Colorism and fatphobia

fat-posi-for-black-women:

Growing up as a dark skin fat little black girl, now a dark skin fat black woman, I can tell you that I’ve had my fair share of experiences with fatphobia. Kids were ruthless towards the combination of my dark skin and fat body, and adults the same.

But within my experiences of fatphobia, I realized the darker fat girls got the brunt of the burden. Especially when it comes to men. Guys don’t want the fat dark skin girl, but the “Big fine red bone” can get it, as one guy said under something I read a while back.

 I remember being in middle school and experiencing the painful episodes of being teased and bullied because of my weight. But there was a girl who was very popular, the same size as me, but the boys liked her and always flirted with her. She was light skin with long hair a little past her shoulders. Her name was Tiffany. I’m not saying she was free of slander for her weight, she got her share of “Big Girl” taunts but I noticed it wasn’t in the way I experienced mine. When I was called “Big Girl” it was always malicious, with the intent to hurt and destroy me. To mock me and berate me. But with her it was more in a way of “The Big Girl who is cute and like-able”.

I also observed this play out in High School. There was this very light skin girl named Candace, very popular, a short big girl. She would wear her hair short and she had dimples, the guys in High School also liked her a lot. She wasn’t the only one, there were many other lighter complexion girls who like-able by many. I witnessed the darker skin girls like myself get brunt of the bullying. Many of of us the same size as the lighter girls, but still get the fat jokes, treated like we were gross or contagious.

I remember this girl named Jessica. She would be bullied everyday to the point of having to fight to defend herself. She would have people make rumors about her being smelly because of her size, about her being homely, and other horrible things. The thing is she and Candace were the same size, same features, but Candace was never bullied to the point of having to fight. Candace was the lighter skin pretty fat girl, Jessica was the dark skin fat girl. So was I.

Even personal experiences regarding a few individuals in my family. This colorism + fatphobia plays out.

This type of colorism in fatphobia also manifests into several blogs or spaces within the community that supposedly appreciates fat women or fat bodies. Especially in communities of color. The lighter you are, the more they’ll accept your fatness. This is in no way saying fat fair skin or lighter skin women don’t experience fatphobia. They do, but among the guys who would never date a big girl, or the women who don’t have fat friends in their circle, there’s a “forgiveness” for fatness if the woman is light skin. 

You can see this by the types of plus size women these blogs posts. A lot of them are mostly light skin or of another ethnicity. And there’s nothing wrong with showing these women, they’re beautiful, they’re gorgeous and deserve to be represented. But it’s interesting to see within the realm of plus size admiration, the type of plus size women that are mostly sought after or lauded.

If there are pictures or articles of plus size women, the darker women are mostly praised and lauded by other women, and in a “Omg you’re so confident and brave” way almost in a form of pity. When there are pictures or articles of lighter plus size women, there are a mixture of men and women gawking at her beauty and praising her for her beauty by itself.

In my opinion it’s because there’s such a stigma attached to being dark skin and fat. Dark skin already has a sleuth of negative stereotypes attached to it, as well as being fat. Combine both and people basically see you as subhuman.

The perception of dark skin fat women is blatantly different than the perception of fat women who are lighter or fair skin. 

When you’re fat and dark skin, men see you as repulsive unappealing, unfeminine and unclean. There’s this psychological attempt to attach the mammy image to fat dark skin women every chance they get, which plays upon the disdain and disgust towards fat dark skin black women.

No matter how feminine we act, no matter how pretty we are, no matter how well we dress, they can’t help but to see a brute, overbearing, masculine loud caricature, just because we’re fat and dark.