Hey Friends!
It’s Kayla your Fat Positive Therapist coming to you from my bed, where I am trapped with a sickness that both makes me exhausted and restless. In the midst of sickness my brain has decided to fixate on the discussions around body diversity.
Honestly, this current focus has more to do with how many shows I am watching while trapped in my bed. See, I struggle with television shows, EVERYONE looks the same. My social media spaces have been intentionally curated to be incredibly diverse. When I watch T.V I am aggressively reminded that the bubble I have created is but an echo chamber. When I watch shows, I can’t help but become increasingly bored with the lack of difference body types, ages, races. Basically anything that isn’t white, thin & cisgendered is completely erased from media’s reality.
Unfortunately, our consumption of movies, television shows, and reality series easily shifts and reconstruct our understanding of what humans look like or “should look like”. This is not to blast our consumption. I’m more just pissed off that I can’t watch real people. That on a sick day, I can’t get lost in entertainment or art without feeling like my body is a failure. Because that is what being excluded from media does. The intentional othering of various identities leaving them to feel like outsiders. Laying on thick feelings of shame, torment and fear of never being good enough.
I opened up my computer today to say Fuck that. I refuse to be eradicated from this earth. Fat people are here. We have been here since the dawn of humanity. I am not the first to post about how the past four years have been back step after back step for inclusivity. What were promises of representation and accessibility have been quickly forgotten and replaced with the new white thin obsession. Yes, lest us not forget that race and anti-blackness is the foundation of the dehumanization and othering of non white bodies.
We can’t deny this reality when all of our television shows center the same identity and cultural experiences over and over and over and over again. Our assumption that euro-centric white experiences are the default is evidence enough that racism and white supremacy are alive and well today. Ever since the false claims of solidarity during the pandemic humanity (or should we say capitalism) is going right back to its normal of creating body hierarchies and only elevating 5% of the population.
I will not be accepting this “return to normal”. I am completely done with playing into the hands of these companies who get to cherry pick how to body shame the next generation. We have a choice here, even if it feels like we don’t. Personally, I refuse to let others control how I live my life and perceive myself. I know for a fact I am not alone. I know that there are millions of us who are sick and tired of being told we are less than.
We are not stupid consumers. We can easily see what these companies are doing. Don’t be afraid of letting them know. If you do not follow Samyra on instagram and tikok, please do so. They have wonderful suggestions on how to be an advocate for ourselves and for the plus size community.
I just want everyone to know, that even in the rough times YOU ARE ENOUGH. YOUR BODY IS ENOUGH. We do not have to accept this world. We can make it better for ourselves and those yet to come. We are incredibly powerful beings when in community.
Let’s deny what society is handing us and make our own reality. A reality that uplifts the most marginalized and creates community that rejects the social ladders they expect us to climb.
My name is Kayla, I currently live in a fat body and will refuse to hate myself. I deserve love, community & representation.