Are Black People More Accepting of Overweight Women?

While tweeting the new reality show More To Love—a plus size version of The Bachelor on FOX—the conversation shifted towards the role of race in fat acceptance.  Throughout my time in college and even now I am surprised by the belief that black people are more accepting of overweight women.

Here’s the thing: it’s not about being big; it’s about being curvy in the right places.  It’s about having an impossibly small waist with large breasts, hips, thighs, and ass.  Adolescence was an incessant chase for the perfect hourglass shape with a warped sense of reality:  white girls want to be bone thin, black girls want the hourglass shape, ignoring how neither approach was healthy.

I grew up hearing my mother proclaim several times that she is FINALLY going to lose weight, my grandmother proudly recounting her days of forgoing food to look svelte in dresses, and my sisters and I agonizing over the width of our hips in relation to their stomachs.  I remember my friends and I mocking white girls for their lack of ass and titties while agonizing over the growth of our own, sometimes wanting to hide for developing too soon other times going through hell to make it seem as if we were growing faster than we really were.

Additionally while there are more overweight black celebrities than white ones I hesitate to see that as an example of fat acceptance.  As Julia over at Fatshionista mentions, those celebrity examples of plus size black celebrities are hand picked for the public.  It doesn’t reflect black people’s acceptance of overweight people; rather it reflects the mainstream media’s hunger for and comfort with large black bodies.  It is, on many levels, an outrageous example of racism and sexism.  Besides, I don’t think Tyler, Martin, and Eddie show their love for larger black women when they don fat suits and act insultingly ignorant.

At the same time, I would be lying if I said that my emotional scars come from the hourglass battlefield.  In all honesty I think that weight is lower on the list of things that black people make fun of each other for.  Skin complexion continues to be our venom of choice.  Weight is not at the center of the most vicious and cruel memories of my childhood; my complexion is and to this day even compliments about my skin color make me uncomfortable.  (So no, calling me chocolate will not get you any points with me).  And don’t even get me started when it comes to hair…

In fact, as I navigated college, internships, work, travel abroad, and relationships various forms of “otherness” mattered differently depending on who was in the conversation.   Class plays as much as role in beauty as race with my middle and upper class black friends weary of indulging in soul food for health reasons while my family back at home is unforgiving of my attempts of keeping my hair natural.

In the end total acceptance on any level is a fantasy but a reality I would love to create.  It requires consciousness—an awareness of all of the attitudes, messages, and behaviors that are detrimental to your self determination—which in and of itself is a terrifying thing.  You find yourself “on” all of the time challenging what was once comforting and normal.  But it’s liberating in the sense that you begin to love yourself, focusing on your potential and life’s possibilities.  It’s exciting to recognize all that you can do and all that you deserve to have. 

How do we shift the conversation from what we arent to a celebration of all that we are?