WHAT WE'RE ABOUT

RBI focuses on using expressive writing, design-oriented work, photography, media, research, and community input to fuel fat positive, body acceptance, discussion, and outreach. Our goal is to redefine the way we view and think about body image, size, fat, discrimination, health, fitness, wellness, mental/chronic illness, stigma, and other related topics.

We are constantly redefining our own perspectives, and therefore tend to write a lot about our personal experiences. Many followers and contributors are living with anorexia, bulimia, body dysmorphic disorder, depression, and a variety of other body image disorders or mental illnesses, so please be respectful and remember that health applies differently to everyone. Any and all potentially triggering content will be prefaced with a trigger warning.

RBI supports all races, genders, classes, and sizes. We try our best to make this a safe space for everyone. If we are not doing our job or checking our privilege, we invite you to please inform us.

Some of the artwork you see here has been created by our founder or moderators, some sourced when applicable. Please be kind enough to source this blog whenever you share it's content.

We are not health professionals. Any and all advice provided on this blog is supported only by our own research, studies, and personal experiences; nothing more.

This blog is part of the Safe Space Network.

“
Seemingly unaware of my presence, these young men talked about their plans to fuck as many girls from other racial/ethnic groups as they could “catch” before graduation. They “ran” it down. Black girls were high on the list, Native American girls hard to find, Asian girls (all lumped into the same category), deemed easier to entice, were considered “prime targets.” Talking about this over-heard conversation with my students, I found that it was commonly accepted that one “shopped” for sexual partners in the same way one “shopped” for courses at Yale, and that race and ethnicity was a serious category on which selections were based. To these young males and their buddies, fucking was a way to confront the Other, as well as a way to make themselves over, to leave behind white “innocence” and enter the world of “experience.” As is often the case in this society, they were confident that non-white people had more life experience, were more worldly, sensual, and sexual because they were different. Getting a bit of the Other, in this case engaging in sexual encounters with non-white females, was considered a ritual of transcendence, a movement out into a world of difference that would transform, an acceptable rite of passage.
”

-

bell hooks, Eating the Other

This is why it makes me mad when people say they’re into someone who is “ethnic”, it just means they’re into the idea of someone’s race, wanting a part of it, and to acquire that or I guess “taste” that culture they try and sleep with someone who is labeled “ethnic”. Often people who are considered “ethnic” are either hyper-sexualized and are seen as “dominant” and aggressive almost animalistic while others are seen as submissive “slaves” for the “masters” to control and dominate and use. There is no in between or normalcy when it comes to People of Color, the “ethnic” group of people, which is a group label usually made up by white people but it’s not limited to just them.

(via loohn)

With respect to Bell Hooks, I think the underlying phenomena she describes is a human truth. Though the assignment of traits to various races may differ.

Still very astute nonetheless.

(via bumsquash)

t 2 months ago
w 2,557 notes
t 2 months ago
w 2,557 notes

“
To solve the problem of female body self-hatred, we have to critique sexist thinking, militantly oppose it, and simultaneously create new images, new ways of seeing ourselves.
”

-

bell hooks (via samsonismydog)

Relevant to the theme of my blog.  Unlike the last post :)

t 4 months ago
w 287 notes
t 4 months ago
w 287 notes

“
Feminist effort to end patriarchal domination should be of primary concern precisely because it insists on the eradication of exploitation and oppression in the family context and in all other intimate relationships. It is that political movement which most radically addresses the person – the personal – citing the need for the transformation of self, of relationships, so that we might be better able to act in a revolutionary manner, challenging and resisting domination, transforming the world outside the self.
”

- bell hooks, Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black (via msnyx)
t 7 months ago
w 50 notes
t 7 months ago
w 50 notes
^