Rumblings in the NAAFA-verse?
Since yesterday, this site has become one of the top-ten results when you Google the term “NAAFA” - a few people, surprisingly, have actually ended up here via that search. To those who are wondering in, welcome! You were probably looking for NAAFA’s official web site, but you’re welcome to hang around here.
Back to this whole discussion folks have been having. I’ve also heard from a few people - over email, in the comments here and over in the comments on Shapely Prose - that my experience, and my disappointment, is shared by quite a few folks.
Kate Harding (of the aforementioned Shapely Prose) says it best, I think, and gets straight to the point.
You are still the most visible public face of fat acceptance in this country, and you absolutely earned that position a thousand times over — but by failing to embrace the most effective and inexpensive form of mass communication in history, you’re letting down the people who seek the kind of information you’ve been fearlessly and tirelessly providing for almost 40 years. You’re alienating newcomers to the movement. You’re damaging your own credibility.
And you know what? I’m just gonna come right out and say it: you’re embarrassing the rest of us.
Without scene says in my entry on the problems that, “Maybe we should shake the foundation.” Brian of Red No. 3 says that, “I really suspect that it’d be easy to do those things separate from NAAFA than to try to do them with NAAFA.” It seems folks are getting revved up to act, and that’s fantastic news.
But what to do first? A Think Tank? Fundraising? Do we rush in to NAAFA to help, or do we wait just a little longer to see if things improve, or do we abandon ship altogether? I think Paul over at Big Fat Blog has a good idea in the new survey he’s doing (BFB members only for now - sorry, no link here!), which seems to be trying to take the temperature of fat activism in the U.S. It’s got some great questions that will hopefully get us all thinking about what we want out of this movement, and what exactly a fat organization should look like. If you have time, definitely go fill out his survey.
Then come back here, and tell me what the answer is. What do we do next?
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The criticisms of my students would serve as a good warning to visitors of Seeworthy: she talks too fast, she's too hard on us, she assigns too much work, and you have to be a dyke to get a good grade.
In other words, I'm a big, fat, queer, feminist meanie, and I am totally out to get you. Graaagh!
Hey, Sheana, will you send me an e-mail, since I don’t have yours and don’t see contact info here? Would love to talk to you more about this stuff.
Emailed
And thanks for the comment… I didn’t realize until just now that I don’t actually have a contact form on the site anymore! I’ll have to fix that right now.
Thanks for this post. I hadn’t seen that survey yet. Very excited at the prospect of a BFB organization!
Ahoy, Stacy! I don’t want to jump the gun and assume that that’s what Paul has in the works, but if he does go there someday I’ll definitely be one of the first folks to join.
Hey, Sheana, I just emailed you with some other emails that have been being passed back and forth today.
That’s incredible that this blog jumped up like that on Google. I don’t know exactly what to do yet, but I know something needs to be done. I got all starry-eyed last night thinking about the what ifs and imagining if we started our own organization…then woke up today and found out about the BFB survey, to my delight. I’m excited that a new organization might be brewing. I think a LOT of things are brewing and it is a really exciting time right now…though a time where we need to crank it up…A LOT.
Same old, same old to me, but I’ll admit that mileage may vary.
BFB is the same old to you BStu? Hmn…curious to hear about that too.
BStu, I’m curious what you mean by “same old” - just a general disenchantment with organized activism? Do you envision something more grassroots? Please do share!
If you think NAAFA is dead in the water and not worth your effort, why spend time criticizing NAAFA?
If you want to start something, regardless of your opinion of NAAFA…that’s totally AWESOME!
A few years ago, NAAFA’s existence was at risk. I joined the organization to make sure that the oldest civil rights group for fat people didn’t go down during the height of the “war on ‘obesity.’” I also have the goal of making NAAFA suck less.
I could point to workshops at NOLOSE that are just as much about dating and sexual orientation. I’ve been fighting what I call icky-guy dynamics at the NAAFA convention for several years and in my opinion, the people leading workshops this year are not contributors to that dynamic, whatever you care to make of their wording choice.
I’m a radical person and a feminist. I am working inside NAAFA to make things suck less. I invite anyone and everyone with similar vision to join NAAFA and (with a year’s membership) join the board. I feel old and tired, many days. I could use the help! I am holding the door open as wide as I can make it.
Please keep in mind that “NAAFA” is a handful of unpaid volunteers who, at the moment, have just barely kept the organization from disappearing and are trying to structure things so it won’t disappear in future. I have a huge list of criticisms of things I think suck about NAAFA. The one thing that, in my view, would suck worse is if the organization closed down. I kinda think C. Everett Koop and Richard Simmons and MeMe Roth and a whole bunch of fat haters would celebrate that news! Would you?