From: aquaeri	Date: April 2nd, 2008 11:55 pm (UTC)		(link)

I'm a bit behind here. I'm completely with you on the "stop ranking stuff, already". Even as a child I hated being asked "What's your favourite X?"

I'm neither fat nor a POC, but I'm trying to be tuned into the social conversation around these issues. And I certainly can't rank their relative "oppressivenesses", but they do look different to me. While officially, racism is not approved, it's definitely there on a very deep structural level, and I can believe POC when they say their skin colour affects every moment of their lives. A lot of the anti-fat stuff is, in some sense, much closer to the surface. The assumption that of course fat is bad is much more blatant. I think I understand what it is fat people are trying to point to when they say "Fat is the last acceptable prejudice", but it's not an accurate description of what they're pointing to.

And of course, transgender prejudice is even more blatant, so blatant I think it hasn't occurred to many fat people that it is prejudice, and not "perfectly normal and healthy".