Hi, it's Victoria here from Bam Pow Life, and in this video, we're talking about how to be a fat ally.
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So being a fat ally ... What does it mean to be an ally? It means that you're on side with someone, you are helping them out, you are speaking up for them. Basically, you are trying to be a friend towards them. You can strive to be a fat ally no matter what size you are. If you're already fat, you can also be a fat ally. You can be a fat ally for people who are fatter than you and live in different marginalized bodies.
I'm going to give you some ideas about how you can be a fat ally. Here we go. How about if you're in a position of power in your workplace, that you hire a fat person. Give them a job. Fat people are discriminated against in the workplace and also are less likely to get a job just because of their body size. Promote fat people. Fat women are less likely to become a CEO because of their body size. Fat men also are less likely, but fat women even more so. So if you have that power to give someone a CEO position, why not make it a fatty?
Give fat people a platform to speak. If you are an event organizer or if you have the opportunity to invite someone to speak in any capacity, that could be speaking, writing, having them on your podcast, anything like that, get fat people involved. Make sure that you include fat diversity in whatever project that you are undertaking. So for example, if someone asked me to be involved in their project, I want to know that there are other fat people and also other marginalized people before I take up the space of someone who is fatter or more marginalized than me.
If you are a thin person and you know that a fat person could benefit from something that you are getting, why not speak up and say, "Hey, should we give this to a fat person?"
If you are a thin person, you have privilege. You can use that privilege for good. If another thin person says, "Oh my God, I hate fat people," or, "Ew, fat is bad," then you can use your privilege to speak up and say, "Hey, do you really think that? Fat people are amazing. It's okay to be fat."
If someone makes a fat joke, don't laugh. It's lazy comedy. The whole adage of, "you don't punch down, you punch up," so making fun of fat people, unless you're joking about being fat yourself, and then that's fine, go wild ... But if someone else is making jokes about fat people, just be like, "Dude, that is not cool."
Another way you can be an ally to fat people is to make physical space for them. If you are hosting an event or if you're going out for lunch or dinner with your fat friend, make sure there is a place where they can sit down comfortably. In a restaurant, is there booths? Booths can be a problem for fat people. Are there armrests on the chairs that are really small? Make sure that it's a place that you know has accessible seating. You can also ask your fat friend where would they like to go. They might have places that are best for them in regards to seating that they already know of.
If you are out in public and a fat person sits next to you, do not look at them or eye roll or huff or anything, especially if a fat person is getting onto a plane and they sit next to you. That fat person is probably very aware that they have a fat body squeezing it into a smaller space, so any way that you can make it easier for them, like not looking at them or not being like, "Get me away from this fatty," would be amazing.
Another thing to do is to work out if there's any other ways that anything that you're doing is dehumanizing towards a fat person. There could be things that I've not listed here, but we all have fat biases, every one of us. The reason why is that we are living in a fat-phobic society. Even if you are very educated on fat issues, there will still be little bits inside you where you have a fat bias. Even I have unexplored fat biases that I'm still trying to dig out and work on. Don't assume that because you know about fat positivity or body positivity that you are okay with fat phobia. None of us are, we're all working on it, right?
Finally, one last thing you can do is, how about dating a fat person? Why not fuck a fat person? And not just for a joke or for a dare, because they're an amazing human and you want to get with them, because you know, we are pretty good-looking. Hi. And you can extend that, why don't you marry a fat person? Why don't you marry them? Why don't you marry me? Just marry me. Have sex with me, come on. I'm out here all alone, geez.
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