Transcripts For CSPAN2 Kimberly Dark Fat Pretty And Soon To Be Old 20240713

Panels, blast events. We have vivian chen will be up next at five p. M. She will be closing us up for the weekend. But before that im excited to welcome Kimberly Dark here. A performer, thinker, critical analyst and generally essayist. I dont know anyother nouns you prefer. Sorry, im a little braindead, its been a long weekend but i am excited to welcome her here to our stage to talk about her book, pretty and soon to be old please join me in giving her a warm round of applause. You so much. Im going to talk to the three of you that are sitting right here in front of me. I just want to say thank you doctor can be, i would be standing here getting a book signed myself if i work here busy with other things. Im Kimberly Dark and its my pleasure to be here with you. I am also, pretty and soon to be old. As the title says and were going to talk about appearance privilege and how that works. If you could just look around you right now and focus on a stranger. Dont stare, that would be weird but just get a stranger in my and think about what kind of words you would use to describe that person. Dont say them, that would also be weird but what kind of words youwould use to describe that person if you wanted to be nice. Okay. Now think about what kind of words you would use to describe that person you really wanted to insult. Yes. You can come up with some of those even though youmight think he would never say that. Thats possible. So take a look at me here, im going to stand up for justin riyadh. Same deal, what words would you use if you wanted to be nice . What kind of words would you use if you didnt. If you didnt want to be nice and were going to talk about how niceness has consequences and the lack of it has consequences in peoples lives. Id like to point out to you words like facts and old are almost never used as complements. Even though they are neutral descriptive terms. We have made them synonymous with insults in our culture. And this is a real problem. So im going to tell you some stories on the book and heres the first comment on being all. I read from paper rather than book because this is an 18. 5 and i cant readit otherwise. So thats what im going to do. I suggest to you that feeling you have when youre thinking good words about another person, not someone we want to encourage. We want to let go of allof the power that comes from the other. All right. This is called the chance to practice. So ive been practicing yoga for nearly 30 years teaching for more than 20. This is the body of a longterm yoga practitioner. Ive done things with this body would astound you. This is the body all the yoga magazines have promise you you its okay to laugh. Because we all understand without saying why thats no one should want a fat body like mine. See, my regular yoga practice started because actors from carrying the baby and my friend wendy said come with me to the adult school where i started taking yoga twice a week. It features a little weird it is a drafty room with concrete boards but maybe it will help your back. That was when there were probably three yoga studios in san diego rather than three on every street corner, now that yoga has become a fitness craze. Okay, we call that teacher freaky phyllis because she was a little weird and she was always saying goofy stuff about superior induced spirituality. She wasnt a real clear thinker, our phyllis. One day when we were resting at the end of class he started talking about how Mother Teresa was the perfect example of hindu spirituality. Now, that i couldnt swallow so i perked up and said phyllis, Mother Teresa is. To which she clocked and said i just didnt understand. So wendy and i decided that we couldnt stand phyllis anymore. We want to learn more so we chose a different yoga studio , a proper yogastudio. Wendy went ontuesday, i was going to go on thursday. We work it out to go together the followingweek. Wendy reported to me that the class was great, quiet, nice props, good instruction on tuesday i showed up early and met the teacher. She looked me up and down and said oh, i dont know if im going to let you come to the group class tonight. Now at first, i really didnt understand. Even though i had been the fattest woman in the aerobics class in the gym, on the hiking trail my whole life, i was thinking about being different in ayoga class. The adult school weve been attending at a variety of students, different ages, shapes and sizes. This new teacher that my body some more and said well, with new students have you take some private classes are. Then we can tell if youre ready for a group class. Im not new to yoga, i said. Ive been practicing a couple of years to which she replied well, clearly you have some orthopedicdifficulties. And so i left. My face hobbled with silent shame because this is how it works. She was in charge this is how it works. She probably didnt even mean to be biased or bigoted or even realized that she was treating me differently and she traded slender wendy. She was probably just managing her discomfort with my body and her mind was superfast to make up an excuse with which she was really comfortable. Honorable, even. I mean, she was just being reasonable. See, this is how it works. Im not supposed to say anything. Im supposed to take the shame she gave me and carry it and at that useful point in my life, thats what i did. I turned and left and i tried not to feel bad when wendy would mention taking classes at that pretty little studio because i didnt speak up, that teacher never had a chance to practice being her better. She never had a chance to confront her fears of my body. And she had just confirmed them further because i followed the script. We both follow the cultural script we were given. But listen, dont be sad because you already know how the story ends. I found the teacher who treated me like a regular student and indeed i became a regular student. And then i trained to be a teacher and i welcome everyone to the yoga mat. I welcome bodies like mine, bodies different from mine and some bodies that scare me to. How will i teach this person, i wonder . And then i challenge myself to find out. I checked my language and how i interact with bodies because we all deserve respect and encouragement and my cultures failings are in me to. When people challenge my body and the Teacher Roles as they sometimes do with glances, i give them another chance. I smile and maintain eye contact and remain in my full humanity as they question my validity. It doesnt happen all the time but it happens consistently. This is the culture in which we live. Of fat middleaged lady should not be the fitness instructor. The yoga instructor, the rock climber, the disco dancers. The fat middleaged lady could not be physical or respectable in any way. I am respectable in the body i have every day. And i give people a chance to join me in thatview. On a yoga teacher and i shall be bought to practice with the body and mind, just like with yoga. Diligence with language and thinking bring improvements. It doesnt matter who weare. When we practice something long enough, we learn. [applause] so im going to stand and sit a little bit because im alittle disabled and its helpful to me. I wanted to start with that story is i think that it frames something about my own practice which is that when people confront me with their negative views, whether its of my appearance or my identities, i tried to stay kind and steadfast. And i totally know a careful call out can be an world of good sometimes but the reason i tried to stay kind is that i want the world that is more capable of holding and respecting diverse bodies and i think part of how we get that world is by respecting the kind ofdiversity we dont always like either. And this is not the same as trying to climb disappear, thats the steadfast part. When someone disrespects me, i do my best to stay complex, stay in my full Human Dignity because i understand that when im interacting with someone who behaves badly, im probably interacting someone who is wounded and doesnt yet know it. I also understand that my dignity heals others. My dignity heal others. So im going to another story also from the book eventhough im reading it from the page. Lets see, we have a little less time. Im feeling like you want the story about john travolta, thats what im feeling. Becoming travolta. Okay, saturday night fever was the first rrated film i ever saw. I sat uncomfortably next to my mother during the whole film knowing at some point someone would have sex and she would have her i on me and there it was. John travolta and that woman he dumped start to have sex in the backseat of the car but i was even more uncomfortable when that young woman cried because travolta dumped her for somebody else. I could feel my mothers smugness. That trollop got her comeuppance. It was her own fault and my mother wanted me to take a lesson. Thats why i imagined anyway. Later at home as she was ironing i sat on the bed and my mother wanted to know if i had any questions about such an adult home. Good heavens no, under no circumstances did i have any questions about that film. I tuned out whatever happened next. It was awful. The next time i saw an rrated filmwith my mother was probably 20 years later and only slightly less uncomfortable. You see, when i imagine a guy in my minds eye i am a Young John Travolta character. Im Vinny Barbara Reno from welcome back kotter or im dancing in the white suit in saturday night fever or better yet, im an all black with my hairslicked back singing youre the one that i want. From greece. See, its not that im interested in being a guy or taking on a romantic role of it in my own but travolta is one ingredient in my adolescence too. He is really the only male actor ive imitated with any regularity. And i have become travolta across a range of characters. Okay, my friends and i loved the music from saturday nightfever. The bee gees were dreamy and they give brothers were the hotties of the day. Though the film was important, not all of my friends were allowed to see it because it was rated r and the nightclub scene depicted was a little complexand disturbing for some of us. It you listen to the music and ignored the film, but when greece came out a year later, my friends and i were in our element. Even though those actors didnt look Like High School kids, we accepted them as our own. This was 1978, my friends and i ranged in age from 10 to 13 and the plot line was easier to understand than d night fever. No urban grit, just that silly suburban setting in which ourplot lines laid out. Despite the 1950s being long gone. And what did we love best . The transformation of sandra dee, do you all remember this film . Some of you do, okay. Weall wanted to be here her, to have that kind of power over that kind of guy. We love degrees to lightning and then we went through hopelessly devoted waiting for it to end but over and over we would dance and lipsynch and sometimes even saying you better shape up because i need a man and my heart is set on you. Now, the trouble with the burning need to put on this spectacle over and over again was that we were all girls. Boys had no interest in playing that game and we would have likely been embarrassed to have it up around them anyway. We all wanted to be sandy in her shiny spandex pantsand stiletto heels. But my friend group of four, i was always cast as the leading bad boy greaser. It was my destiny. I already knew the score and had come to embrace my role in the group, ask anyone who grew up as a fat girl if she ever got the female with thinner girly girls around. I would put money onanswer being no. This is probably also true for girls who work in were considered unattractive with their prettier friendswanted those roles. We didnt even discuss it, thats just how it was. Someone had to be travolta and it was going to be me i was the biggest in the group so the most convincing guy. Or maybe that meant i was the least convincing sandra the. We took our rolls from hollywood and did our best to divvy them and act them out in our child bodies. Leading lady role, the feminine role, playing the one to whom men needed to be attracted, it was not for me. This is the most important lesson some girls learn early on, not everyone can try out for that part. You wont get. And youll only humiliate yourself trying. See, the latter was the reason sandra d came a knock out after all. She was just a prettylittle girl before that final transformation. She was just nice. But with her hair all curled up, with bright stilettos she became the trophy which travolta could openly your and compete. So over and over again my best friend and i practiced that part where travolta falls to his knees in frontof Olivia Newtonjohn. I practiced that shoulder leading punch with which she follows her as she slinks away only to return and dominate him again. And again. I sang your the one that i want and my other two friends added that full set of. I practiced as my bounty little blonde best friend insecure in her own speckled beauty them over me in an overly theatrical way. The other two girls in our foursome understudies for Olivia Newtonjohn. Sometimes they were hand on hip soccer channing but i was travolta. At some point i started to realize that there were more like me. Fat girls who could really dance and knew what it meant to be hot. Fat girls who knew what it meant to be funny and smart. We were observers and supporters but we were also travolta , the leading man in our own minds. At some point i realized that being restricted byconvention may have been lonely at times , but in this i was not unique. Other fat girls revealed all the while studying both parts with fervor we didnt stop being Olivia Newtonjohn inside, even though we had the travolta role. Sure, some girls who grew up to identify with masculinity would work probably pleased as punch to become travolta and never gave olivia another thought. Those are the women i date but i wasnt one of those. I didnt know this for sure but i suspect that the masculine eyes and a fat girls, ugly girls , gay girls and have a fabulous side effect. Perhaps it turned some of the query girls into a sort of them direct. I know more than a few of us out there and ive always wondered how we can be so fabulous. Fat femmes in particular area and it takes some gumption to be other than average in the female category. Fat and queer for starters and to reclaim and sometimes exaggerate the big prize that sandy finally held aloft in greece area and assertive, sexy, femininity. Becoming travolta was not an entirely raw deal. He was the leading man,after all. But other two friends only understudied Olivia Newtonjohn. We all did that. But in the show, i was the male lead againand again. Sure, it would be a better world if we all have the freedom to bethe characters we liked best. One by one in an innovative combination. I do hope that day is coming. And becomingtravolta wasnt so bad. Its amazing how the rules we didnt want can make us richer sometimes. [applause] okay, thanks. So yes, probably today 10yearold me would be dancing and belting it out to lizzo songs. Do you know who lizzo is . Shes a popstar. Shes doing good work, spreading love herself nowadays. So listen, im a sociologist by training and most of the stories that i write are about my own life and its not because i think theres something false or uninteresting its about my life, its just that my stories are the ones i am entitled towork with. My life is the best tool i have two experiment with the expectations that society gives us. And i think we can all stand to Pay Attention a little bit more to those expectations and how we conform to them, rub up against them, pushed up against them, all these things because we are creating culture, this is what humans do. I dont mean me, i mean literally all of us. The way we behave, the way we speak else set standards for right and wrong in the culture and helps influence how people we never meet are treated well into the future and i think thats hard to remember when we are just out of the Grocery Store going to a yoga class. But i think that theres something to paying attention to the stories that we live. How are you all doing west and mark should i tell you one more story and then if you have questions, i would love to know them. So i was going to share one about disability. I dont think i have time but this is called anatomy of a putdown. We are kind of staying solidly in this category of stories that are about fat and gender and i want to be clear though that this idea about what really means right, like we commonly think about that as, well i hope we do as being rooted in White Supremacy. It absolutely is but so is the hatred of fat rooted in White Supremacy. I dont have time to talk about this today but ill refer youto sabrina strings new book. Hearing the fat body, i knewi could come up with. But so this is important. The intersections of what we think of as attractiveness and how we treat people with regard to health and income and lots of different privileges. All right. Anatomy of a putdown. Recently, at dinner my neighbors fiveyearold grandson taylor watched me sit down and said to his grandpa at full volume, shes even fatter than me. Shes fat. He finished with emphasis, looking at me outof the corner of his eyebecause clearly , those statements were meant for me to. Grandfather along with two others at the dinner table did that pullback, that sucking up all the air and saying nothingthat we have learned to do in awkward social moments. Now, i know this child. Not well but i have had meals with him before. Ive seen him in the neighborhood. He is has never called me fat before but who knows, maybe he was bored and looking for a bit of entertainment. He seemed to want to amuse himself with adult discomfort or perhaps just my shame. Though he was talking to his grandfather trying to find an accomplice in the joke i said hey, taylor. You just call me fat and he turned to meet with a bit of fear on his face because this is not how its supposed to go. I was also speakingat full volume for the other diners to hear. I dont think theres anything wrong with being called fat the cause its not bad to the fat you know what, some people think thats an insult word so maybe she you shouldnt say it until you hear themsay at first and then you know its okay because otherwise you could really hurt somebodys feelings. Youre not hurting myfeelings though. That is just one of the ways forbodies to be , so what. His mouth hung open for a moment , staring at me. One of the other diners relieved said wow. That was a really good answer. I nodded and added, speaking to her but also so that young taylor could hear, you know, some people have learned that being fat is shameful, thats what everyone goes silent when a kid says Something Like that and its good to show them there is no shame needed. Grandfather impressed turned to taylor and said that taunting lee, shes got no shame for you. Taylorsmouth still hung open. You want to know what shame is . He continued. Thats when youre caught stealing at thestore and you get caught, thats when you feel shame. Im not sure what taylor was absorbing at that point. He may have been thinking wow , sometimes you pipe up and everything takes a hard right turn. Thats for sure, kid thats for sure. Kids learn from reflection and from trial and error, just like adults. Theres certainly no fast track though. A little while later he called his grandfather old man in appointed tone meant to hurt. I gave him the icu eyes but i didnt say anything. Taylor was five as we shared that meal and i know him to be very smart and mouthy and forever fidgety at a dinner table. My grandson and taylor arethe same age. Though my first instinct is to feel small for how much better page is. [inaudible] its not like is perfect. Taylor can also poke a friend and say of someone else sitting at the same table, hes fat or stupid or has stinky feet or eats salt for dinner. Sure, he could at five. And everyone learns that its possible to elevate oneself by putting down someone else in a clever way. And if he learns that others will collude with putdowns and that he can feel a sense of belonging by creating an inside joke about someone else , its not just possible. Its likely. Furthermore, he could do that at school and never admit to being that kind of person at the dinner table with his parents who dont approve of body shaming. Now, when my son was five i overheard him with some neighborhood friends as they played a game on our patio. They were talking about teenage mutant ninja turtles. It was the biggest show on tv at the time. They were reminiscing about their favorite episodes and my sonchimed in with his favoriteepisode blowbyblow. One thing puzzled me. We didnt have a tv. I asked him later where he had seen that show and he shrugged and said hed never seen it. When i told him what i had overheard he looked at me sweet faced as ever and said oh, when i heard other kids talking about the show i memorized what they said though that i could tell the story again the next timekids were talking about it. Everybody talks about it. I wanted to talk about it too. I nodded because that made sense. The woman seated next to me at the dinner table when taylor commented on me being fat, one of the people who recoiled in silent horror when he said it, shes a kindergarten teacher. Shes also the one who said i gave a really good answer. After taylor turned his attention elsewhere, she told me that she had seen children in her class say this sort of thing trying to make another child feel bad. She saidshe never knew what to say. And i thought, really . I mean, even though a person has children or works with children, somehow one may never find an adequate response. And i think this means we arent looking for one. Kids learn that theres power in befuddling adults just like theres power to be gained in successfully hurting another persons feelings. Its a sad kind of power but its power nonetheless. Taylor was definitely puffed up in that small moment when everyone fell uncomfortably silent before i spoke. Now, im also thinking of the wording in taylors specific comment. Shes even fatter than me. Now, hes not a fat child at all although ive seen him put away some desserts, for brownies that very night so i imagine people havethreatened him with becoming fat. Quit eating those, youll get fat. Thats the sort ofthing people tell kids all the time. So this is a sophisticated game taylor has already learned to play well before his sixthbirthday. Not only is he controlling adult behavior , albeit briefly and not only is he bonding with someone over the put down of another and not only does he know which things to say to shame a grown woman, he knows how to improve his own image in the process. Now, while most adults put aside direct putdowns in favor of subtler shade, many adults still think if they put themselves down to, theyre not really being meanies to include others. Its one of the ways that fat people themselves can perpetuate fat hatred at the same time that they seek community. Come on, that kind of insult says. Were all big and grows, ill admit it before you throw it in my face and ill pull you in while im at it. My mother still uses the kind of insult that taylor used regarding food. Shes not fat either. Recently we were eating oatmeal and after spooning brown sugar into her own steaming bowl, she lookedover and compared it to thecolor of my oatmeal. Shesaid wow , i put more sugar in my cereal than everyone. Except you. Now, we were the only two people at the table. I took a deepbreath and replied simply, i didnt put any sugar in mind, its dark chocolate. She sat upright in surprise and without missing her volley replied oh, well. If you want to have chocolate for breakfast i suppose that makes sense. No one could call her a bully. No sir. See that taylor, hes a smart kid. Ill bet you know some like him. One of the best things about parenting and grandparenting is the constant opportunity to up our own game. And we get tochoose which game it is and what we are teaching. Whatever theres a silence after an insult like tailors or about any unspoken bias like when a kid innocently comments on someones race or social class, we can a attention, make a mental note and then talk about stuff through with peers so that we invent the answer that teaches something positive the next time. Then we rarely have a perfect come back when were surprised but why be surprised by things that are said or intimated again and again . I am certainly not surprised when someone speaks ill of fat, it happens all the time. Taylors comment at least was clear and direct. Thats all i did when i spoke up. I had invented a better answer and i delivered it with clear, call the eye contact. Everyone at the table felt relief and hopefully taylor learned something. At the very least, he added a possible new response to the possible repertoire of answers that adults can give. See, beginning in childhood i was handed the same shame that every fat person has been handed and for the first part of my life , i carried it and then i learned to put itdown. Then i learned to talk about it. You can too. If we want kids to grow up and take response ability for their words and actions , its time adults do more of that ourselves. [applause] thank you. So listen, let me ask you this, has it gotten easier to hear the word fat as aneutral descriptive term during the time ive been talking . A little bit . This is progress right here. This is what i would like to sort of finish with and see if youve got some questions is the idea that humans are malleable, like literally in the space of 30 minutes hearing that word shifted for you, the meaning of it shifted and it became more normalized. And this is how interactions work to change policy and change culture as well. Im not saying we have all the power, but we certainly have our power and trying to give that away just because we feel small or powerless, its notworthwhile. So what other questions do you have for me . Thanks for listening to some stories and thinking about appearance privilege for a little while. Yes. [inaudible] dont worry about speaking up, the microphoneis coming. The past 5 to 7 years a term thats become popular in Popular Culture is the obesity epidemic. The medicalization of fat bodies and how its not that we areconcerned about your appearance , its your health so i wonder if you could comment a little bit about that and how to sort of i guess deal with that for lack of a better way to put that. I can comment about that. So look, the obesity epidemic is an invention. Its a form of eugenics. There are a whole lot of illnesses that correlate with being fat. Theres a big difference between correlation and causation. Are you with me on this . So the illnesses that correlate with being fat are the same illnesses that correlate with other forms of social oppression. Theyre the same illnesses that correlate with racism, with lower social class. Theyre the same illnesses that correlate with any form of being ostracized in ones community because we are social animals. We need human interaction. We need to feel loved and belonging and so there is, if you take a look at health at every size for instance, its a movement of medical professionals, nutrition professionals that are trying to look at what are the other factors that influence. Because whether or not you choose to eat the bacon or the doughnut, that for most people is like 5 to 15 percent of how your health is actually affected and influenced. The rest iseither genetic or environmental, including oppression. So these are some of the things to talk about but i realize even though this book is about 15 different kinds of intersectional oppression, fat is the one that people come back to again and again. I mean, im not trying to say you did it too but its really on our minds. Because its such a hard one to fight against. And fight against it we must because you dont ever get a pass for not treating people with basic dignity and respect. This is something i think we dont internalize often enough. I really appreciated what doctor kinde was saying in the session before this about continuing to investigate where does racism live within each of us. This is all of us in the culture that we feel entitled to create hierarchies and put someone down and thats really what im interested in. How do we use our stories, our own and others to stop creating hierarchy based on appearanceand identity . Is that helpful . Other questions. Its gotten colder in the last hour. My sweater is over there. I know you just were talking about this but could you say a little bit more about White Supremacy and fat shaming relationships . Yes i can. So the book i just recommended to you is by sabrina strange. Hatred of the fat body, fear of the fat body. Youre going to remember her last name because it is strange and ive just done this with my hands. Also, a book called fat shame by amy farrell looks at the historical progression of fat hatred in the United States so if you take a look at that , fatness used to be a sign of health. It was associated with wealth. It was associated with beauty but you know what happened in the United States with regard to slavery and colonization was that we didnt just enslave people and say we can do this because we have the power to do so. No, we said theres something inferior about these people and one of the things that happened really significantly around the time of the Womens Suffrage Movement was that white women wanted to create distance between themselves and women of color and the biggest way that that was done in images and in advertising and in slogans for suffrage was to create slender white way fishnets, even though obviously, people come in a range of sizes regardless of what part of the world that they come from. So this was a very conscious thing to try and get the vote for women. I could say so much more but there are better resources that my book that will talk about that specifically, the ways that obesity and fat hatred were constructed rooted in White Supremacy. We have time for one more question if anybodysgot one. Alright, well please join me in thanking Kimberly Dark. Former wall street trader turned photojournalist journalist chris are 90 talk about the plight of those living on the margins of society in america. New York Times Magazine contributor Peggy Ornstein examines the role of sex and masculinity in the lives of young men and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg joins National Constitution Center President and ceo Jeffrey Rosen to discuss her life and career. Tune in for our primetime lineup starting at 7 50 p. M. Eastern. Check your Program Guide for more information. Recently philosophy professor Michael Lynch spoke in Portsmouth New Hampshire about political polarization. Heres a portion of his talk. Convictions have a history and what he meant by that was that often convictions dont start out as identity centered values. They start as passing opinions like the opinions some people have that Climate Change is not a real thing. I can start as an opinion but become nietzsche said that sort of opinion can become under the circumstances hardened into conviction. Something that becomes reflective of that persons identity and the tribes identity that they want to be part of once something becomes part of the identity in that way, it becomes hard to change it because to change it, to change your mind about that is to change your mind about yourself and therefore, its not surprising that people will if thats right, people with convictions like the one i mentioned, they will go to Great Lengths to rationalize away evidence and even logic to defend themselves against what they see as a threat. So welcome. The scheduling of this book and panel is timely given the rising crisis with iran. Well get to that subject eventually, but the point