fattypatties speaks for me

[firecat]

Others posted it while she was in the middle of writing it. Now it's finished, and it's fucking brilliant. Start at the bottom of the page and read up.

Top 10 Things I am Tired of Discussing in the fat-acceptance community

I'll have more to say about this later; I'm still taking it all in.

Comments

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

This section really jumped out at me:

The way to fight stigma is to confront those who practice bigotry, not by justifying or mitigating any characteristics of anyone who is being stigmatized.

Instead of saying "we are not lazy" -- we need to say "stop putting people in groups and declaring that some people are lazy by the way they look."

Instead of saying "we are healthy" -- we need to say "stop deciding who is healthy and who is not healthy by setting up arbitrary criteria and then declaring that some people are unhealthy by the way they look."

Instead of saying "we are beautiful" -- we need to say "stop creating such narrow standards of beauty that most people feel ugly."

Instead of saying "we are good" -- we need to say "stop deciding the morality of others on the basis of how they look."

We have nothing to justify. It is bigotry that must change and trying to prove ourselves to that bigotry is a lost cause.

I tend to be sensitive to linguistic issues, because I've seen more deconstruction of them than most people have. The minute you attempt justification in a situation like the above, you've lost -- because you have tacitly acknowledged the other person's basic assumption to be correct. You must look for the hidden assumption beneath the overt argument, bring it into the open, and confront it directly.

A classic example: Someone asks you, possibly in the course of a discussion about fat-hostility issues, "Why are you always so disagreeable?" Responding with "I'm not disagreeable" is playground-level, of the "Am not!" "Are too!" variety, and does no good at all. Any response that starts with "Because..." has already tacitly accepted the label "disagreeable". A much better option is to ask, "What makes you feel that I'm being disagreeable?" You're attempting to elicit specific responses, not a general label which can never be disproven.

If you're not already reading ozarque's journal, I highly recommend it. She is a professional linguist who has made a lifelong study of hostile language in interpersonal discourse and written several excellent books about it. Knowing how to defend against common linguistic traps makes you a much better proponent for your position -- whatever that position may be.

[firecat]

Yes, yes, yes. It seems that so few people get this, and even fewer know how to articulate it clearly. I get it, but I don't always articulate it very well, which is one reason I think Patty's list is brilliant.

I know ozarque teaches this stuff (I'm not reading her journal right now, but I have in the past)...I wonder if it would be worthwhile to get her to speak at a fat-activist conference.