Perspective. It’s a beautiful thing. Thank you for providing some.

For my part, I can remember a time when I was of the “if you don’t like what I’m doing, tell me what you want done about it” crowd. Then some life happened and I became a mentally ill woman in a male-dominated profession. There’s nothing like an invisible, stigmatized disability and a 50-hour work week in which the only other woman is the janitor to give me some perspective on privilege and lack thereof.

Most people aren’t malicious. They’re just thoughtless. But what people sometimes miss is that while thoughtlessness is an explanation, it’s not an excuse. I’m still responsible for my words and actions even if–especially if–I didn’t think first. I can’t take back the words I spoke without thinking, but I can at least start thinking now that I’ve spoken.

After reading the NoLose letter, if it was criticizing anyone in particular, it was Marilyn Wann. I didn’t read any criticism of Atchka in that letter at all. But based on my previous interactions with him, it seems par for the course for him to take it personally and make it all about him.

Being called out on one’s white-privilege, for those not used to being asked to check their privilege can be quite painful and it’s understandable to feel defensive. But if one is part of a marginalized group of people, which fat people are, then it’s not unreasonable to expect that person to be able to look into why they were called out on their privilege and why they’re feeling defensive. It’s the racist reaction to the letter and defensive hostility and refusal to acknowledge any wrongdoing that say’s to me that this person is a fauxgressive and not an ally.

So what I’ve seen so far in reading various blogs about this—-a derail of every kind from denying racism and white privilege exists to “concerns” about tone, (which I always find amusing as it’s usually always used against the marginalized group of people—not the offenders). There was sexism by referring, under the guise of a question, to the women who defended the man, who spouted such racism, as mindless groupies. That is a silencing tactic used against women all the time. So again, not such a great response to call someone out on their racism with sexist fail.

There’s a lot of intersectionality between marginalized groups. And spouting some garbage fail and then saying “Well, I’m fat, or I’m black or I’m a woman or I’m gay, and I don’t find this offensive or I don’t have a problem with it”, does not negate that the behavior is indeed racist or anti-gay or anti-woman etc. After all there are a lot of right-wing conservative women who work to take away my and other women’s rights and women who find rape jokes funny. That doesn’t mean that rape jokes don’t continue to assist in normalizing violence against women, in the same way gay jokes normalize violence against gay and transgendered people, and so on. It’s the same when fat people say “fat is the last acceptable prejudice”… Really?… There is a War on Women going on against our reproductive rights, 1 in 6 women are raped, 1 in 3 are sexually harassed and/or attacked. Just a few days ago a black youth was murdered because he was black. So fat is not really the last acceptable prejudice. And those groups of people I mentioned are not mutually exclusive because intersectionality means that a person can be part of privileged and marginalized groups…several at one time.

From my perspective some people refuse to see that the letter was addressing an overall concern about white privilege and it used the Stand4Kids protest to illustrate their point. Indeed it may be that was what sparked the letter to begin with but the letter goes beyond that protest to address a social norm of deeply ingrained white privilege. Considering the massive fail that is the Kony 2012 video just a week or so ago, it’s a timely letter and a much needed conversation. I’m just sorry that it dissolved into people taking it as a personal attack and refusing to acknowledge that it had gone beyond their personal interaction. It is one marginalized group reaching out to another marginalized group to say there’s something you need to be aware of and check your privilege. That’s a good thing as it helps us to evolve to engender social justice for all of us.