, that didn’t accomplish anything in terms of equality.

Regarding #2, I’d push back against that and instead suggest that the notion that we *know* that there conditions where fat/weight exacerbates is actually, well, fairly tenuous and conditional.

Yes, good point. I didn’t mean to suggest that there are blanket conditions that are definitely exacerbated by fat in all cases, and not to take into account the ‘white noise’ of bias in the determination that those conditions are exacerbated by fat, as it were.

What I meant was that, like with gender, height, and other variables that can’t be changed, there may be correlations between some conditions in particular cases and higher/lower weight. The answer isn’t to change weight, or to suggest weight can be changed. The answer is to know that you don’t cure women’s health issues by trying to make a woman a man, you don’t cure pain based due to greater height by chopping off someone’s legs, &etc

I understand the slippery slope concept to which you’re referring, but I was attempting to myth-bust the ‘myopia argument’ anti-FA people put forth to try to make us look stupid/delusional. It’s not an argument that fat people really are in poorer health whatsoever, just like one wouldn’t argue that all thinner people have IBS, because some thinner people have IBS. And so on.

And no, I don’t think, because of the loudness of that white noise, we can really say for sure that even in most individual cases, ‘fat exacerbates pain in the joints’ holds true.

Thanks for the comment.

What we know is that medical professionals assume this to be true, in the absence of good evidence, and often act on this assumption to our detriment by, for instance, making weight loss a condition of treating us.

What we know is that our individual experience of our body is conditioned by our mind, such that we experience placebos and nocebos, and can often “feel better” in various areas of our body (or overall) when thinner for any number of reasons including: less prejudice directed at us on a daily basis; more approval from friends/family; more confidence in engaging in exercise (or even being in public) when thinner; etc.

So is being fat hard on the knees? Or is being fat hard on the human because being hated/feared/thought weak/thought ugly/paid less/told you’ll die alone is a difficult thing to do and stand upright? Is the weight on our bodies or on our shoulders?

Until we can eliminate an awful lot of variables, it’s perfectly reasonable for FA to challenge the notion that we “know” that fat/weight exacerbates conditions and I’d say there’s every reason to not “acknowledge” that even though we’re under great pressure to do so (and threatened with being delusional if we don’t).

I’m really hesitant to “concede” to “fat/weight exacerbates,” and not simply because it might be a slippery slope, or because it necessarily leads us to have to push back with, “But diets fail!” and “We don’t know how to make someone thin.”

I mean, let’s assume that, by some magic, “Poof,” we figure out how to make people thin. Only then will we be able to “test” the assumption that fat exacerbates [fill in the blank] rather than the alternatives A) Fat correlates with [fill in the blank] and B) Fat-phobia makes [fill in the blank] experientially worse and/or more difficult to treat.

Given how hard it is for most of us to become thin (and at what price), it makes sense to work with what we do know we can change and do know and to challenge every claim made about fat and health that doesn’t acknowledge the complexity that’s there, in our face.

Personally, if I’m going to be sisyphean, I’d like to think I’m changing the world to accommodate all of us, not trying to change myself to fit into myself into the narrow box marked “acceptable.”