Size / Weight Discrimination. It has been called "the last
safe prejudice". It is not.
Claims are made in touting products intended to remove weight that are forbidden to every other form of medication. Claims that some of us are working hard to get retracted, and in the most public manner possible. (There has been progress, but there are also recent setbacks that have created conditions threatening the long-term health of millions in America, and in other nations.)
Personnel Departments and other hiring managers seem to rejoice
when they meet with a so-called "overweight" applicant who may
also fall into other categories which have historically been used
to deny employment. They are being taken to court, and they are
losing regularly.
(Where once age or sex or even race were used as barriers,
weight or size often becomes the "acceptable" fall-back. So
very many people believe that the battles against
discrimination in employment are over. Not just yet, ladies
and gentlemen, not just yet.)
Why did I become involved in the fight to end size & weight
discrimination, to the point of writing a semi-regular column
for a magazine?
That is something I'm still answering for myself.
It has a great deal to do with my personal convictions,
how I was raised, and my own experiences as someone
"a little overweight".
And even more to do with the editor of Rump Parliament,
Lee Martindale.
I've been an activist in some ways ever since I was a Cub Scout
helping out with fund drives for the Cancer Society and other
charities, ever since junior high when I made a particularly vile
speech in a civics class concerning the probable affiliations
of a candidate I did not like, and especially since college
when I was faced with religious prejudices based upon ignorance.
Size Rights just happens to be where my attentions have been
focused for the last few years.
Why teach activism? After all, most American children are supposedly
taught to stand up for what is right and what is just.
Activism comes into play when, for whatever reason, the truth
has been manipulated or hidden. Activism comes into play when
an entire population has been lied to "for their own good".
Activism comes into play when someone like myself sees where
they can help others by teaching what he or she knows.
And for good or ill, I am an Activist and will be until I draw my last breath (and probably beyond that, the Powers willing).
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