I should probably just shut up

[darkemeralds]

BikePortland, a bike blog I read daily, had some good coverage today of an unplanned bridge closure affecting a whole bunch of bike-riding commuters (including me). The post elicited lots of comments, many of them straying into broader issues of city streets, traffic management and transportation.

Someone said "All of this insanity, just to put in a street car that's slower than walking and poses a major hazard to its faster and cheaper counterpart, the bicycle. But I understand though, fat people need a way to get to Next Adventure [a sporting goods store]!"



I thought for a couple of minutes, decided I couldn't stay silent, and responded:

As a person who doesn't meet your (implied) standards of acceptable physical size, can I just say how very sick I am of fat bigotry? Not to mention transportation bigotry.

I don't love streetcars either, but a) not everyone can ride a bike; b) not everyone who needs public transit is fat; and c) not everyone who bicycles every single day is (or gets) thin. I'm living proof.

So please check your privilege and reconsider comments that demean, hurt, and alienate at least one member of this community. Thanks.

Then I felt all skittish and scared for speaking up, afraid I was going to get reprimanded by the attractive thin people.

The trouble is, on a blog like BikePortland, I'm such an insignificant minority that nobody even bothers with that. I'm just an embarrassment. It's a weird spot to be in.

Comments

[nwhepcat]

Go you. As someone who's had limitations of varying degrees her whole fucking LIFE, I commend you for pointing out that there are many reasons people take transit. And hey, yeah, that some people are fat no matter what they do. And even if they are fat for "their own fault," they deserve respect too.

And here's another thing: the kinds of foods people who are poor can afford to buy tend to be fattening. A friend of mine who worked for a major hunger education organization told me there are mothers who feed their kids Coke because it's so much cheaper than milk. So I guess there are poor people who don't deserve transit, either.

Grrr. So many reasons to be angry about that post. I commend you for being a voice of humanity on that blog, even if you get no support there. They need to live by WilW's words: Don't be a dick.

[darkemeralds]

I LOVE your icon of Fraser at his most politely instructive. It fits perfectly. And WilW's motto is one for the world.

I'm always troubled by the privilogic that thinness is an accomplishment and worthy of praise. I don't know anyone, anywhere, who was a fat person and has become a thin person. It may be true that some people gain some weight through bad choices that actually were choices (and your example of poverty-level food is a good example of where it's not much of a choice), but the statistics are pretty indisputable: people who tend to fatness stay fat, and people who tend to thinness stay thin. And NONE of it has any bearing on the inherent right to respect that we all have.

And as to transportation! This country seems to be systematically stripping away the public good of city bus systems and replacing it with streetcars and light rail that cost astronomically more per rider-mile served, while also not actually serving the riders who need a ride the most.