This meme is making the rounds and we need to talk about it:
As activists one of the things that we always have to be careful about is that we don’t add to the marginalization of other groups with our activism. In this case, the person who created this meme is trying to fight nazis through the use of fat shaming. And that’s just crap.
Even if you are someone who purposefully engages in fatshaming (aka: an asshole) this is still a terrible idea – nazis are legitimately horrible, dangerous, and need to be stopped, and making this about how he looks massively minimizes the issue. What would the makers and sharers of this meme do when presented with someone who did fit the current stereotype of attractiveness – say “Well, I guess he has a point”?
In order to fight nazis and white supremacists we must reject the entire ridiculous premise of their argument. Making it about whether or not each individual meets some definition of “genetically superior” accepts the premise which means that the argument has already been lost. Fat shaming is wrong no matter how horrible the subject is, because the subject’s body size has nothing to do with it.
So let’s take another stab at this:
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I also keep posting against body shaming Trump. whom I detest for a thousand and one reasons, as well. Body shaming is a cheap and ultimately destructive idea. (What if Trump were to lose weight, for some reason? Would that suddenly make him non-sexist and his staff less crypto-fascist? I don’t think so.)
I’ve seen this one at work too and it makes my skin crawl. To me what it says is…”This person is a NAZI, but worse than that, he is fat.” It literally sounds like being a NAZI is the lesser offense here. Like people who tried to shame Hitler by saying he was actually a woman. That’s the big insult, not that he was a homicidal maniac who engineered the slaughter of millions of people but that he was secretly a woman?
I know people want to throw things at people they don’t like and bring them down a peg or two so to speak but what are they really saying that some OTHER aspect of the targets persona (literal or imagined) is WORSE than the obvious and embraced traits?
Seen an anti Scientology meme that showed a fat guy on a bicycle, and Hubbard is often referred to a Hubbtard and various flab and fat insults, so forming a specious, bigoted, Ponzi scheme organization and calling it a scientific-religion and bilking thousands of people out of millions of dollars isn’t the insult; the insult is that he carries to much adipose tissue? It’s like that.
This one is very scary when you put it with general appearance based biases, like attractive defendant will get away with crimes far more often than “un-attractive” ones. People are very… shallow, misguided, biased, lazy.
Well said!
It’s the belief of being superior to someone else, not any actual superiority that is the problem. It’s the belief that allows some people to destroy other people.
David Weber created a series of books about a space navy officer named Honor Harrington. Once she got to be an Admiral, he couldn’t justify her being in space battles anymore, but he (and his fans) loved the setting so much, he started branching out and writing more about other characters.
In his latest books, the bad guys are the descendants of people who manipulated humans to make them ‘superior’ and so of course, they believe they should rule the universe. The good guys are a mix of ‘regular’ humans and genetically modified humans who believe people should get to choose their own rulers.
Okay, yes, the only really fat people are two very bad men who wind up dead. Everyone is able to utilize modern medicine to maintain a very healthy body for the most part. My point is, is the books discuss the concept of genetic superiority from the standpoint of being actually able to manipulate genes. Does that give someone the right to rule?
Oh look, I’m babbling again. Excellent fix for the meme. I’m going to eat some cake now.
Thank you for fixing that. That’s all I have to say, because I’m still too gobsmacked at the original meme. Wut.
You can’t fight Nazis using their same disgusting rhetoric. What this meme is suggesting is this person couldn’t possibly be “genetically superior” so anyone, but the whole idea of genetic superiority is sickening.
Not sure what is more frightening that they really don’t see that, or that they do…?
If they don’t see it, it’s ignorance, if they do, but don’t care…I don’t know what to do about that. Even the ignorance is frustrating, because how can you be ignorant in this day and age with so much available information.
In this age of take what you want from the information you get and alternative facts I think ignorance is not only on the rise it is going to become a movement… One Two Three Four were marching backwards and we’ll slam the door!
Five Six Seven Eight, We don’t Want to Integrate? Wait, that’s been done. They need something new, that still shows their direction.
Hmmm, if that’s what they want, perhaps they should try this:
“Five Six Seven Eight, We want to disintegrate!”
Makes perfect sense to me. It’s the opposite of integration, and they’ve obviously had enough of harmony and tolerance, right?
It’s this kind of bullying that can encourage people to join these groups to begin with. They feel powerless and so they seek something to make them feel superior to others. Talk about defeating the purpose.
Exactly! And they don’t see that?
“There are only two things in this world I hate: those who are intolerant of others… and fatties.” – This Meme