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Intel doubles its bounty for women and ethnic minorities

Trevor_Pott Gold badge

No, I mean fat. Fat people are the currently accepted group to hate on. Normatives believe that fat people can just wake up one day and choose to be skinny. That anyone has the willpower, that everyone's metabolism is the same, and that fatties are all just weak.

This leads to acceptable discrimination in the workplace. Hell, it leads to acceptable discrimination everywhere. That - in my opinion - is not okay.

Look, I'm fat. I'm massively fat. I'm so massively, overwhelmingly fat that I have my own event horizon and photons that stray too near don't escape. So I think I'm a little bit qualified to talk about this.

It's perfectly acceptable - in my books - to say to a person "you're so fat we need to charge you for two seats" on an airline. When you get to be my size you take up two seats. Fucking period. In fact, if you're of that size - and believe me, the crushing self esteem issues and overwhelming depression mean that we fucking know when we're that size, thanks - means that, as a fatty, you should have bought two seats to start with and saved everyone the grief. Like it or not a goodly portion of the "being enormous" is your fault as a fat person and you need to deal with the extra monetary expense of being that large.

That said It's not okay to build your airplanes such that the armrest between those two seats doesn't move out of the way. Fat people exist. They're a significant portion of the population, and if you design your chairs, airplane seats and so forth such that they are unusable by fat people you're a goddamned asshole. If you want to be an asshole in that coffee shop you own, that's your right. But mass transportation is a whole separate issue and the damned well should be regulations to ensure that all people, regardless of size, disability, etc. can use it.

A fat person my size isn't going to be physically able to do the job of a high-speed door-to-door mail carrier that has to cover dozens of square kilometers of houses every day. That's ridiculous and fatties shouldn't apply for those jobs. Physical fitness is a requirement of that position. It's a rational requirement of that position, and it's completely and utterly ridiculous to expect an employer to buy you a scooter or some other such nonsense.

That said, there's nothing that prevents a person of any given size from being back office staff. Or a computer programmer. Or any of these other jobs that don't involve a fair amount of physical labour. So discriminating against them in hiring because you don't like how they might make the company look is complete bullshit and - in my opinion - absolutely grounds for a lawsuit.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Fat people do have to take some responsibility for being fat. That said, for most of us it isn't a choice. It's a disease that we struggle with, and it is a complicated and intricately linked mishmash of physical, psychological and neurochemical issues that allow us to get fat in the first place and then keep us fat, no matter what we try.

Some parts of society should be open to all people. No one should be excluded from cultural events, mass transportation or finding employment because of how they look, their origins gender, sexual orientation or so forth. But humans aren't good at thinking like that.

Humans are tribal. We want to identify with a group. A clique. A collection of no more than about 100-125 people. We need the ability to exclude others. We want the ability to use guilt and especially shame to establish our dominance over others. We need to prove that we are superior, they are inferior and we should be in charge/get the best mates/command the highest jobs/receive the accolades/consume the respect.

You can't hate on people of colour. You can't hate on women. You can't hate on gays or transgender or pretty much any other identifiable group. One by one they've become protected by law. One by one they've earned the right to equality, respect and dignity.

But not fat people.

Fat people are a socially acceptable target. The narrative that it is 100% their fault is an easy one. We can claim they choose that way of life. If only they'd accept good, clean, protestant ideals like suffering for their entire lives they could be just like the rest. If only they were of purer genetic stock. If only they worked harder to make more money and afford better food.

Most people in North America don't even acknowledge that mental health issues are real. So I can't quite say that we discriminate against people with those issues. We simply pretend they don't exist. They they're faking it, doing it for attention, or that they could simply will themselves healthy if they really wanted to.

Because of this, it's impossible to explain things like decision fatigue to the average North American. It's impossible to explain things like Lectin allergy, neurotransmitter imbalance, dopamine deficiency or weight issues as they pertain to ADHD, depression, anxiety or dozens of other disorders.

We can't have those conversations because we - as a culture - believe that all of that is "just bullshit". We believe mental, physical and socioeconomic issues play no role whatsoever in obesity. It's nothing but personal choice and weakness.

Because of this, no matter how much you, personally, dislike the fact that some fat people try (in vain) to achieve some semblance of equality you simply don't have to worry that it will happen in your lifetime. It won't. A few noisy people who make the news that the nation can make fun of them aren't actually changing a goddamned thing.

In order to address obesity in a rational way we have to go through generations of education, primairily on the realities of mental and psychical health issues. Stigmas around mental health need to drop away. A better understanding of neural and neuroendocrine systems needs to be fundamental to the culture as a whole.

We aren't there. We won't be there a hundred years, if ever.

Fat people are the soft, squishy, easy target for hatred and discrimination. They are legal to discriminate against in almost every way. And they will be for a very long time.

So don't worry. Your position atop the social pyramid is safe. You're superior. We're inferior. And it'll be that way for as long as you live.

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