S2EP4 Part 2: Fat Phobia is a Social Justice Issue with Dana Sturtevant, HIilary Kinavey, and Sirius Bonner

Inclusive Life with Nicole Lee

“The white gaze is upon us at all times, and the ways in which Black bodies have been destroyed by whiteness are many. But this is just one of them.” - Sirius Bonner

One thing to get straight: divorcing yourself from diet culture isn’t just about being fat, loud, and proud. Sirius Bonner, who joins Hilary Kinavey and Dana Sturtevant for Part 2 of this two-part Inclusive Life podcast, drives home the importance of rooting our own relationship with our bodies in the broader political context. The context? Fat bodies are subjected to systemic oppression.

Sirius deepens the conversation Nicole, Hilary and Dana began in Part 1 around diet culture and racism. She shares “...There is a deeply connected root of anti-fatness and anti-Blackness from the time of slavery in the United States.” The conversation weaves from there into the complex ways anti-fatness shows up in the Black community—similar to the way colorism exists—as a means to keep themselves and their loved ones safe.

Internalized oppression in the shape of internalized anti-fatness is tragically logical: Sonya Renee Taylor, in her book The Body is Not an Apology, writes:

“We must not minimize or negate the impact of being told to hate or fear our bodies and the bodies of others. Living in a society structured to profit from our self-hate creates a dynamic in which we are so terrified of being ourselves that we adopt terror-based ways of being in our bodies.”

These terror-based ways of being in our bodies cause so much daily suffering, resulting from, as Nicole says, “...living in a system that consistently tells you that from the moment of birth, you’re never going to be enough.”

What’s difficult to see are the ways that white body supremacy couples' health and size.

High blood pressure? A person with a thin body is provided medication and other medical advice. A person with a large body is told to lose weight and then come back for additional medical care. Both fat and thin people develop high blood pressure, so identifying fatness as causative doesn’t make sense. Yet doctors still center weight as the cause of disease and weight loss as the cure. Just like the war on drugs, the war on obesity is a war on people, both rooted in anti-Blackness.

Where can we begin to decouple fat and health? Fat and laziness? Fat and “you should try harder?” Fat and “it’s your fault?”

First, we can each begin by developing and deepening an appreciation for the diversity of bodies. Body diversity has always existed and will always exist. We can lay down our arms.

Second, we can shift our focus away from size and onto the social determinants of health, to understand the impact of fatphobia on fat folks’ health outcomes.

Third, we can continually center the voices and lived experiences of Black queer women in this conversation.

In this episode, Nicole, Sirius, Hilary, and Dana talk about:

• What’s beyond Body Positivity
• The marginalization of fat, Black, queer women in the Health at Every Size and Body Positivity movements
• De-centering the pursuit of health
• Taking an intersectional approach to size bias
• Rejecting dieting without an analysis
• The root of anti-fatness is anti-Blackness
• How diet culture shows up in a Black culture
• Fatness and proximity to whiteness
• Decoupling size and health
• Shifting the conversation to the social determinants of health
• Learning to become one’s own advocate

Bios:

Sirius Bonner is a passionate and noted presenter and facilitator. Sirius’ work focuses on the intersections between social justice issues such as racial oppression, reproductive justice, queer rights, anti-fat bias, educational equity, poverty, sexism, and liberation, recognizing that as we begin to untangle one issue, we can untangle them all. Sirius’ currently works at Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette as the Vice President of Equity and Inclusion.

You can find Sirius at:

On Instagram: Siriuswhileblack

On TikTok: Siriuswhileblack

Pre-order Dana and Hilary’s book Reclaiming Body Trust: A Path to Healing and Liberation set for publication in August 2022.

Resources:

Beyond Body Positivity: Adding Fatness to Your Intersectional Lens

Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da’Shaun Harrison