bumsquash:

I had to reblog this comment from a fat nutritionist post on Jennifer Livingston;

Here’s an interesting thought experiment. Go through the article and replace “fat people” with drug addicts and “obesity” with drug addiction and see if you have the same emotional response while reading it. I’ll start:

Telling drug addicts that they are bad examples for daring to have jobs and exist in public spaces is eliminationist rhetoric – it suggests that drug addicts have no place in this world, that they need to just go away, hide at home with the lights off, and sober up until they are fit to be seen in public again.

Fuck that. Drug addicts exist, we have existed, we will continue to exist. We have as much right to this world, and our jobs, and the public eye, as anyone else.

Our bodies and the status of our health are not public property. Our existence is not open to debate or discussion. We are here, and our health is between us and the people to whom we’ve given informed consent to make judgments about it. It is not a handy club for you to beat us with. And if you cared one iota for drug addicts’ health, you would shut the fuck up and let us handle our business. The constant pressure and questioning and needling and harassment drug addicts get from family, friends, coworkers, neighbours, and perfect strangers all combines to create stigma, and that stigma materially hurts people’s health.

Ragen had something brilliant to say:

Everybody has the right exist in the body they have without shame, stigma or oppression. That right is inalienable and not yours to confer. This is not up for discussion, debate, or vote. There are no other valid opinions. Drug addicts have the right to exist in the bodies we have now. Period.

Next time you are concerned about a drug addict’s health, consider that the best thing you might do for them is to treat them like capable adults and let them sort it out for themselves. Don’t add to the unhealthy storm of negativity and pressure and fear-mongering that is already surrounding them.

Leaving aside the totally false comparing of being fat with drug addiction. What’s funny about this to me and some of the other commenters is, this sounds perfectly fine anyhow! I’d include the highlighted parts. The assumption from the writer is everyone believes demonizing people addicted to drugs, is some kind of good thing.

Something that is so far from what I think and those around me-yes, people hate drugs, but not those addicted to them- that I’d actually got the impression that only a vocal minority still thought this way.

Until I got to the internet. Then I realized some people take this as an article of faith. That drug addicts must be senselessly marginalized, shamed and hated.

It’s as if some people need “villains”, in order to make themselves feel as pure and righteous as they want to.

They need some group any group to offload and pour scorn on to, regardless of the cost to that group and the overspill of that harm to society. Moreso if it that can be kept more to disadvantaged groups, no doubt.

How much do these people cost us all? Are the authorities calculating that and issuing statistics for us to browbeat present them with?

Of course not!

This is a really great and important point. The demonization of ANY GROUP, no matter how “morally corrupt” or “unhealthy”, is simply NOT PRODUCTIVE OR HELPFUL AT ALL. The kinds of people who reinforce these villainous ways of thinking are fueled by nothing but ignorance and ill-intent. These horrible people, not fatties or drug addicts (which, I agree, is the MOST fucked up comparison on the planet), are what end up costing us the most. They absolutely dominate and guide our culture into the fucking ground.