July 27, 2009

Our Esteemed First Lady
Michelle Obama
The White House
2200 Pennsylvania Boulevard
Washington D.C.

My dear Mrs. Obama,

With highest respect and admiration, I would like to make you aware of a burgeoning movement that, after 40 years of organized struggle, is increasingly finding its voice against prejudice and oppression. The members of this revolution span every strata of humanity: gender/identity, youth to death, racial heritage, spirituality, income. In fact we are now statistically the largest single pie-slice on the pop. chart, and the effects of marginalizing this 60% of the population present far-reaching implications.

We are the size 14 and XL-plus citizens of America, and our worth is beyond measure.

The pervasive discrimination of sizeism has long marginalized fat folks who already battle a life under tons of other isms:

Sexism - while heavy men are perceived as powerful, heavy women are indicted as shameless gluttons;
Racism - the genetics of certain ethnicities predispose them to larger frames than represented on mostly-white actuarial charts;
Classism - the diets of the poor or struggling are often based on cheap starches, sugars and fats, rather than more costly, healthier alternatives; and
Ageism - physiological change is natural, and, let’s face it, gravity does take its toll.

The world has witnessed the contempt with which congressional confirmation "fact-finders" have recently questioned such brilliant appointees as Dr. Bingham and Madam Sotomayor. Despite the preeminence of these women in their respective avocations, the mostly male/frequently fat electorate hurls snipes, allusions and innuendos regarding their unworthiness due to gender, ethnicity and, in the case of the fair doctor, her womanly shape. Media pundits further push the agenda, and diet druggists and weight loss gurus reap the profits of inflated American self-loathing.

And while some legal protections have been hard won over decades, anti-fat discrimination continues to seek out fertile opportunities for defeating individuals whose very existence is indicted simply on the basis of a number on a scale. I won’t waste your time with statistics, but studies have proven:

Fat employees work and fight harder to get and keep employment health benefits, paying more for the privilege, then are statistically far more liable to be pink-slipped instead of equally or less effective thinner staff.

Overburdened physicians rubberstamp fat patients’ diagnoses, attributing the problems simply to overweight and urging weight loss, then later discovering serious complications that simple attention and honest, unbiased inquiry would have prevented.

Fat children are routinely removed from their homes without full facts or due process, held without parental contact and only returned after lengthy, costly legal wrangling.

Adoption rejections that document the weight of worthy prospective parents as cause continue to leave generations of children warehoused due solely to the prejudice of perception.

Despite inroads into battling bullying and promoting body esteem, the modern business of schooling continues to traumatize fat children with fake solicitous "advice" and bureaucratic agendas. Attempted and successful suicides in fat adolescents continue to rise at an alarming rate. Many parents now choose to home-school children-of-size rather than exposing them such violence and degradation.

Attorneys are getting very rich pursuing lawsuits against airlines that humiliate in-flight fat passengers by forcing them to purchase an additional ticket before being allowed to continue a trip.

Sadly, these are only a handful of instances of the struggles the plus-size community continues to face. Thankfully, ‘60s civil rights activism found heroes, rallied advocates and allies, and demonstrated the value of every type of American, regardless of physical appearance. Thus the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) was established with a radical mission: to promote and advance the concepts that human beings come in myriad body sizes and shapes, and that every citizen deserves the right to equal opportunities and consideration as promised to every other citizen. Its membership over the years has embodied thousands of passionate, committed proponents who believe that truly living larger-than-life, without apology and seizing every single moment, has more meaning than wasted lifetimes, forever waiting, holding out for those arbitrarily perfect measurements, unrealistically balanced scales.

NAAFA, as well as other size activism organizations, has moved mountains to educate and enlighten the uninformed about civil rights issues relating to size discrimination. Successful boycotts of grossly demeaning "humor" in advertising and merchandising have been spearheaded. Learned representatives of sized acceptance have testified on size and health issues on Capitol Hill. Designers, retailers, manufacturers and the hospitality fields have been advised to consider the logistics of large. Low-cost clothing pantries have been established for plus-sized women returning to the job market, and legal assistance for sizeism battles has frequently tipped the scales for justice.

Over these past forty years, NAAFA and others have inspired thousands who, after enduring a lifetime of ridicule and scorn, now ignore the invective and cherish their bodies as the shapely vehicle for their souls, sports car to limousine, a living miracle regardless of shape, hue, texture, years, deformities, abilities. Through these organizations’ social networking channels, love has been found; ideas have coalesced; bonds have been strengthened. Today the revolution still exists with one abiding goal: to reaffirm the rights and dignity of all humanity, in all walks of society, in all its shades and shapes of size.

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