19 October 2009
Anti-discrimination rally in London
There's been a bunch of typically annoying news stories today about a rally outside City Hall in London calling for anti-discrimination laws for fat people. This has been spearheaded by Kathryn Szrodecki. I met Kathryn briefly at The Fat of the Land, but don't really know about what she's doing. I'm not sure if this rally is purely a media stunt, I think there's a BBC TV programme in production that Kathryn may or may not be involved with, or if it is something that is likely to generate more substance. Whatever the outcome, hopefully something good, I just wanted to note here that this is happening.
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At least some of it seems to have been triggered by what appears to be the first fat-phobic hate crime in Britain to get widespread media attention. For once the BBC coverage of the piece doesn't mention how unhealthy it is to be fat or why that might justify the discrimination fat people face, although this morning's BBC Breakfast discussion of the protest was deluged by comments from thin people claiming to have faced similar treatment (umm, no, you really haven't, but thanks for making it all about you, as usual). I'm about to go and watch the linked TV show - BBC London is available to anyone with a satellite receiver, irrespective of whether they live in the Smoke.
The programme aired tonight and I just watched it. It was called Inside Out and aired at 7.30 on BBC1. I imagine you can download it on iPlayer. The segment on FA was about 10-15 minutes long and took in various kinds of fat discrimination; it also investigated anti-discrimination laws in San Francisco. There were brief interviews with Marilyn Wann, Sondra Solovay and Jennifer Portnick, (who won the first size discrimination lawsuit when she was barred from teaching aerobics on the grounds of her appearance). I imagine it was edited to ribbons by the Beeb as nothing was especially deeply delved into and there were also a few headless fatties. As a beginner's guide to FA I don't think it likely to win many allies or fat folks to the cause but maybe that's just me being deeply cynical.
I was horrified to see during the course of the programme that Marsha Coupe, an American ex-pat married to a Brit, was beaten up very badly on the tube simply for being fat. Her bruises were absolutely horrific and she thought she was going to lose an eye. I have met Marsha personally - she used to be quite involved in Big Fat Blog and FA in general so I was quite shaken up by it.
Thanks for the clarifications, Richie and Buffpuff.
The whole show can be viewed via iPlayer here; the fatphobia segment is first up. TBH having watched it I didn't have any major complaints; certainly it could have been more in-depth but I think the format and time constraints prevented that. On the upside the obligatory 'obesity expert' got only the briefest rant, which was suitably shot down, and Eve's 'experiment' involving discrimination by club doormen was something of an eye-opener, even if the subsequent lingering close-up of the poor girl in tears was somewhat unnecessary. As for Marsha's horrific tale, I'd no idea that she was previously involved in SA, though I did wonder; after all it's not everyday you hear of American fat activists protesting outside Boris Johnson's office! (unfortunately he's a member of the NOF, so unlikely to be an ally, though one can nevertheless hope). Kudos to her for speaking out about what happened; I wonder how many other, less confident folk have been through similar and kept it to themselves because they believed they somehow 'deserved' it :(
Thanks for the update Richie.
Boris a member of NOF - aaargh!
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