If we are going to make things better for big
people we need to work at it all the time.
This section is about my feelings on size discrimination
and how we can defeat it. Most of it is my stories and point of
view, but please feel free to send me your ideas.
Right now This page is a little rough but I plan to get it
more organized and less of a ramble.
Some people are unhappy . . .hell some people are desperately
miserable and unfortunately they are determined to take it
out on the rest of us. People like that often pick a group
of people to hate and humiliate. Guess what folks, we are it.
We (large people and the people who love them) are the
target of a lot of misplaced hate and anger.
We know that people make fun of fat people and some
even hate us simply for the size of our bodies. It
seems as if we are the last group that it is OK to
insult. You can't insult people of color, women or
the disabled...they have a few very powerful groups
behind them (NAACP and NOW for example) and they are
all protected to one extent or another by the government.
The same can not be said about big people. There
are reasons for this dislike, they are NOT good reason,
but bigotry seldom needs a GOOD reasom.
How can we expect as respect from the general population
when even most doctors who should know better still think of
obesity as primarily a self inflicted problem that is some how.
our fault and failure. Medical wisdom says that anyone can
loose weight if we just try hard enough, it has only been
in the last few years that that they have started to look
at other causes and started to see that some people are
always going to be large and that they can be healthy and
happy.
Another reason people see us as something worthy of
there derision is fear. The fear of facing what could
happen to you. As long as people see being big as a bad
and sinfull thingthen this won't change.
I have to admit my big bad secret. . .sometimes,
rarer and rarer now a days, mostly before I got involved
with size acceptence, when I see someone who is MUCH larger
then me,(and please note I AM around 365 or so) or whose
weight is distributed in a way that hinders them a lot,
I get an uncomfortable feeling inside.
There is this feeling of discomfort, not about the person
but about me, I feel guilty about the fear of getting bigger.
So if I am big and actually pretty comfortable with it and I
still sometimes feel uncomfortable, can you imagine what a
person who has been brain washed by the media to think they
must be small feels.
This is not right. And that brings me to my point. The
reason I have learned to feel comfortable with my own body
and to not feel uncomfortable around other large people is
that I have exposed myself to images of large people who
are proud of themselves.
If a person who hates the world can spread that hatred
then it behooves us to spread acceptance. It is so easy for
people to get a web page. At http://www.geocities.com
you can get a starter page that takes no real HTML know-how
to do and that can help you learn HTML or you
you can get more features once you learn how to write a page.
With all of these easy and free sights I feel that everyone
who supports BBWs and size acceptance should start a web site
even if it is just to tell the world that you do support it.
Then link to other size acceptance sites…flood the net
with images and words telling people who and what we are
and that we deserve respect.
The other thing we can do is complain. E-mail or
snail mail people and companies who insult us, tell
them we won’t use their products or watch their shows.
Start to fight the fight, use all of the tools in
our reach and make a difference.
I have said before that it is time to make changes,
that we all have to work to make a difference. Yes there a
re groups like NAAFA out there trying to make it easier for
all of us but in the long run it is the individual who
really changes thing.
Before this I mentioned the NAACP and NOW, well
those are great groups but they are not the reason that
Rosa Parks refused to sit at the back of the bus. Mrs.
Parks was just one woman who refused to be embarrassed or
shamed in to letting herself be treated in a way that is
less then she deserved. It isn't just the big organizations
who make changes . . .it is the people who make up those
organizations and the people who refuse to be shamed or
embarrassed into silence.
Here is an example, there is a Mexican restaurant
in my town called Café Olé. This restaurant has a great
cantina and really great cheap happy hour Margaritas, but
you have to sit in the cantina to get the deals. Before
when I had been there they had had a mix of chairs from
medium sized wicker (god I HATE wicker) with arms (to small
for my big beautiful butt) as well as short and tall armless
stools. Well this time when I went to the restaurant with
my boyfriend and headed back to the cantina guess what had
happened . . . All of those nice stools where gone and
there was wicker everywhere.
What could we do? There was no way I could or would
try to sit on those wicker chairs, so I figured my options
where as follows. I could get all embarrassed and drag my
boyfriend who was buying me dinner out of the place and go
home. Or I could quietly go back and stand in line at the
desk until someone showed us a table and then pay twice as
much for a drink, or I could do what I did.
I walked up to the waitress and told her that the chairs
where inadequate and would it be easier for her to find
me a new chair or bring me my drink special to a booth?
She told me to pick a booth and she would send us a waiter.
When we sat down an employee came over and pointed out that
while the cantina was seat yourself they preferred that you
wait to be seated in the restaurant. I told him that if
they had made arrangements ahead of time for larger people
or even for people who can't sit in armed chairs them we
would have been seated in the cantina. All he said was oh.
When our waiter came I asked for a drink special, he pointed
out that they were only available in the cantina.
Here we go again.
"We were going to sit in the cantina but the chairs
are to small, as such I think I should still get the
specials don't you?"
"Um I will have to ask the bartender, he's the manager
right now."
Well soon he came back and said that sometimes the bar
tender is in a good mood, and gave use double margaritas
for the discount price.
Will I go back there? You bet your ass I will and if we
go through this a few more times maybe they will
add a few armless chairs.
NOTE: Well it is a year or two later and I will say
that when they remodled they bought these wonderful
large chairs that do have arms but my huge ass fits
in them which means 95% of the population will. Did
people like me have any effect on them? I am not sure
but you know that it didn't hurt for them to realize
that more then half the population have butts bigger
then 18 inches across sitting down, now if the airlines
would figure it out