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In reply to the discussion: I used to be fat [View all]noamnety
(20,234 posts)but one of my students called me at home to talk. She was in tears, talking - among other things - about someone close to her making her feel like shit because of her weight.
Christie is a bully. In the traffic deal, he personally had one intended target - the mayor. But his real victims were the collateral damage, and the effects of his bullying had, at least in one case, tragic results.
Fat jokes are a form of bullying. Fat jokes about Christie have an intended target. But there isn't a way to make them without leaving a mess of collateral damage, and we don't know what the unintended consequences will be. It might be an overweight person who could have been great for our community or country not running for office because they don't want to be continually identified as That Fat Person with all the ensuing snickering. Or it might be a teenager in a crisis reading commentary about Christie and coming to the conclusion that their weight will forever overshadow their identity in people's minds.
It's so hard to come away from phone calls like I had today and come to DU for my escape ... and see that people here just don't give a shit about their collateral damage; that their response to the people they hurt in the process is that they ought to lighten up.
I wish everyone of those people could spend some time manning a suicide hotline for teens to really understand how fragile self-esteem is. I don't know if they can't grasp that there are real people hurting in real ways, I don't know if they imagine manning the hotline and telling the teens to just get a sense of humor about how everyone treats them like they are a piece of shit because they are ugly, or fat, or unpopular for some other reason.
Anyway, all this is to say that I appreciated your words and thank you for posting them today.