For anyone else who cares to bother sending along critiques of the NAAFA website directly:
Jason Docherty: webmaster@naafa.org
Frances White: frances_white@naafa.org
Peggy Howell: naafa_pr@yahoo.com
Lisa Tealer: lisa_tealer@naafa.org
Carole Cullum: carole_cullum@naafa.org
Phyllis Warr: phyllis_warr@naafa.org

Marilyn, around here we get an average of 11,000 hits a day. I know you generally prefer to ignore the fatosphere, but if you’re spending energy despairing over how few people are invested in fat acceptance, it might do you some emotional good to stop.

The thing that’s still heartbreaking to me is that NAAFA probably has fewer members nationally than my Dad’s Orange County, California, woodworking club has. Now, don’t get me wrong. Each year, a bunch of mostly retired guys gets together every couple of weeks to make parts for hand-crafted wooden toys. And then, in December, they give boxes packed full of awesome toys to the foster care system and other charity groups that serve children who aren’t in any sort of family or home setting. Every time I go with my Dad to drop off boxes are out local Y, I get all teary-eyed. It’s a wonderful project.

I’m just wondering why there are more people signed up for the Orange County, California, woodworkers club than are signed up for any Fat Lib group that I know of?

Yeah, it’s tempting to think, “Well, NAAFA has existed since 1969 and size discrimination has gotten worse, so therefore they’re the ones fucking it up,” but I don’t see it that way. The very idea that fat people should have equal rights and respect was such a radical notion in 1969 that almost nobody bothered raising a finger to resist it, since so few people were signing on. More pushback from fat people (and yes, there is MUCH more now than there used to be, although still not nearly enough) means more resistance and more resentment from the outside.

I know it’s hard to resist a mention in the LA Freakin’ Times, and one supposes we ought to be grateful they take us seriously at all, that they acknowledge us (fat acceptance in general, not just NAAFA) as something other than a bunch of pervs who want to put all the kids on intravenous Pepsi until they all gain 900 pounds and can’t fit through the doors of their kindergartens. And as others have said, the “at least as much as racism” comment does reference a specific Yale study on employment that was referenced in the article and has been reported elsewhere. But boy, what a difference sentence construction makes.

I know NAAFA didn’t have any say over how this article was written, but promoting it on the front page without any of these problems being acknowledged mars what was otherwise a very nice job of redesign. (I didn’t find any material on this version of the site suggesting that they consider fat a disability; the only thing I found about that issue was a rejection of that notion. Did I miss something?)

I’m more troubled by them trying to play nice with the likes of Kelly Brownell, with statements (in the last line of the FAQ) like, “Proactive health policies towards weight reduction do not remove the need to protect people from discrimination. There exist precedents for addressing a problem and associated stigma,” and then going on to compare anti-obesity policies to those attempting to reduce cancer, AIDS, and alcoholism. Excuse me, but the rest of the FAQ just got done telling us that “weight reduction” ain’t gonna happen for most people, at least not permanently, and that fat in and of itself does not constitute a “problem.” So then you jump to comparing fat to AIDS? Cancer? Alcoholism? WTF???

I stayed on the NAAFA board for several years. Right away, I got the anti-feederism policy adopted. Over the years, I responded to dozens of e-mails and calls from distraught people who had been hit by horrific fat discrimination and prejudice. I did my best to refer, support, and respond to these people. I’m also proud of NAAFA’s role in getting major experts to Massachusetts last March to testify on behalf of height/weight anti-discrimination legislation in that state. NAAFA is currently working with perfectly positioned people in another state, to launch a similar effort.

I left the NAAFA board last month because I felt I’d done all I could using my style and my energy, to “make NAAFA suck less.” I encourage other people who feel like bothering with NAAFA to join the organization. After one year’s membership, you can apply to join the board. I have found the leadership incredibly welcoming to new approaches, although it can be deeply daunting to try and shift NAAFA’s culture.

I hope that people who are accustomed to the fatosphere can understand that NAAFA isn’t primarily a website. In my experience of NAAFA, it’s primarily this small handful of board members and a few additional key volunteers who keep the organization afloat and who take on some work on outreach. This group of people is not white-only or hetero-only or able-bodied only or any particular weight-only. NAAFA is also an annual gathering that has tremendous value as a kind of family reunion. (The icky-guy behavior and the competitive/desperate fat woman phenomenon is so reduced, in my experience of it, as to be inconsequential, at this point.) The NAAFA newsletter is, in my opinion, totally fabulous. Bill Weitze is a key volunteer who ongoingly does a brilliant job. If you’re a member and not receiving a newsletter (which is sent electronically), then e-mail Bill or any of the official e-mail addresses from the NAAFA website to get that corrected. Bill is always looking for good material to put in the newsletter; perhaps people here will have some comments or criticisms to submit!

It is my strong preference that fat pride community be super diverse. I prefer grass roots to one monolithic tree. I prefer dissent and argument over unity and conformity. (That’s probably why I’m a fat rebel to begin with, huh?) I only hope that we all remember that in-fighting should not take the place of fighting The (fat-hating) Man.

I don’t expect NAAFA to be everything to everyone in our community. I have argued with NAAFA leadership that the organization should not try to be everything to everyone because that leads to the kind of watering-down of angry message that people here have criticized. For too long, in its early years, NAAFA was the only resource. I’m so very glad that various waves of body lib promoters are creating new and different resources for all of us to check out! But I still value the first, oldest, still-existing, membership organization that functions on our issues. And that’s NAAFA. So I pay my dues and anything I get for my paltry $15/year is gravy, because mainly I want to be able to point to those few dollars and say that, during the “war on ‘obesity,’” I did my bit to make sure the oldest, first civil rights group on fat issues did not go under. So I appreciate the newsletter. I’m glad there’s a website that functions as a kind of placeholder so people can find NAAFA. I’m glad that NAAFA volunteers respond to media inquiries and to the outraged calls for help from individuals. I agree that NAAFA could be sooooooo much more. I did my bit to enhance NAAFA. Other people can do likewise, or not.

I don’t like zero-sum thinking or assumptions of scarcity. I think there’s more than enough fat-hate for all of us to fight and still have room for millions more of us to fight fat hate in all sorts of new and ingenious ways. I also think NAAFA occupies a place and serves a need.

I’ve alerted NAAFA board members to this thread and encouraged them to take in the valid and important criticisms here and make positive changes.

Someone above asked about message boards on the web site. There *is* a message board (Well, there was when I belonged) but it was for NAAFA members only, and the specialty boards, like the Supersize one, was only for members of NAAFA AND the sub-group for super-sized people (meaning you paid out even *more* money).

That’s it. They didn’t even tell me where there was a local NAAFA group that had meetings. Nothing.

I saw no reason to renew when the time came.

I don’t understand why you feel that NAAFA linking to an article (not from NAAFA) that mentions NAAFA is “deeply uncool”. I think NAAFA is attempting to keep its community informed as to what is being said and by whom.

Fatism is a prejudice that is running amok (thanks at least in part to our government created hysteria with the “war on obesity”). And to say that people are oppressed by fatism, does not mean they are not also oppressed because of gender, age, race, sexual orientation, etc. discrimination. Like everyone, fat people are not JUST fat people – they are people – varied and diverse.

I am sorry that so many people are disappointed with the NAAFA website. NAAFA is an all-volunteer organization – that means nobody is paid for the work that went into creating the new website (and the newsletter, and the convention, etc.).

And like most people, we are just trying to do the best we can. Sorry so many don’t approve.

As Rita Mae Brown says, “If you don’t like my book, write your own”.

Also, I wish to be clear that my comments are my own and personal to me. I am not saying any of this for or on behalf of NAAFA.

Anyhoo, I realize after rereading that my paragraph about fat as disability might have come off differently than how i meant it.

I meant that if you do have a disability, by all means seek the assistance you need on any platform (actual physical help, legal counsel, etc). With a disability, physical or mental, there are things that impact your life before you even get to discrimination (and I realize the impact is vastly different for different people). With fat, as with race and sexuality, you can essentially live the same life you could if your race or preference were different. The differences are generally contained within how others perceive and treat you. This is all very general of course, and I realize there are details and a lot of instances that don’t fit into my theory, plus there are fat people who are truly impacted physically by their weight, but I meant that if we have to classify it, I think it should be aligned differently.

It came off wrong. I get kind of sensitive with disability stuff, one of my best friends in high school had a younger brother with Down’s Syndrome (among other disabilities that I can’t name right now), and I find it sort of offensive toward the disabled to lump in something that for the most part isn’t.