Da'Shaun Harrison, a writer and co-executive director of Scalawag Magazine, dives deep into the intersections of anti-fatness and anti-Blackness. He unpacks how both ideologies are intertwined, rooted in systemic violence and historical eugenics. The conversation critiques the Body Mass Index (BMI) and its troubling origins, highlighting its detrimental effects on marginalized bodies. Harrison calls for a reimagining of liberation through collective action, emphasizing the need for transformative change in our understanding of these intertwined oppressions.
51:52
forum Ask episode
web_stories AI Snips
view_agenda Chapters
menu_book Books
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
insights INSIGHT
Anti-fatness is Anti-Blackness
Da'Shaun Harrison argues that anti-fatness is inherently anti-Black, not just two separate issues.
Non-Black fat people experience the "residue" of anti-Blackness because whiteness created the fat Black subject as the slave.
insights INSIGHT
Fat Black Bodies and Policing
Da'Shaun Harrison observed that victims of police brutality, like Mike Brown and Eric Garner, were often fat and Black.
This reveals a link between how fat Black bodies are perceived as dangerous and the justification for police violence.
question_answer ANECDOTE
BMI's Racist History
The BMI was created by mathematician Adolf Quetelet, based on white European bodies, to define the "average man".
This now medically defines "obesity," impacting how fat people are treated, despite Quetelet's eugenicist and white supremacist views.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
Da'Shaun Harrison's "Belly of the Beast" delves into the intersection of anti-fatness and anti-Blackness, challenging the dominant narratives within fat studies. The book critiques the compartmentalization of identities and experiences within academic disciplines. Harrison argues that anti-fatness is inherently linked to anti-Blackness, rooted in historical systems of oppression. The work explores the violence inflicted upon Black fat bodies through policing, medical systems, and societal structures. Ultimately, "Belly of the Beast" calls for a radical reimagining of liberation that goes beyond traditional abolitionist frameworks.
The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women’s Unruly Political Bodies
Fat Black Women's Unruly Political Bodies
Andrea Shaw
Andrea Shaw's "The Embodiment of Disobedience" centers the experiences of fat Black women, examining their resistance to oppressive systems and their contributions to social justice movements. The book challenges the dominant narratives surrounding body image and race, highlighting the resilience and agency of fat Black women. Shaw's work explores the intersections of race, gender, and body size, offering a powerful critique of societal norms and expectations. The book emphasizes the importance of self-acceptance and the need for social change to address systemic inequalities. "The Embodiment of Disobedience" is a vital contribution to the ongoing conversations about body positivity and social justice.
Fearing the Black Body
The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia
Sabrina Strings
In 'Fearing the Black Body', Sabrina Strings presents a meticulously researched history of the transformation of Euro-American ideologies toward fat from the Renaissance to the present day. She argues that fatphobia is an extension of anti-Black racism, tracing its roots through various historical factors including the Atlantic slave trade, Renaissance art, scientific racism, and Protestantism. Strings demonstrates how the ideal of slenderness is racialized and racist, and how Western medicine has historically relied on the brutalization and dehumanization of Black people to validate these ideals. The book highlights how assessments of body size and shape have been used to justify systems of oppression and how contemporary fatphobia is deeply connected to the historical processes of racialization and objectification of Black bodies[1][3][4].
Heavy
An American Memoir
Kiese Laymon
In this memoir, Kiese Laymon delves into his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, and his own body, addressing themes of weight, identity, art, family, and national failures. Laymon writes about his experiences growing up in Jackson, Mississippi, including early encounters with sexual violence, his suspension from college, and his journey to becoming a young college professor in New York. The book is a candid and insightful exploration of the consequences of living in a country obsessed with progress but disinterested in reckoning with its past, and it highlights the personal and national weight of secrets, lies, and trauma[1][3][5].
Anti-fatness as anti-Blackness. Being Black and fat in our capitalist, white-supremacist, ableist, heteronormative society is to live in a body that is subjected to a form of unique violence marked by policing, misdiagnosis, discrimination, abuse, trauma—the list goes on.
And anti-fatness and anti-Blackness are not simply two separate things—disparate nodes on a circuit of oppression—anti-fatness and anti-Blackness form a crucial intersection, and are ultimately one and the same, according to our guest, in terms of their history, structural, weaponization, and deployment by the ideological apparatuses of the capitalist state and the violence which it upholds.
In this conversation, we explore the field of fat studies, the history of anti-fatness and anti-Blackness, why we should view anti-fatness as anti-Blackness, the eugenicist history of BMI—or the Body Mass Index—the need to stretch and grow abolition politics, the importance of unlearning supremacist ideology, and much more.
Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support
If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship
Upstream 
