Well I watched the episode last night, and I must say that there were
things said that impressed me. One thing that stuck out was that at the
very end, it was said by one of the characters, and I'm paraphrasing here,
and that was that he didn't wanna be judged; and that's a good thing.
Perhaps progress is being made in pockets, hmm?
My take on it overall was that it was fairly objective, but I'm still
a long way from being comforted in the notion that things are "getting
better". When I have to put up with issues brought about because of
family meddling and prejudicial attitudes that have put a damper on much
of my relation****p with my wife, you can certainly understand why I feel
the way I do; and you can also understand why my patience has reached its
end, and why I feel that there should be a no more Mr. Nice Guy approach
in dealing with something that's long overdue to be corrected.
Size-acceptance is one issue where I strongly feel that the clock
should be rolled way back on the privacy aspect of it. There should be
very strong militant lobbyists worldwide to put a stop to health care
providers, insurance companies, and government policies, to name a few,
that actively seek to discriminate against people of size or otherwise
simply make lives miserable overall. I can't stress enough that if people
in the size-acceptance movement were any other "alternative lifestyle" type
group or whatever label you wanna put on it, much of the crap that we put
up with would be considered hate crime status, and you better believe that
**** would hit the fan.
I'm certainly not suggesting that political correctness and all the
other bull **** that's associated with it become a part of the
size-acceptance movement. We just need to reclaim some territory and get
back to the business of being able to function like everybody else does.
I mean, that's what's expected of me as a blind person. You won't believe
the countless times I deal with people who get pissed off at me because I
refuse to "function like a normal blind person". That is, I don't use
Braille; I haven't needed it in 30 plus years as computer technology has
opened a hell of a lot of doors for me. I should be able to get in my
car, plot a course to wherever and go there. I should be able to walk up
to a device, whether it's an electronic musical instrument or a digital
cable box, and use assistive technology to operate it like anyone else
does. Such should be the same for people of size. Other people of
varying needs have adaptive materials and so forth, and m!
uch of it is demanded by government mandates.
Let's look at it this way. Even if I wasn't involved in size-acceptance,
I still don't like the idea of people being cramped in small spaces, such
as coach class seats on airplanes, small subway cars, small automobiles,
and I could go on. A lot of things that have come down over the years
that have been proven to be a pain in the ass for people of size are a
pain in the ass for everybody else too. So where do we go from here? I
wish I had all the answers. When I got married three years ago, I felt
that I'd finally found my own peace in my corner of the world, but even
after it was told to me I don't know how many times by my wife that she
was comfortable in our situation, that is no longer the case. I think
that things have slipped too far for me to correct personal problems here.
Whatever comes down the pike for me personally will be mine to deal with.
As for the rest of the movement, I believe it's time to take it to the next
level and work towards a rolling back o!
f the clock on personal liberties and to progress forward with getting
policies in place that are equal for everyone.
Mike
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