Read on Twitter
Really appreciate the complexity, layers and nuance this writer fit into a very short piece that includes the important difference between being fat and poor and being fat and not poor. https://talkpoverty.org/2018/01/23/believe-said-starving/
It's not new but it somehow passed through my feed and It's new to me. I lost track of who shared it but thank you to whoever did. It's a major difference about being poor "and" fat or disabled or anything - and it's a distinction that few grasp.
"I have the luxury of rejecting the idea that the things that society says give me value—like thinness and prettiness and obedience—mean anything. Because right now, my survival isn’t tied quite so closely to whether or not other people think I deserve to be alive."
I had a very similar discussion yesterday with a friend only in terms of disability and poverty. It's one of the many important issues that has never been discussed around #BillC7 and why the NDP's position in particular is so beyond contempt. https://twitter.com/mssinenomine/status/1344379956986486786?s=20
This part: "There was a point before the weeks of rotting ham, or months of tortillas and processed cheese, when I could have asked for help. I didn’t...humans simply can’t endure being told we’re terrible all of the time. So we avoid situations where that’s likely to happen."
"It turns out the stigma against being fat is so intense that it stops people from getting health care, exercising in public, or interacting with other people. For me, that also included finding someone who could help me get food."
I am a fat, disabled, poor woman. Those things - plus trauma - absolutely stop me from accessing health care. More, they stop being from accessing supports I would be eligible for.
I literally go without things that would be helpful bc I refuse to subject myself to what's necessary to acquire them. I am not being stubborn. I am the person balancing a cup on her nose, a bowl on her head and arms full of dishes who looks at the pot and says 'can't pick it up'
It is not smart to subject oneself to more blows than are absolutely necessary especially when you are already badly wounded.
And yes that means I do know exactly what the writer means by ham snot and yes I have washed that off.
And yes that means I do know exactly what the writer means by ham snot and yes I have washed that off.
Being disabled and poor forces me into a relationship with 'the system' that is harmful to my well-being but necessary for survival. It does so in a way that is not the same as being disabled and not poor or being poor and not disabled.
If you do not grasp the enormous significance of the *CLASS* aspects of disability and illness then you do not grasp one of the major issues around #BillC7 and why are you even a third party NDP? https://twitter.com/mssinenomine/status/1344385961925349376?s=20
