Perspective Plus discussion

Last night, I saw a program on "Food Network" that was odd, not so good, and yet made me think. Margaret Cho, decided to perform a social experiment in her own home by posting an add on Craigslist for a blind dinner party. She invited people she had never met or met each other to dinner at her home and see how well they could get along with each other.

It was interesting because among the participants was a gay man, one a female leaning bi-sexual, and a transgender male who had been female. There was woman who has slept with Elvis, a liberal Republican (I never knew there was such a thing),blogger,a chef, and a few others. The gay man admitted that he has trouble with others who are bi or transgender while he has no problem with trying to get others to accept him for being gay. This opened up a discussion about marriage rights and other things as well.

While the show wasn't all that good,it did get me thinking about prejudices and how we even see others who are like us. I have been guilty myself of judging other fat people (in my mind) before either getting to know them. I have judged non fat people before, but to judge someone who I not too different from myself seems even more wrong. I have found myself repulsed,albeit briefly, when I see people bigger than myself on "My 600 lb.life" or other reality shows on cable. I have upon occasion seen a person larger than me in public and have thought, "At least I'm not THAT big" or "I can still walk without a cane/walker/electric scooter etc."


At one time it was a way of defending my size to myself during a time prior to my self acceptance. But it leaves me thinking "How can I preach acceptance for people of our sizes if I can't embrace them myself?" Is this how I want to think, no. Is this a lot to do with social conditioning,most likely. These thoughts are not a part of my usual process and they are fleeting as I ignore them in favor of my usual "Don't judge until you get to know them" rule, although there are just those who you do not like on sight as they just have that kind of vibe, and then I bow to base instinct on those occasions as I feel something more primal is protecting me.

I feel so badly when I have had these thoughts about others and then I think,"Well, if most of this is social conditioning, that I what I am fighting to change." Above all, it means that I am human. Like the guy on the show last night, he expressed his views about being bi as "pick one" and his confusion about transgender, as "why do you want to that to yourself?",but then he said, " I stop and go, 'well, I'm gay and I want others to accept me,so.......'"

We have all done it at one time or another, and depending on where and how we were raised our prejudices against others may never fade. Some prejudices come from experience and yes, there are plenty of people I don't like in this world, but I try to base my dislikes of others based on the individual and not the group as a whole. I do dislike some groups based on group politics,philosophies, or ideals because their ideals harm others, but I do try not to dislike others based on orientation,race or other superficial factors.

I think we are all people at a blind dinner party here, it's just that dinner party is life. It is up to us to make it as good as we can and help those around us along the way. Everyone has value, even the people we don't like, they teach us lessons. I just hope that I am a good lesson and a positive example, and not the reason that people develop a prejudice.

TLC has a show called "My 600 lb. life" which I do not watch regularly, but have seen in brief bits. My knee jerk reaction is that this is exploitative of very large people and follows them as they go through weight loss surgery. I feel that this is not a healthy view of larger people and it is designed to make thin people pity us. That was until I caught part of it the other night.


I saw the story of a woman who is well over 630lbs. Her husband said that when they met in 1997,she would not tell him how much she weighed, but he guesses it was around 400 or so. She (let's call her Betty) said that one day she was at the doctors and she was 330 then the next time it was 600+ I did not watch long enough to know why she was this big, but I did see her at the grocery store with her husband, She needs a scooter chair to get around and there was a moment when she was passing two older men, who felt the need to comment to the other, within her hearing, about getting bigger and needing a bigger wagon. Betty stared to cry, without their knowledge.

She had stated right before this, that in public you either get the pitying looks or the "what a waste" looks. I know those looks only too well. Real or imagined, we have all seen those looks when we have been out in public. I noticed those looks increase if I am eating at a restaurant alone, (somehow less when I am with a friend) and when I used to go our with my friend D, but that may have been because I'm white and he isn't. It is a prejudice that we all have endured, no matter what size we are (thin people get the "EAT something!" looks) yet, it seems that when you reach a larger size, you are also deaf, but are supposed to be gracious when criticized (they're just TRYING to help!)and offered unasked for advice (see previous reason. The same thing happens to pregnant women and new parents).

We are not supposed to hear the negative comments made withing our hearing, but we are supposed to take heed to unwarranted interference from total strangers....


I can't watch these shows for too long as they hit me on such a visceral level, perhaps the real reason for my knee jerk reactions, a whole "but for the grace of God go I" thing, or perhaps it is that my knee jerk is the reaction I should have. Why is it it that any show depicting larger people in a positive light (except "Mike and Molly") is not on television long, but weight loss stories are?

Social prejudice. Fat people are not to be feted, but saved. We are to be pitied, loathed, humiliated, feared, helped, screamed at, browbeaten, reviled, or even made fun of, but we are not seen as positive roll models, good people, productive members of society all due to social prejudice.

We need to fight for our right to be who we are, or we will always be the ones who are deaf, but not blind.