So You Want To Fight for Body Liberation. Now What? [Video]

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Young people are becoming more interested in activism, but knowing how to create real change can be difficult and overwhelming. Where are we even supposed to start? Enter: Now What? Hosted by Tessa Claire Hersh (she/her), each episode of Now What? explores a different social or political cause through conversations with activists and provides concrete ways to make a difference in their communities.

In this episode, activist Gloria Lucas shares steps on how to challenge diet culture and fight for body liberation.

 

Transcript provided by YouTube:

00:00
– Can you just move your mat up a little bit?
00:01
Can you just, thanks so much I just…
00:04
Ah, Tessah?
00:05
Oh, I haven’t seen you in ages, is that you?
00:08
– Oh, yeah, hey, it’s been awhile.
00:11
– I just wanna tell you, that I think it is so brave
00:14
of you coming out here.
00:15
– I love yoga, so.
00:17
– No I mean, with that purse.
00:20
– Excuse me?
00:20
– I just think it’s so brave of you
00:21
to come out here with that purse.
00:22
I mean, it’s not even designer,
00:24
but there you are anyways, so brave.
00:26
– It’s my purse, it carries my stuff.
00:29
– Yes, you know, I just want you to know
00:30
that I am totally purse positive.
00:34
– Purse pos… It feels like that’s an insult.
00:36
– We can’t all have designer,
00:39
and you are just out there loving the purse
00:41
you have with all it’s flaws.
00:43
– Flaws?
00:44
– I think it’s so brave.
00:45
Oh, I gotta go to work.
00:49
– Where are you working?
00:50
– I’m a firefighter.
00:51
– Oh, that’s like actually brave.
01:01
So you’re here because you care about body liberation.
01:03
Great, me too, now what?
01:06
First of all, there are so many different words
01:08
I’ve heard, body positivity, body neutrality,
01:11
body normativity, body acceptance, body liberation,
01:15
which one is the right word and why is it important?
01:18
What I do know is that creating a safe space
01:21
to break social norms and push beauty standards,
01:24
mm-hmm, I am here for that.
01:27
But, not everybody is in love
01:30
with their body every single day.
01:33
Some people are in a healing process
01:35
and working through acceptance.
01:38
And there’s already so many different types of bodies
01:41
and so many different relationships to our body.
01:43
Feels like we have a lot to learn, which is great,
01:46
because we have an incredible activist named Gloria Lucas.
01:49
Gloria Lucas founded Nalgona Positivity Pride,
01:52
in response to the lack of representation
01:54
in the body liberation and eating disorder
01:56
awareness communities.
01:57
Honoring those who came before her,
01:59
she specializes in grassroots activism
02:01
and is an intersectional educator.
02:04
Hey Gloria, it is so nice to meet you, I’m so excited,
02:09
I’ve been really looking forward to this conversation.
02:11
Gloria, when we say body liberation,
02:14
what do you mean by body in body liberation?
02:17
– Yeah, so, more commonly we have heard of body positivity
02:21
and that’s initially how I started.
02:24
However, you know, as I started doing more of my work,
02:27
I realized how the body positive movement
02:29
had really been hijacked and had not really been centering
02:34
the voices of the transgender community,
02:37
the fat community and women of color.
02:39
And so body liberation goes beyond just body image, right?
02:43
It looks at power systems that make it difficult
02:47
for people to live at peace in their bodies
02:50
and really challenging them.
02:52
– Gloria, I know that we have some young activists
02:56
who are interested in body liberation and learning more.
03:01
What are the steps we can take?
03:02
– So there are a few things that young people can do
03:05
to start engaging in body liberation activism.
03:09
One of them is, looking at how this change
03:12
that we want to see around us,
03:14
needs to start amongst ourselves.
03:17
So it’s truly becoming aware and critical
03:20
of let’s say for instance, diet culture,
03:23
fat phobia, looking at anti-blackness.
03:26
We get fed these ideas every single day
03:29
so, we have to be critical and unlearn them.
03:33
Also starting these conversations in our homes,
03:36
with our friends and serving as disrupters
03:40
when people are being hurt by suggestions
03:45
of how they need to change their bodies.
03:47
Also in community efforts, to raise awareness on body image
03:52
or eating disorder awareness,
03:54
following the work of marginalized people,
03:57
Virgie Tovar has two books for youth on body image.
04:01
– I love it, be yourself.
04:03
The way that you interact with the world around you
04:06
can disrupt these patterns and these systems.
04:09
I think that’s amazing.
04:10
Gloria, I’m interested to know how social media
04:13
plays into the body liberation movement
04:15
in terms of the ways that it can support it
04:17
and the ways that it challenges it.
04:19
– In many ways, social media has been an educational tool.
04:22
With that said, I feel that social media
04:25
can be a double edged sword nonetheless,
04:27
and it’s important for us to be critical.
04:30
Who do we follow?
04:31
Are they empowering us?
04:33
Do they also value diversity, true diversity?
04:37
Especially with this year, people feel that diversity
04:40
is just another thing to mark off,
04:42
but it requires a lot more than that.
04:45
Diversity includes making space for other worldviews,
04:50
and it requires people who have been in power to lose power
04:55
and to give that room for others,
04:57
you know, our voices weren’t out there.
05:00
Growing up, I never saw people like myself,
05:03
brown girl, coming from an immigrant Mexican family
05:07
that I never saw myself.
05:09
So, I had to compare myself with this standard
05:12
that was an opposition to myself
05:14
and something that I could never be.
05:17
– Gloria, I’m wondering if you have any guidance
05:20
for our audience members around guidelines
05:23
that they can create for themselves either online
05:26
or in real life?
05:28
– Yeah, I remember one time having a heart to heart
05:30
with a good friend of mine
05:32
who’s part of the Fat Activist Community
05:35
and she told me, “your platform needs to serve you.”
05:38
And that really stayed with me as a person
05:41
that is personally affected by an eating disorder,
05:44
I have to take care of myself,
05:47
but I have to also take care of my audience.
05:50
And considering that there aren’t a lot of spaces
05:53
for BIPOC, Black, Indigenous, People of Color.
05:57
So I created these guidelines,
05:59
some of them include not saying the “O words”,
06:03
obese, obesity and overweight.
06:06
Not stating specific eating disorder behavior,
06:09
not stating specific numbers associated with size, weight,
06:14
also refraining from making black and white statements
06:18
about food and be more intentional about health
06:20
because a lot of this wellness culture
06:23
is entrenched within diet culture
06:27
and part of the problem has been the restriction
06:31
and courage, which does not allow people
06:33
to stay connected with the wisdom
06:36
that already exists in our bodies.
06:37
– I think that’s so beautiful.
06:39
You mentioned the process of unlearning,
06:42
and I imagine that it must create so much safety
06:46
for people who are in a genuine process of unlearning
06:49
and healing for them to see that you have set up
06:53
these boundaries and also gives them permission
06:56
to set them up for themselves.
06:57
– Yeah, that’s important, right?
06:59
We are all on this journey trying to figure ways
07:03
to do less harm for others and ourselves.
07:06
– Gloria, where does body liberation activism live?
07:11
The personal, the interpersonal, the global, the communal?
07:14
– I feel that body liberation is multilayered,
07:17
anywhere from challenging prejudices that one might have,
07:23
to checking in with mom when she says fat phobic comments,
07:28
to changing accessibility for people of color,
07:32
to attain eating disorder treatment,
07:35
to abolishing the police or ice detention centers, right?
07:41
So it’s all over the place and it’s required
07:44
for it to be all over the place.
07:47
– Gloria, your organization is called
07:49
Nalgona Positivity Pride, I’ve two questions for you,
07:53
what is your organization and what does Nalgona mean?
07:56
– So Nalgona in Spanish means big booty.
08:03
And so Nalgona Positivity Pride,
08:05
It’s a Chicana indigenous rooted effort
08:10
to raise awareness on eating disorders
08:14
and also body liberation.
08:16
So, we do everything for like social media,
08:20
I’m a public speaker where I talk about historical trauma
08:24
and eating disorders,
08:25
we also have an online peer support group for BIPOC,
08:28
Black, Indigenous, People of Color who struggle
08:30
with eating disorders and so much more.
08:33
– Gloria, because you mentioned historical trauma,
08:36
I’m wondering, is there a connection
08:39
between the marginalization of BIPOC bodies in our culture
08:44
and what’s happening in terms of climate justice?
08:47
– So, at the bottom of every social oppression,
08:53
we notice that they’re all intertwined and linked up, right?
08:56
And, you know, if we look at indigenous knowledge,
09:01
identity of oneself is tied to land.
09:04
You know, I could trace my indigenous ancestries
09:07
through my father who still speaks the native language,
09:11
Nahuatl, and the teaching is that we humans came from corn.
09:16
So even like the teachings of the universe
09:20
are rooted in food and we could see that devastation
09:25
and the loss of those teachings by even just looking
09:28
at the way corn is treated today, be it GMO
09:32
and how people who grow these foods are treated.
09:35
And again, with capitalism and white supremacy,
09:39
those teachings were violently removed.
09:43
And I always argue that as long as the land
09:46
is not given back to indigenous people,
09:48
it’s gonna be very difficult for indigenous people
09:50
to have a positive relationship
09:54
with themselves, their bodies.
09:56
– Yeah, the connection of all those cycles
09:58
and how they’re intertwined seems so important
10:01
in further healing and liberation.
10:03
Gloria, you’ve talked a lot about language
10:05
and the importance of it, so, I was hoping
10:08
we could play a little bit with language
10:10
with one of these games I used to play when I was a kid.
10:13
Mad Libs, have you ever heard of it?
10:14
– Yes
10:16
– Great.
10:17
So, I’m gonna ask you for a few words
10:21
and then we’ll fill it into the Mad Libs
10:22
that I made up, okay?
10:24
– Okay.
10:25
– Number one, who would you like to go on an adventure with?
10:28
– My friend, Amy.
10:29
– Can you tell me what is a very useful part of the body?
10:33
– Hair color.
10:34
– And, what is a silly movement?
10:38
– Zapateando, which is a Mexican dance that is
10:43
with the feet.
10:46
With feet?
10:49
– I’m already laughing
10:51
– What is a favorite pet?
10:54
Either fantasy pet, any kind of pet, favorite pet.
10:58
– A fat cat.
11:00
– And what’s an adjective for toes?
11:03
You know, on the end of your feet?
11:05
– They’re different
11:07
I mean, adjective would be that , unique toes like-
11:11
– I’m gonna say unique and different.
11:14
A word to describe how you feel
11:16
when you’re doing your least favorite chore?
11:20
– Annoyed.
11:21
– And what is a mundane scale or activity?
11:26
– It would be to know how to warm up tortillas.
11:31
– What’s an activity
11:32
that you got in trouble for when you were a kid?
11:35
– Going to music shows without permission.
11:38
– What’s something nice that you say
11:39
to yourself in the mirror?
11:41
– I come from my ancestors, so therefore I am valuable.
11:45
– I love it.
11:46
And what is something you like to do
11:48
that makes you feel good?
11:49
– Oh, my plants, they’re my babies.
11:51
– Okay, let’s see if we can get this.
11:53
My best friend, Amy, who has the most amazing hair color
11:59
and I were
12:02
did I say it right?
12:06
Down the street, we were on our way to a costume party,
12:10
dressed as two fat cats
12:13
when a unique and different thing happened,
12:20
a group of annoyed people started shouting,
12:24
“hey, great job warming up the tortillas.”
12:31
And Amy and I, couldn’t believe it.
12:34
It made us feel like we wanted to go to music shows
12:38
without permission
12:41
but instead we said, “I come from my ancestors
12:46
and therefore I am valuable.”
12:49
And we went back to keeping up with our plants.
12:56
– Yay.
12:58
I kept it very Mexican.
13:02
– I love it, I love it.
13:05
Gloria, It has been so amazing talking to you,
13:09
I’ve already learned so much.
13:11
Before you go, I’m wondering if you have any guidance
13:14
for our audience members, for them to do,
13:17
to fight for body liberation and support the movement?
13:20
– Yes, I would say one, learn about diet culture,
13:24
learn how to identify it.
13:26
Two, I would say follow accounts of fat black women
13:31
and people with disabilities, people with chronic illness,
13:35
the transgender community the two-spirit community,
13:38
I mean, the list goes on.
13:39
Three, consider maybe creating in your community
13:45
a body liberation or body positivity effort.
13:50
And four, it’s not always about learning but unlearning.
13:54
And what that entails is being a good listener.
13:56
Those four things are important and critical
13:59
for the body liberation movement.
14:02
– That was so beautiful, Gloria shared so much with us.
14:05
She left us with some very cool organizations
14:08
we can check out.
14:09
Of course Nalgona Positivity Pride, her organization
14:11
and Sage and spoon, also, The Body Is Not an Apology,
14:15
Health at Every Size and T-F-F-E- D,
14:20
Trans Folks Fighting Eating Disorders.
14:22
Thanks again for joining me.
14:23
I look forward to talking to you next week
14:25
when we have another episode of, Now What?

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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The post So You Want To Fight for Body Liberation. Now What? [Video] appeared first on The Good Men Project.

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