The World Will Never Love Fat, Black Women/MaGes

Society does not and will never serve Black fat women and MaGes (Marginalized Genders). Physically we will never meet the standards. We will always be too loud especially when we’re talking about self-love. 

We get new examples every day, but the most recent is Lizzo. 

For her entire career so far, Lizzo has embraced everything that makes her different. She has embraced her big butt, her blackness, and is an unapologetic woman. Her latest single “Rumors” is no different. She tells the world the rumors are true. As in, if you want to talk about me and spread misinformation, go ahead and believe every word because either way it doesn’t change who she is and her life. 

Following the release of her video, which featured herself, other fat, Black and female-presenting people, and Cardi B, the pop star took to Instagram and broke down a bit. She was visibly upset by what people were saying about her. Feeling as if nothing she does will ever be good enough. She said, “I feel like the world just doesn’t love me back.” And sadly she’s right. We’re taught very early on that fat equals bad, sloppy, unkempt. While skinny is good and delicate. 

Lizzo is an example of doing everything you can and still falling short. She is an active performer, vegan, and promotes an extremely healthy lifestyle. Despite all of this, Lizzo faces an unimaginable amount of scrutiny about her weight from internet doctors. 

If you follow my blog posts here, you know that we have already tackled why BMI is a bogus scientific concept. The article also touches on the intersection of racism and fatphobia, something that is at work when it comes to what Lizzo is going through. Now, we’re taking a look at the impact of centuries of weight bias. 

“We’re taught very early on that fat equals bad, sloppy, unkempt. While skinny is good and delicate.”

As a young girl, I experienced daily bullying for being overweight. Like so much that I became depressed and suicidal. Believing fat people are wrong is taught to us from a very young age. 

A study conducted in the late ‘90s found “The cultural stereotype that ‘fat is bad’ was pervasive across gender, regardless of the child’s own body build. In fact, overweight preschoolers demonstrated stronger stigmatism than did those who were not overweight.”

That study included children aged 3 to 5-years-old and was published in 1998 –two years after the Nutty Professor was released in theaters. A movie that explicitly makes fun of and mocks fat people. 

Eddie Murphy holds a complicated space in my mind. I will always love Coming to America and Beverly Hills Cop, but I will always despise him for making movies like The Nutty Professor and Norbit. Professor Klumps and Resputia were just ammo for kids to fire at their fat peers. As we just mentioned, these biases are taught early on. We see them in pop culture before we can even distinguish what they are. 

Rebecca M. Puhl with the University of Connecticut Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity says, “being overweight is one of the most, if not the most, common reasons children are bullied.”

That bullying can lead to long-term problems like self-esteem issues and eating disorders. Millions of people struggle with those issues because of childhood bullying. Those very people see a light in Lizzo. They see someone who looks like them taking over spaces that were never meant for them. She was vulnerable and let us see that how the world treats her impacts her. The explicit bias against her goes much deeper than acceptable bodies and how we think about them. 

Lizzo said she feels as if the world doesn’t love her back and the truth is that it doesn’t. And as a whole, it never will. 

About Brianna Milon

Brianna is a local media professional who loves writing, watching Netflix, and playing with her dog, Weenie and her cat, Fancy. She studied Journalism and Broadcasting at SUNY Brockport and was heavily involved in the campus radio station. Brianna also co-hosts a radio show, “Fat, Black, and Femme”, on 100.9 WXIR. You can find out more on Facebook and Blogspot.