Archive For The “101” Category

101: (Re)Defining privilege.

By | October 21, 2009

There are so many wonderful existing resources for folks who are new to the concept of privilege–which I will define myself momentarily–that I am often hesitant to throw my own hat into the ring. Occasional Fatshionista contributor Julia has a lovingly-tended collection of links here, and I really wonder if whatever I say is just […]

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The road to hell is paved with good intentions: Postcolonialism 101

By | October 8, 2009

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarah_mccans/ / CC BY 2.0 Earlier this week, over on Jezebel, there was a post and a series of comments that left me pretty conflicted. Okay, that’s an understatement. The truth is, it pissed me off. The post begins with a discussion about a piece on the Today show about “Trash the Dress”, […]

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101: On the Importance of Allies

By | September 10, 2009

This morning, the Today show had a piece on fat acceptance (complete with original “fat acceptance” graphic, using a fat font!) that didn’t actually involve any fat people speaking. Okay, I’m oversimplifying. In the prerecorded clip that prefaced the live segment, Emme speaks, and what she says is almost enough to make me forgive her […]

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On the Subject of Pie; or, Thoughts About Language and Radicalism

By | August 4, 2009

A hundred million years ago, I was a graduate student. Actually I was a graduate student for a ridiculously long period of time and it resulted in a few important bits of paper that do me little service today, but in this circumstance I am talking about the first graduate program I attended. I had […]

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101: Thoughts on Intersectionality, Or, Why There’s No Dark-Skinned Fat Black Women on More to Love

By | July 31, 2009

[Hey kids, it’s International Blog Against Racism Week! For more information, please go here. The following post is my humble contribution to the proceedings.] Race, fat, and class are inextricably tangled up together, and whether you personally realize and experience that entanglement or not, it exists. The recent events taking place between Henry Louis Gates […]

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…Did you just call me fat? Thoughts on intention and perspective.

By | July 23, 2009

[Note: The following post is intentionally vague, because I think this is advice that applies in lots of real-life situations. Do with it what you will.] The mechanics of both offending someone, and being offended, are incredibly complex. This is especially true in online correspondence, in which things like tone and inflection (not to mention […]

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Obligatory Health: My body’s not your problem.

By | May 12, 2009

I am not especially talented at talking about The Health Issue, that is, the whole “but what if being fat is unhealthy?” question. There are a few reasons for this. For one, statistics bore me, and I lack the patience and interest to dutifully seek out medical studies to use to disprove other medical studies. […]

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101: Ableism and Fat Activism

By | February 9, 2009

A few days ago I got an email on a subject I’ve actually gotten several emails and comments about recently, and which (for my own stupid reasons which are delineated at the end of this post) I have avoided discussing: As a wheelchair user the biggest insult people seem to throw my way is that […]

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101: On Being Fat and White

By | August 11, 2008

Note: This post was written partly as a result of my thoughts while catching up on discussions elsewhere about Julia’s excellent post here last week. Just so there’s context. Here’s the newsflash: Race affects me. I’m white. I’m white as white gets. My background is an even mixture of Anglo-Saxon and German. You’d probably be […]

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