Everyone knows I’m a Vegan, non-smoking, non-drinking, cycling, communal fitness advocating, Tree hugging, skinny dude. I’ll comp to all of that; but it disturbed me to see that Fat-shaming video by Nicole Arbour being shared and supported by so many Black folks.
I know obesity is a at Pandemic disease
levels in the Black community in the US, but the kinda shit she’s
talking, and the kinda shit put out by the Black health and fitness
community is false and counterproductive.
She stated that health is a personal and individual, that it’s all
about self-control and moderation; and that’s some bullshit.
That’s the same kinda bullshit New Negros talk about poverty, violence, and general dysfunction in the Hood.
The truth is, health is a cultural and collective endeavor.
If your family, community, and Nation is sick, or unhealthy, then you are unhealthy.
Even if your personal fitness and health are on point, you will be
burdened by the crippling diseases and premature deaths of your people.
If you are healthy and fit, and you couldn’t care less about the health
and well-being of all the others, or you attack instead of finding ways
to educate, and help them improve; you still are not healthy…in your
mind, the lack of empathy is a state of sickness. Individualism is a
pathological state.
Also, the food industry and the economy that sustains it is Pathogenic; it creates disease and poor health people, even we who follow all of the rules of the Standard American Diet, and the advice of our doctors.
The US economy is as dependent on people becoming sick, being too
burdened with work, and sustaining themselves in this economy to sustain
a proper diet and tend to the well-being of their families and
community. This system profits from making us sick, selling us the
cures, and shaming us in the process. This is a Sick system, and it can
do little else until we dismantle it.
So, as we work on
ourselves, on our family, and in our communities to sustain our health
and fight obesity (which is a symptom of Malnutrition), we have to avoid falling into the individualism and victim blaming that’s so prevelant in the US.
I’ve been advocating Veganism and Holistic Health in the Hood since I
came off the swine at 16, then Vegan shortly after, and I’m still doing
so; and the frustration has, at times lead me to attack my own also, so
I’m still working on this issue myself. I’m not tryna front like I’m a
saint, on any issue.
Finally, health is cultural, so there are no
solutions coming from outside our culture to the epidemic of obesity
and chronic diseases that afflict our community; so there’s not need to
fuck around with individuals like Arbour.
We need to solve this
from within, like most of our problems, and defend our people when they
are unjustly attacked and mocked while they suffer from problems they
didn’t create and often don’t even understand.
