Society – E367: Writing and Diversity

Roxane Gay goes in depth about what it’s like to undergo weight loss surgery, how she felt before the surgery, and what her life was like after the surgery that (kinda didn’t) change her life.

Gay admits that,

“I had a desire to lose weight but an inability – or, perhaps, unwillingness – to force myself towards the deprivation required for the significant weight loss the world told me I needed”

She points out that the main reasoning for her wanting to get weight loss surgery was society shaming her and telling her that she needed to get it done because her body was ugly, unattractive, and not good enough.

I think everyone can agree that the idea of weight loss is all over the media we absorb, even if we aren’t personally concerned with it and aren’t always paying attention to it. Our society is so focused on maintaining certain body types for males and females (and everyone in-between) that I’ve literally seen completely healthy people worry about their weight and try to lose weight that they don’t need to be losing, all to fit into their prom dresses or look like their favorite models or singers. It’s awful and toxic how people are made to feel about their bodies.

I understand that sometimes people who are severely overweight need to do something about it because it could be life threatening and detrimental if they don’t. But what I cannot accept is fat shaming from people who know nothing about the people they are discussing, simply throwing harmful words in their direction because they feel like they have the right to tell them what to do with their body. If someone needs to lose weight, they have the ability and autonomy to go to their healthcare provider and choose to do something about it. They do not need random people coming up to them in school or on the street or on the internet telling them that the way they look is disgusting and that they should “really see someone about that” because “it’s in my genuine interest and for your sake as well”.

You do not have the right to tell anyone what to do with their body. Enough said.

In her interview with Trevor Noah, I found myself nodding my head to a lot of what Gay was saying, such as when she mentioned that people tend to give fat people unsolicited advice, they tell them that since they’re fat they’re going to die early (why do you care anyway?), and she discussed how the world doesn’t tend to accommodate to fat people because they don’t see them as deserving to belong there and that it isn’t their job to make fat people’s lives just a little bit easier.

What is especially heartbreaking about this piece is how Gay isn’t 100% sure of anything she signs up for and agrees to in this process. No matter what she does, she is always doubtful and scared of what could happen or could not happen after she makes a decision. For example, she states that,

“I don’t want any weight loss to be acknowledged (or worse, celebrated), but I also very much do”

indicating that she is constantly insecure, even after the weight loss surgery, about if people will say anything or not say anything about it. Her life has been a constant struggle of overthinking, over-planning, worrying, and stressing about things that she cannot always control. She mentions that she has “replaced one set of anxieties with another”, something that for me was truly heartbreaking. She made this massive financial decision mainly for society’s approval, and she may never truly approve of herself and her body image. She is rarely physically hungry, but she is constantly ravenous for self-acceptance and to feel whole, beautiful, and accepted by others.

Societies all over the world shame fat people for what they are and many of them will refuse to act differently. Like Roxane’s article, this response doesn’t have a very happy ending, because I don’t know myself if there will ever be a solution to fat shaming in our society and other societies over the world. I want to preach about autonomy and self-love, but I feel as though people on the shaming side of this issue constantly refuse to see being fat as anything other than ugly and needing to be fixed.

When watching debates, I tend to keep an open mind and hear out both arguments before agreeing with one point of view. However in this debate, I was able to decide pretty early on which case was most compelling. I felt that within minutes of his speech, Baldwin was able to convey that the truth behind this topic is only visible to those who have experienced it, and those that allow themselves to be aware of it.

“Is the question hideously loaded, and then one’s response to that question – one’s reaction to that question – has to depend on effect and, in effect, where you find yourself in the world, what your sense of reality is, what your system of reality is. That is, it depends on assumptions which we hold so deeply so as to be scarcely aware of them.”

Whether one chooses to accept or deny the horrible mistreatment of African Americans in this country comes solely out of if that person has benefitted from this injustice or not. Wealthy white men and women who have been able to live out the “American Dream” are on the opposing side of Baldwin’s argument, due to the fact that in their realm of society, everything has worked out. To the rest of society, it is clear that there has been major flaws in our nation’s history and need to be called upon. To be untouched by these problems or to turn a blind eye to them is entirely in correlation with how that individual views the world, and specifically, his place in the world.

Baldwin is also able to effectively create a sense of responsibility in the room for those who are on the opposing side of his argument. To further prove that the “American Dream” that certain individuals have achieved is only possible through the expense of African Americans, Baldwin breaks down in specifics how this “dream” came to be a reality.

“*I* picked the cotton, *I* carried it to the market, and *I* built the railroads under someone else’s whip for nothing. For nothing. The Southern oligarchy, which has still today so very much power in Washington, and therefore some power in the world, was created by my labor and my sweat, and the violation of my women and the murder of my children. This, in the land of the free, and the home of the brave. And no one can challenge that statement. It is a matter of historical record.”

By speaking in first person, Baldwin takes something that seems so distant to these people and makes it personal. He creates a sense of emotion by explaining, in detail, the suffering of real people within the African American community. This visual makes it impossible for people in the room to hide from what has been done and to deny responsibility of it. He is able to convey that all things created that constitute the “American Dream” are only made possible through the anguish of people just like him.There is no real sense of equality in this nation if this process is the only way to live out the “American Dream.” It is so clear that this “dream” is impossible without the expense of African Americans and there is no way to argue around it—it is a part of history that must be accepted in order to create change.

Tag: Society

“I’m Rarely Hungry, But I Am Ravenous”

Learn Your Place