Fat People of Color: Emergent Intersectional Discourse Online

Abstract

Though the general populace has been introduced to the idea of thin privilege, the fat activist movement has been slow in gaining momentum. This is due, in part, to the symbolic annihilation of "fat" people in media. Within the fat activist framework, women of color are often further excluded from the overarching discourse and white privilege is sometimes unacknowledged. Taking an intersectional approach, I examine the Tumblr page, Fat People of Color. I use Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA) to examine the images and conversations posted by users. Findings reveal that Fat People of Color uses an intersectional, communal approach to posit counter-narratives against normative ideas about white thinness. This research contributes to an understudied area of sociological inquiry by presenting an analysis of the experience of "fat" women of color within a feminist framework. Ignoring the variation of experiences strengthens the types of privileges that fat activism and feminism hope to dismantle.

Advancing a sociology of ignorance in the study of racism and racial non‐knowing

“…For example, King and Lee () urge “epistemic disobedience,” and Cazenave () “linguistic racial confrontation,” to resist and challenge the White‐rescuing forms of linguistic racial accommodation that plague academic and public discourse. Others discuss the democratizing capacities of social media platforms and new media more broadly (Brock, ; Riemer, ; Williams, ; Williams & Gonlin, ). Indeed, Jones () links the contemporary popularity of “Black Twitter” to a long tradition of African Americans connecting, mobilizing, and resisting White racism using “underground” technologies and linguistically coded forms of communication (see also Florini, ).…”

Uncompensated emotional labor, racial battle fatigue, and (in)civility in digital spaces

“…Research from social psychology, cultural studies, and the field of communication suggests that as people feel the effects of uncompensated emotional labor (consciously or subconsciously) in the digital public sphere, they seek out safe spaces as a reprieve (Williams, ). As individuals begin to curate their networks, they create a comfort zone “that mitigates characteristic fears of social exclusion and rejection, resulting in greater willingness to share core characteristics of the self” (Trub, , pp.…”

“…78–79). People can work to create safe spaces online in pursuit of social acceptance, to avoid the uncompensated emotional labor involved in performing civility or to seek relief from racial battle fatigue, though some platforms afford safe spaces more than others (e.g., one may curate social networks more easily on Tumblr than on Twitter; Davis & Chouinard, ; Williams, ). Safe spaces can serve as a communal environment of support and may help to temporarily relieve the symptoms of racial battle fatigue because there is less pressure to manage emotions or to maintain performances of civility.…”

“Why can’t I take a full-shot of myself? of course I can!” studying selfies as socio-technological affective practices

“…While the field of fat studies is paying increasing attention to the ways that body size intersects with other differences (see e.g., Catherine Connell 2013;Cat Pausé 2014), the connections of size to race in particular need further exploring (see Apryl A. Williams 2017).…”

“…Although the need for emancipatory self-images is the highest for the most marginalized subjects, such as racialized fat women or transpeople (see Samantha Kwan 2010), the risks for taking and sharing such images and facing shaming are also greater. Yet, the majority of body positive websites and other spaces focus on self-representations by white women and expect other subjects' ideas of their bodies to confirm to the standards of white cis-genderness (Williams 2017).…”