As Well They Might Be Embarassed...

...even academics who learn I am working on the topic of fatphobia are often quick to change the subject, turning away in embarrassed silence.

In fact, it's a good thing. It shows they still have some shame about how far academia has fallen.

So why are we getting better on most forms of bias while becoming arguably even more fatphobic as a society? Part of the answer has to do with the fact that fatness, unlike many other forms of marginalisation, is perceived as a choice.

For a vast majority of them, it is. The fact that we have 'fat activists' at all proves that. What other reasons could there be? 

But careful attention to the evidence on this topic paints a different picture. Numerous factors – from our inequitable food environment to economic injustice to stress to trauma to common health conditions and medications – dictate our size, and a combination of these have contributed to an uptick in fatness in both the US and the UK, among other countries, in recent decades.

I fail to see how an 'inequitable food environment' contributes to anything, let alone the rise of lardarses... 

True political progress requires that we pause and look around and extend a sympathetic – better, solidaristic – arm to everyone. There should be no limit to our capacity as humans for inclusivity; there should be no size restrictions either.

Go tell gravity that, love. If it listens, I might.  

Advice Column Is Missing The Most Obvious Piece Of Advice...

I work in heritage in a rural area and am a minority in my workplace and local community. I really love living close to nature and what I do for work, but I feel that I don’t belong here. I grew up in a nearby rural county where we were the only Black family. Race was almost never mentioned by the white people around me...

Well, that's good, it means no-one cares that you're black, right? 

...but I now realise I was treated as an outsider my whole childhood.

Oh! So...how did you come to 'realise' this? 

I have over the past couple of years – after reading up about anti-racism – started to challenge the everyday racism that I had previously ignored. This has caused a massive backlash against me professionally with the resulting victimisation hounding me out of a job I loved at a large heritage organisation. I have learned the consequences of speaking out on racism and discrimination is to have your life and livelihood destroyed.

How will Sisonke Msimang (Yes, Reader, 'tis she) answer this one?

...when you ask about the ethics of telling “people to challenge racism when the power balance is so skewed that challenging may result in greater harm to the individual”, I hear this not as cynicism but as exhaustion. So many of us have been wounded by our attempts to stand up to racism that it sometime feels unwise to continue.

Ah. Of course. Reinforce and join in with the perpetual victimhood. I should have guessed, shouldn't I? 

One of the sadnesses of modern life is that, as James Baldwin has said, it can feel like, “your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world […]”. And yet of course, despite the many problems facing Black people around the world today, history tells us that nothing we are experiencing is new.

*yawns* 

You say you feel like you are the minority in every area of life, and I can understand why. It’s because you have been minoritized — that isn’t okay that you have been rendered a minority by virtue of processes of domination that place you at the bottom of the social ladder. I hope that knowing this helps you to feel less alone.

Why not tell her to go where she isn't a minority, if it bothers her so much? You can go with her, if you like...