Upstream - [TEASER] Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness w/ Da'Shaun Harrison

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

This is a free preview of the episode "The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness w/ Da'Shuan Harrison," which will be unlocked in a few weeks. To can get early access to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast As a Patreon subscriber you will get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at Patreon.com/upstreampodcast or at upstreampodcast.org/support. Thank you. Anti-fatness as anti-Blackness. Being Black and fat in our capitalist, white-supremacist, ableist, heteronormative society is to live in a body that is subjected to a form of unique violence marked by policing, misdiagnosis, discrimination, abuse, trauma—the list goes on.  And anti-fatness and anti-Blackness are not simply two separate things—disparate nodes on a circuit of oppression—anti-fatness and anti-Blackness form a crucial intersection, and are ultimately one and the same, according to our guest, in terms of their history, structural, weaponization, and deployment by the ideological apparatuses of the capitalist state and the violence which it upholds.  In this episode, we’ll be discussing anti-fatness as anti-Blackness with Da'Shaun Harrison—a writer, editor, speaker, community organizer, co-executive director of Scalawag Magazine, and author of Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness, published by North Atlantic Books. In this conversation, we explore the field of fat studies, the history of anti-fatness and anti-Blackness, why we should view anti-fatness as anti-Blackness, the eugenicist history of BMI—or the Body Mass Index—the need to stretch and grow abolition politics, the importance of unlearning supremacist ideology, and much more.  Further resources: Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness, published by North Atlantic Books Da'Shaun's LinkTree Roxanne Gay Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, Sabrina Strings Heavy: An American Memoir, Kiese Laymon The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women’s Unruly Political Bodies, Andrea Shaw Related episodes: Abolish the Police Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at  upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

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That kind of engagement actually does help boost visibility quite a bit, along with like commenting and sharing and liking posts, obviously that kind of stuff. If you want to help the podcast continue to reach new people in other ways, please leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or just the rating on Spotify. I know we say this every episode, so thank you if you have already done this, but if you haven't, it does make a huge difference in whether or not these apps suggest the podcast to new listeners

or feature us in various categories. It's one of the most impactful single things that you can do. And so thank you so much everyone here for supporting the show. You are really making this all possible. We genuinely could not do this without you. So thank you so much again and we hope that you enjoy this conversation. I really wanted to write something that didn't require people like me, fat, Black, trans folks to compartmentalize our identities. So that's how I would introduce Belly of the Beast.

It is a way to disrupt the continued compartmentalization of identities in academic disciplines, to get to the heart of what folks are experiencing, and more specifically get to the heart of why people are experiencing it, which is because of anti-fatness as anti-blackness. You are listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream.

A podcast of documentaries and conversations that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. I'm Robert Raymond. And I'm Della Duncan. Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness. Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness Being black and fat in our capitalist, white supremacist, ableist, heteronormative society is to live in a body that is subjected to a form of unique violence marked by policing, misdiagnosis, discrimination, abuse, trauma. The list goes on. And anti-fatness and anti-blackness are not simply two separate things, disparate nodes on a circuit of oppression.

Anti-fatness and anti-blackness form a crucial intersection and are ultimately one in the same, according to our guest, in terms of their history, structural weaponization, and deployment by the ideological apparatuses of the capitalist state and the violence which it upholds. In this episode, we'll be discussing Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness with De'Shawn Harrison, a writer, editor, speaker, community organizer, co-executive director of Scalawag magazine, and author of Belly of the Beast, the politics of anti-fatness as anti-blackness, published by North Atlantic Books. In this conversation we explore the field of fat

studies, the history of anti-fatness and anti-blackness, why we should view anti-fatness as anti-blackness, the eugenicist history or BMI or the body mass index, the need to stretch and grow abolition politics, the importance of unlearning supremacist ideology, and much more. And now, here's Della in conversation with Daeshawn Harrison. So welcome, welcome to Upstream. So happy to have you. And we love to start by asking our guests to introduce themselves. So would you mind starting with an introduction? by asking our guests to introduce themselves. So would you mind starting with an introduction? Hello, I am Daeshawn Harrison.

I am a lot of things. I'm a writer and editor. I am a speaker. I am also what I like to call a Netflix aficionado and a music enthusiast. I am a partner to a wonderful person. I am the child to a great mom. I am a sibling to many incredible people. I like to share those things because I think that a lot of times, you know, we're invited into spaces

to talk about our work and we forget that people are people and that they are so much more than just the labor that they produce. So I like to start off with those in my introduction. But I'm also the author of Belly of the Beast, The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness. I have written for a long time on the connection between anti-fatness and anti-blackness.

I have been a community organizer and part of movement building for the past ten years here in Atlanta, Georgia. And I am the former editor at large and now co-executive director of Scalawag Magazine, which is a magazine based in the South with a focus on Black Southern politics and Black Southern movements, both in the US South and the global South. And so, yeah, that's who I am and what I do. Thank you.

And yes, that's exactly why we love to have you introduce yourself because, you know, the only what we do for our paid labor, right, is so limiting and also very capitalist performative and we are so much more and we bring all of that to this conversation. So thank you for that introduction. And yeah, Netflix aficionado. I wonder if you could share what you're what you're benching right now. Do you have a favorite show right now? So funny enough, I'm actually on Hulu currently and not Netflix. But there's a show called Reasonable Doubt that I'm watching on Hulu. It's about it's about a lot of things. But basically it's about this lawyer.

Her name is Jack. She's a black woman in California who is a public defender turned corporate defense attorney who has a very real investment in defending people in her community and trying to find the balance between doing the work that she does and maintaining a family and friendships and her home. family and friendships and her home and so it is a very I would say it's one of the more unique lawyer shows but definitely one that I have enjoyed so far so that's what I'm currently watching that's on Hulu and on Netflix I haven't been on Netflix in a couple of days I cannot remember what I've been watching on there but my list on

there is so long. It's kind of embarrassing. So there are a number of things on there to catch up with. Thank you. And yeah, I'm sure we could have a great conversation on our favorite shows, but we are joining today to talk about the book that you mentioned, Belly of the Beast, the politics of anti-fatness as anti-blackness. And maybe to start with, how might you introduce that book and why did you come to write it? What inspired or informed that work? Yeah, I would say that Belly of the Beast is an intervention. It's an intervention that seeks to really get to the heart of what I felt was missing in fat studies discourse, right?

So fat studies is this two decade odd academic discipline academic study. And for the most part, it has been very centered around cis white women who are trying to find or build or connect their analysis around what they've experienced in their bodies as fat white women to a larger sort of structural violence that we call anti-fatness or that some we call fatphobia. And I wanted to disrupt that, right? There have been a

number of books written by black fat folks, especially in the last couple of years. Before Belly the Beast there were only a few really there was like you know some from Roxane Gay there was one from Kiese Layman which I think is brilliant there was one written in 2006 by Andrea Shaw and then of course there was Fear in the Black Body by Sabrina Strings who was not fat but wrote what I think is one of the most necessary texts to read in fat studies, really. And so I really wanted to write something that didn't require people like me, fat, Black, trans folks, to compartmentalize our identities. our identities. I think for a long time, you know, if you wanted to find something that spoke to you or to your experience, you have to sort of ignore the fact that you are black

and trans in fat study spaces, or you have to ignore the fact that you are fat and trans and black study spaces. More generally, of course, there are niche disciplines like trans studies and black studies and things of that nature, but more generally, it's something that just oftentimes has to be compartmentalized. Same if you're reading in like women, gender, sexuality studies, your transness is sometimes part of those conversations, but your fatness and your blackness oftentimes aren't. And I wanted to write something that was not part of an academic discipline per se and therefore didn't require me or readers like me to compartmentalize who we are and what our identities are and therefore what our experiences in the world are. So that's how I would introduce Belly the Beast. It is an

intervention. It is a way to disrupt the continued compartmentalization of identities in academic disciplines to get to the heart of what folks are experiencing and more specifically get to the heart of why people are experiencing it, which is because of anti-fatness as anti-blackness. Yeah, thank you for that. And intervention, a great way to describe the book

and truly an intersectional piece. It just, it really felt like layer upon layer, you have the anti-fatness, anti-blackness, bringing in gender and also bringing in capitalism and economics, also policing, abolition movements. So a lot of layers here. So maybe we'll kind of layer them together to make this holistic piece that you worked on. So maybe to start with fat studies, it may not be familiar to a lot of people. Maybe people have taken classes in fat studies, others might not even be aware that that discipline exists. So,

if we were to start there, what are some common myths or harmful views that are common around fatness that we need to address and unlearn and that fat studies is really working to dismantle? and unlearn and that fat studies is really working to dismantle? Yes. So I think this is a great question for folks who are perhaps unaware. I think what I would say is that fat studies largely is attempting to disrupt this idea that fatness is something to be dominated or exercised or destroyed, right? That fatness is something that is violent and harmful and wrong, that is unrighteous and that it's bad, right? That there's a reason to form entire medical, social,

political systems and structures, financial structures around the destruction of, or really the genocide of fatness and fat people. And what that means is getting to the heart of the violence of the BMI system, getting to the heart of the violence of what many would call the old word or obesity and the ways that it has been pathologized and framed through medical institutions as a way to criminalize, objectify and violate fat people. It means getting to the heart of the experiences

that we have as fat folks that has been largely constructed by the world around us. And so, yeah, I would say that fat studies is very invested in just undoing that violence or at least clarifying that that violence is happening and that it's happening on a much larger basis than just one that is interpersonal. And I think what is more true is that Black slash Black fat folks who are writing in this work,

who are producing in, I guess, sort of fat study spaces are really trying to get clear that so much about the ways that fatness is framed is because of the way that blackness is framed and therefore the conversation has to be so much larger than just a lot of the very sort of surface conversations that happen because it does also include policing. It does also include food deserts and food apartheid.

It does also include food deserts and food apartheid. It does also include gentrification processes. It does also include just all the myriad ways that Black folks are also directly harmed by the world in which we live. And so, yeah, I think that that's how I would explain fat studies. Thank you for that intro. Yeah, I'm reminded of an article that a comrade sent me yesterday. The article from The Telegraph is titled, Unemployed to be given weight loss jabs to get them back to work. Health secretary to hand obese patients drugs to prevent them from holding back our economy. Just a very clear example of what you're talking about with the, you know, the criminalization,

stigmatization, the medicalization, that there's something inherently wrong, and the, like you said, the erasure of fatness or of fat people. I mean, there's so much to unpick from that article, but just a very clear demonstration. But yeah, of course, there's many ways that fat people are discriminated against. And yeah, a lot of the ways you articulate in the book in terms of, you know, different prices for different surgeries or different procedures. And of course, just yeah, the medical system really discriminating and And of course, just, yeah, the medical system really discriminating and being cruel, both in terms of shaming, but in other terms of structural to fat people. I don't know if there's anything you want to say by way of that comment.

I'm like still reflecting on just the excerpt you read from the article, right? And yeah, I just don't even... I laugh because it is really transparent the things that fat phobes and anti-fat I would say agents attempt to do. It's just very transparent. So it makes me kind of laugh because I'm like, you know, there's no originality there. And so, yeah, but that's really all that I have to add there. I just think that, you know, it's a shame that we live in the world that we do. And that is the importance, I think, of doing the work that myself and many others do. Because you can't know or you can't even begin to discuss what it means to destroy that sort of thing if you can't clarify first what is even happening.

And so that's why this work feels so important to me. This was a clip from our Patreon episode with Daeshawn Harrison. You can listen to the full episode by becoming a Patreon subscriber. As a Patreon subscriber, you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month, usually two or three, our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to select episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers, depending on which tier you subscribe to. You'll also be helping us to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at patreon.com forward slash Upstream podcast or upstreampodcast.org forward slash support. Thank you.