I’m not going to make any bones about it. I’m fat. My weight has gone as high as 243 lbs., the baseline of the weight-loss program I undertook in 2012, which got me down to 136… I’m not sure where I am now but 200 would be a good guess. I meant to keep it off but managed only not to put it all back on, so far, and slowly.
The problem is that I overeat for emotional reasons, which the program never addressed. Super-short version: when I was growing up, I had no way of deriving a sense of security from parental love, because it wasn’t there. The only reliable thing that made me feel safe was food, and that is still the case.
So it causes me a certain amount of pain every time I see someone here on Kos fat-shaming in the comments, which happens constantly. Chris Christie always gets it, and I am tempted to join in because he is so despicable, but never do. Donald Trump gets it a lot, and I can understand everyone’s emotions about him, even the really extreme ones, and support everyone in their urges to find words sufficient to convey how utterly loathsome he is—but if I were a weight maven, I’d give him a pass due to his age. (I do not give him a pass for lying about it, however, any more than lying about anything else, or his vanity and obsession with appearances. He’s over six feet and 71; who’d give a shit if he’s 280 or whatever?)
So, I’ve been bearing in silence the pain of suspecting that many Kossacks would take one look at me and become contemptuous. In face of the magnitude of the political horrors afflicting an entire world, it seemed a trivial issue.
Enter Stacey Abrams.
This morning, I learned that she won the Dem gubernatorial primary in Georgia, positioning herself to possibly make history by becoming the first governor in American history who is a member of the demographic that was wisest about Donald Trump (black woman voted 94-97% for Hillary, by the polls I’ve seen). So I decided to read a few news stories about it, and of course saw pictures of her. My jaw dropped, with delight as much as shock. I had a thought that I decided at first would always be a private one: she could make history three ways, as the first fat black woman governor in American history. (I describe her as “fat” with no more judgment than I so describe myself.)
Oh, I know there have been fat governors; see mention of Chris Christie above. But American culture is relatively lenient about that for men. Women are expected, if they want permission to feel pride in their appearance, to conform to an ideal of beauty that requires knife-like slimness, with platinum blondness strongly recommended—an ideal that’s particularly visible on TV these days as all the Trump and Fox “News” women adhere to it strictly. On the curvy Fox & Friends couch, for instance, the two men who always flank the lone woman are relaxed and expansive in their suits, while she sits tensely, her bare legs tightly crossed and bare arms pinned to her sides, mostly listening and taking up minimal space as women are taught they should do.
But now, this morning, I am seeing this big, broad-shouldered, brown-skinned newly-minted gubernatorial candidate with a wide beaming smile and feisty, intelligent, happy eyes, carrying her ample build with total dignity. Stacey Abrams wears solid bold colours (because they are what work best on TV) with business-like cuts, combined with pearls and other bright but not overly bright jewellery that demand she be taken seriously. She wears hairstyles and make-up that declare, “I can be as proud of my appearance and do myself up as anyone else can.” She stands in a way that declares, “I’m going to take up as much space as I take up.” She lifts a bare arm in a way that says “The cellulite is just how I am, now listen to my message.”
There is something about her substantial body that says “I am substantial.”
And: “I have a big heart.”
As a fellow fat woman, I am totally inspired. If she can be proud and confident despite not attaining the ideal, so can I. (Who decreed that ideal, anyway? Anyone we should listen to?) If she can go out and engage people and campaign and attract enough liking and loyalty to win, why should I hide my light under a bushel?
And, here, I am also inspired to ask you, fellow Kossacks… well, a little preamble, first.
You know she is going to get fat-shamed—horribly, grossly, unendingly—by Republicans during the mid-term campaign. They will say the most awful things about her appearance, and you’ll want to be jumping all over them for doing it, saying it is petty, craven, unfair, sexist, irrelevant to her ability as a governor and so forth. All of which will be true.
I would like to ask you, then, not to do the same yourselves, even to the politicians most hugely deserving of our scorn. I don’t care how Donald Trump feels; he isn't going to be reading here anyway. I ask on behalf of myself and all fat Kossacks, women and men, who feel that pinch of pain and shame whenever you do it, both for being fat-shamed and for being likened to Trump or other deplorables.
We hurt also for realizing that fat-shaming seems to be remaining socially acceptable among progressives.
Therefore I would like to ask that we make it socially unacceptable here on Daily Kos.
Thank you for the inspiration, Stacey Abrams. May you go all the way.
Donate to her campaign here.
Throw a bit to me here.