From a Large Black U.S. Female during the Pandemic
I am a large Black woman living in the United States during the pandemic. In addition to the racism and classism that have been exaggerated in my country’s response to the pandemic (I live in a wealthy city but have no hospital in my section of town), I live in constant terror of medical mistreatment because I am fat.
I am also passionate about the elimination of sexism and fat oppression. I use RC for my liberation as a large woman and for building allies for large women in this important work.
I am writing to share some of what my life is like as a large Black woman during the pandemic and how I continue fighting for myself. I will also share how we can use what we are seeing and experiencing right now to see fat oppression more clearly and take a bigger stand against it.
A few years ago, my mother, sister, and I were in the pre-operative area at a hospital waiting for the doctor who was going to do a lifesaving operation on my mother. I had done research and carefully selected the doctor for his credentials and approved of his warmth and thoughtful interactions with my mother in the appointments before the surgery.
The doctor walked into the curtained area where the nurses had prepared my mother for surgery and began talking about the surgery he had just completed. He said, over and over again, that my mother was “so nice and small” and that her surgery was going to be so much easier than the one he had just done. He repeated at least ten times how big the last woman had been, how hard it had been to operate on her, and how much nicer and easier it was going to be to operate on my mother because she was “nice and small.” This made her feel pretty, special, and cared for—and it scared me half to death. All I could think was that I had to do my best to never need this surgery because I could not count on [rely on] the doctor being on my side [wanting to help me]. I was also stunned that he would talk about another large woman that way in front of me.
If I were to show up [arrive] at a hospital right now with COVID, I would be placed on a list of people less likely to survive the disease. I would worry about whether they had tested the medications on large people so that I would receive the right dosage. I would worry about whether the doctors or nurses would provide me with the same level of care as others. And, most frighteningly, I would worry that if the hospitals got to the point where they no longer had equipment or medication to treat everyone, I would not be on a list of people worth the effort.
I am living a very restricted life during the pandemic because what is most important to me is that my mother, who is seventy-four and has had some health challenges, survive this period. I am the only person she has spent in-person time with since March. I don’t know if I would live such a restricted life if I did not want to preserve my ability to see her.
As a large woman, I already live with heavy messages that tell me I am not supposed to be out in public, take up space, be an up-front leader, and more. It has been fairly easy for me to stay home during the pandemic because I already have few leisure and social activities. I don’t go out to eat much because people sometimes watch and comment on what I eat. I don’t go to movies and shows because the seating is usually too small for me. I live under a constant message that I am not supposed to exist as a large woman, that I am to blame for being large, and that I should accept that I have no right to things because there is something wrong with me. Blaming large women for being fat, mistreating them, and denying them resources are constant and unchallenged. And if I were to get COVID, I fear the oppression of large women is harsh enough that no one—including my family and Co-Counselors—would fight for me where I couldn’t fight for myself. I have a strong feeling that, under fat oppression, everyone would just shrug their shoulders and say, “Yeah . . . I mean . . . she was fat.”
“OBESITY”
I voraciously consume the news because I work in public service and because I am terrified to not know what is going on [happening] right now, moment to moment. When reading and listening to news, I hear over and over again that being “obese” makes me more vulnerable during the pandemic. In particular, it is always part of a list of illnesses—heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity.
I have discharged for about thirty years on fat oppression and being a large woman and have counseled with hundreds of large women from all over the world. Based on that work, I think that being fat, or large, or “obese” is a physical state. Large women (“obese” people) may have illnesses or physical difficulties, but they vary quite a bit across the population. I have one chronic condition for which I take medication, and, interestingly, my thin mother has the same chronic illness and has responded best to the exact same medication in a higher dose. It appears that even as a large woman, my genetics and the specific constellation of distresses accumulated within my family play a large role in my health.
“PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS"
Watching the coronavirus disproportionally impact Black and brown people has been a wake-up call for many on the severity of racism. It gets talked about a lot in terms of racism in health care, but folks are also starting to realize how the experience of racism wears Black and brown people down and impacts our health, making us more vulnerable to illness. An extreme version of this emerged in the news recently: the attorneys for the police officer who suffocated George Floyd to death are now officially claiming as a murder defense that but for Mr. Floyd’s pre-existing conditions, he would not have died from a knee on his neck.
This language of pre-existing conditions is also being used to blame people in the United States for dying from COVID. It’s become a buzz phrase that scares me. I worry about the role “pre-existing conditions” will play in people’s economic lives and opportunities after the pandemic. For example, when nearly everyone returns to my office in person, will it be obvious who has a pre-existing condition because they will still be working from home? Will they miss opportunities for advancement, relationship building, and other subtle things used to get opportunities under capitalism? Will they be marked as “sick” and not invested in as people? And what would all of that mean for large women if “obesity” is cemented in society as a pre-existing condition?
SUGGESTIONS FOR ALLIES
I have many close allies, and almost none of them can yet take a stand in their minds against fat oppression. It’s still a struggle for most large women to take this stand. But society’s use of “obesity”—an aspect of fat oppression already used to blame people, particularly poor people and People of the Global Majority, for illness and mistreatment—offers us all an opportunity to fight harder in our minds and in the world against fat oppression.
The following are some ways allies can work on fat oppression:
- Ask large women what it is like being large right now and listen deeply.
- Say the word “obesity” and discharge.
- Discharge on feeling relieved that you are not “obese” and/or do not have chronic illnesses.
- Talk openly about your chronic illnesses. Ask about or know what chronic illnesses the large women in your life do or don’t have and don’t make assumptions. (For example, I have a Co-Counselor who is always asking me if certain seating works for my knees, but I have no knee problems—just an arthritic ankle from a childhood injury.)
- Work on your food addictions, issues with exercise, early abuse, and so on, and don’t assume large women have the same struggles.
- Work on any irrational activities you participate in to stay thin or to get thinner.
- Work on any feelings of blame toward large women.
- Decide that you will fight for the survival of large women you love if they get sick from coronavirus.
- Consider that being large is not a death sentence.
- Stand against policies that reopen society only for “healthy” and young people—policies that are being openly pushed in the United States at this time.
Finally, I would like allies to consider that fat oppression is central in the racism directed at African-heritage women in the United States. It is not clear how much of being large is genetic. It is not clear how much of it is a result of pre-slavery sexism that valued fattened women. It is not clear how much is a physiological response to food scarcity in many of our early lives (including food deserts in Black communities). It’s not clear how much is from the physical effects of oppression (for example, exhaustion) and present-time choices about eating and exercise.
At minimum, it would be correct to assume that a large woman is not large due to gluttony and laziness, a core message of fat oppression. It would also be correct to remember that large women and our bodies are good right now, that we are smart, and that our minds and Co-Counseling work for our re-emergence.
HEALTH AND FLOURISHING
A couple of weeks ago I had a “tele-visit” with my doctor. She immediately exclaimed, “You look really good.” She said I looked happy. I can only imagine what she has been seeing with people over the last period as the head of internal medicine at one of the city’s largest hospitals. I told her, “I’m having a pretty [quite] good pandemic.” And that’s true.
My work is too demanding, but it is good work that I feel good about. I have been able to keep my mother safe and secure and help her manage any needs she may have (like her trash being taken out). I text and Zoom with my extended family, so we talk more than we have in years. I have organic groceries delivered, cook all of my food, and do virtual workouts with my pre-pandemic personal trainer three times per week. I got back on my condominium board to help manage things, as many of my neighbors, mostly single Black women, face economic instability during the pandemic. It’s been wonderful to spend so much time in the joyful space that I designed. And with easier access to Co-Counseling via Zoom, I have been going to more workshops and will start a Regional large women’s support group over Zoom next week.
My mother and I have joked a lot about how being raised poor has been an asset for us during the pandemic. We don’t miss going out to restaurants, going on vacations, or engaging in other middle-class leisure activities. We have a fundamental sense that we are in reality about what is going on and have excellent, creative survival skills. And while there is fat oppression and ageism in our relationship (I’m fat, and she is old), there is an unspoken solidarity in both of us being targeted. We understand that being targeted differently is not worth fighting about during the pandemic. We have an unwavering sense that we would fight to the end for each other.
Washington, D.C., USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of African-heritage people
(Present Time 201, October 2020)