Historical Trauma in the Massage Parlor

So in light of my commitment to move into this process of self-evaluation in learning how I hold power in relation to others, I would like to post my first AOC post. This is scary and I feel vulnerable but much like my determination to get to the small village in rural Sudan via a tiny, rattly, shaky Cessna, I'll do it anyway.

My mom in all her awesomeness has gifted me with occasional massages (she pays, we go together - it's a date thing). We last went a few weeks ago. I don't care if my masseuse is a guy, girl or anywhere along the gender spectrum. That evening though my masseuse was an African American guy.

This was a first. And as we walked back to the room and made small talk, I could feel the on-coming analysis. As I lay there on the table and he first started massaging my calves (who knew how many muscles we have there?) I felt the weight of historical trauma, and my own so-easily triggered guilt, in the room: thick and heavy. Initially I was also bombarded, in my mind's eye, by images I've seen in documentaries and historical pictures about Jim Crow, the KKK, and worst of all, the hangings of African Americans on any excuse, but especially for "touching a white woman".

So I started to talk with him. What I wanted to tell him was how sorry I was for the way his people were/are treated, about slavery, about the fact that I'm aware of the barriers he faces as a minority, that I'm on his side. What I told him instead, which is what I tell every person who works their magic through massage, was that this, what he's doing, what he's giving me, was a gift. That I was deeply appreciative. We talked a bit about what I do and he felt likewise, that what I do is a gift to help others. It felt better to talk. Even as he so cautiously, so carefully (more so than any other masseuse I've had) asked if he could move the sheet up toward my gluteus maximus, I felt that he was skating on the line of "what is too much?". I told him he could move the sheet wherever he needed, no problem. (My years of living in a more body-liberal Europe have left me pretty blaze about what should or should not be covered up.)

I felt by the end of the session, through conversation, we had both moved toward a place of comfort with each other. Indeed, that is my truth, and my hope for him with me, too.

Fat Phobia- Required Reading

One of the books that profoundly impacted my life is called Fat!So? by Marilyn Wann. I first read it in a class called "Gender and Body Image" that I took as part of my Women's Studies curriculum during my undergrad education. While I'd always held a certain level of self-esteem regarding my body, this book clarified so many ways in which I actually held and shared fat-phobic beliefs. Taking this class and reading this book were a revelation to me and afterward I became an outspoken advocate about fat phobia believing that now that I held this knew knowledge, I was officially cured of my issues around body image. Wrong.

Unfortunately, I took it and ran the opposite direction and became thin-phobic. Why I didn't realize this was not good escapes me, but I think I have recently figured out where I may have gone wrong. Actually, the same professor who required me to read Fat!So? also introduced me to the following piece of writing, this time through Facebook: http://yrwelcome.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/losing-weight-staying-fat-positive/
Even just reading the title got to me a little bit. My immediate questions were, Why would anyone who is fat-positive want to lose weight? and If we lose weight and become thin, aren't we automatically aligning ourselves with the enemy? At the core I very much held the belief that thin and fat-positive were mutually exclusive identities. Don't get me wrong, it's not like Wann actively advocates thin phobia, but the truth is that she doesn't spend much time making it clear that one can indeed be thin and still fat-positive. I get this, I really do. Thin people aren't generally the ones who need to hear a fat-positive message. Still, reading this article was almost equally revolutionary to me as reading Fat!So?. What I learned is that to be fat-positive is a mindset, an identity and not a body shape. I guess it's kind of like "Feminist" not necessarily equalling "Female-identified."

Ironically, being fat-positive or fat-phobic is not predicated on one's own body shape. What this means is that if you want to lose weight or maintain thinness, you can still be fat-positive. I don't know about you, but this is news I think I needed to hear. For the longest time I've been closing my ears to someone close to me regarding her weight. I keep telling her that she shouldn't lose weight, that's she's beautiful as is. She, in return, continues to tell me that she wants to lose weight because her body can't do any more what it used to be able to do. I've stopped listening and she's not doing anything about it- probably because I'm not being supportive. It's actually not her bad for wanting to lose weight. It's my bad for not supporting her very logical and emotionally healthy desire to be able to do stuff she can't do right now.

None of this is to say that it won't still be pretty damn tricky to navigate through this transition. Right now she's looking at it in a pretty healthy way, but who can say that once she experiences thinness that she won't buy into fat-phobia? I have no idea, but what I do know is that this is her choice. The best I can do is support her through it. I realize now that her body shape says nothing about my own and it certainly does not dictate whether or not I also need to lose weight. Believe me, this is music to my heart because even though I know I can lose weight now, I really don't have any desire to at this point.

Eating a mini-snickers candy bar,

Abby

Toolkit

http://shscoalition.org/pdf_files/IDIR%20Folio%20-%20complete,%202-28-06.pdf

Being an ally

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/diversity/docs/diversity/interpretting_oppression.pdf

Now we can love hipsters more!

This article comes from our newest AOC member, Abby!

http://meloukhia.net/2009/07/hipster_racism.html