JCC Hating Humans One at a Time: The Thread

Thank you for confirming your either didn't read or didn't understand the article. Note that in it's description of discrimination, the very first paragraph it discusses "verbal and physical assaults." In the second, it expands on this to cite a study of "1,555 students from two high schools in central Connecticut completed a comprehensive battery of self-report measures to assess their experiences of weight-based teasing and bullying at school, affective responses to these experiences, and coping strategies." This study concluded that there were negative effects on the overall health and weight of victims. It is, in short, discussing exactly what we have been in this thread.

 

To be fair, wocky, it's not unreasonable to assume that wannabee engages in gender-shaming and race-shaming too, which in his view are perfectly acceptable practices and not sexism or racism.

 

it would depend on the manner in which the fat-shaming is being carried out.

Let's say someone were to yell "hey, fatty" at some poor girl on the street.

I think we would both agree that he is fat-shaming the girl, and we would both agree that he is being a jerk. But is he being a bully? is he aggressively imposing domination over her? i would say no.

is it your position that every time someone is being a jerk, they are also being a bully?

No, i would not agree that there is the perception of an imbalance of social power. in whose favor do you think the imbalance of social power is?

 

lol, of course i didn't read it. i skimmed it. And you didn't really expect me to look at the footnotes, did you? This is an internet chat, not school.

anyway, a layman's understanding of the word discrimination would lead him to believe that "weight discrimination" is different than fat-shaming.

If the people in this study have some special definition for discrimination that includes "every time someone is mean to me", they should have said so explicitly.

 

Okay, well now that I've told you on their behalf, how do you respond to the fact that their findings contradict your position?

 

Not at all, wannasee. I've never felt bullied by you.

But as to your point, with respect of is the person calling that out on the street trying to oppose domination over someone - absolutely. By the Wiki definition you have endorsed as your own, "Behavior used to assert such domination can include verbal harassment". Furthermore, "Justifications and rationalisations for such behavior sometimes include... appearance."

You have to ask what is the underlying cause of the bully's behavior. Why fat-shame? It's absolutely to impose a set of normative values on someone who does not confirm to those normative values - in this case, about body shape.

I can only conclude you're being obtuse or are just dense if you are arguing otherwise if you have to ask where the imbalance of social power sits in the equation I gave...

 

First, i don't think you can speak on their behalf.

Second, what they meant by "weight discrimination" was never clearly defined, so we don't really know what they meant by it.

Third, my position has been that fat-shaming in moderation could be helpful, and since the study wasn't clear about how much or what sort of weight discrimination there was, we don't know that their findings contradict my position at all.

 

I wasn't "speaking on their behalf." I was quoting their direct words. They spoke for themselves. If you read the rest of those words, you'd have a better idea of what they said. It's not my responsibility to spoon-fed you this stuff. If you think you have a point that bests theirs, read it and then explain to us why.

 

I assume you're not responding to my points because they are harmful to yours, wannasee. Which if you will forgive my directness, is hardly surprising. But now you're arguing in moderation (which, for the avoidance of doubt, is a wholly useless metric given it's subjective) fat-shaming is useful, despite the links to issues regarding mental health and unhealthy social body image phenomena in society.

Hmm. Right.

 

Cops taser stepfather trying to save stepson from fire.

 

That one's a little complicated. Sounds like the building was too unsafe. After that not so much but he could have been going ale #%^* with understanble grief.

 

Don't tase me bro!

 

The building was probably too far gone when he tried to go back in. The cops had a duty to stop him to save his life. Its the downside of their job. Deciding who lives and who dies. In this case they chose only one life to because they felt the chances to save the other one was too far gone. Cops stop people all the time at fires and restrain them because they have no choice. The cops just watch those poor souls scream and suffer and are making the right call. But its a call no body wins.

 

I'm gonna have to agree with this. The cops were probably trying to save his life, although it's understandable that the stepfather's first impulse was to save the kid. I may not agree with the cops methods, but then again, I wasn't there to watch so I can't really decide whether tasing him was wrong or right.

 

Giving a fat kid a piece of fruit instead of candy is basically saying the same thing as the letter: you're too fat. Kids, and their parents, aren't completely stupid

 

Not if, you know, pass the fruit out to ALL the kids and not just the fat ones.

 

What kind of crappy Halloween is that? None of the kids want fruit.

 

Also, in your scenario, you would prefer to deprive all children of candy instead of risk offending the fat ones? What did the skinny kids do wrong besides successfully moderate their eating?

 

Actually fruit tastes quite good, and I don't see why many children wouldn't prefer it to candy in the first place. Especially chocolate, those things that look (and taste) like construction cones, black licorice, stuff that gets stuck in your teeth, more than one Warhead or other ultra sour candy, Watchamacalits, Nerd ropes and about 2/3rds of the Willy Wonka candy line besides.

EDIT: Grape twizzlers, Now and Laters, Snickers dark chocolate, or anything with nougat, too.

 

Man successfully sues ex-wife for giving birth to "ugly" daughter

 

I got a shovel around here somewhere.

 

"Wocky, were you ever a child? Kids don't care what something tastes like. They just know "OOO CANDY!!!" and desire it above all else. It's all psychological."

As evidenced by Warheads!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warheads_(candy)

 

I have to say that Wocky's right about candy corn. That stuff is disgusting. Even as a kid, I loathed that stuff. Looks and tastes like construction cones pretty well captures it.