Mind Your Business and Leave My Rolls Alone: A Case Study of Fat Black Women Runners' Decolonial Resistance

he Black female body has been vili ed, surveilled, and viewed as `obese' and irresponsible for centuries in Western societies. For just as long, some Black women have resisted their mischarac- terizations. Instead they have embraced a `fat' identity. But little research has demonstrated how Black fat women participate in sport. The purpose of this study is to show how Black fat women who run use social media to unapologetically celebrate Blackness and fatness. This research uses a case-study approach to illuminate a broader phenomenon of decolonial resistance through running. In addition to analysis of websites, blogs, and news articles devoted to Black women's running, we discuss the (social) media content of two speci c runners: Mirna Valerio and Latoya Shauntay Snell. We performed a critical discourse analysis on 14 media offerings from the two runners, including websites, Twitter pages, and blogs collected over a ve-month period from September 2020–January 2021. The analysis examined how they represent themselves and their communities and how they comment on issues of anti-fat bias, neoliberal capitalism, ableist sexism, and white supremacy, some of the pillars of colonialism. Whereas running is often positioned as a weight-loss-focused and white-dominated colonial project,

runners, including websites, Twitter pages, and blogs collected over a ve-month period from September 2020–January 2021. The analysis examined how they represent themselves and their communities and how they comment on issues of anti-fat bias, neoliberal capitalism, ableist sexism, and white supremacy, some of the pillars of colonialism. Whereas running is often positioned as a weight-loss-focused and white-dominated colonial project, through their very presence and use of strategic communication to amplify their experiences and build community, these runners show how being a Black fat female athlete is an act of decolonial resistance. This study offers a unique sporting example of how fat women challenge obesity discourses and cultural invisibility and how Black athletes communicate anti-racist, decolonial principles. Keywords:critical discourse analysis; women; sport; running; decolonize; fatness 1. Introduction For centuries, the fat body has been vili ed, surveilled, viewed as diseased and gluttonous, as well as characterized as risky and irresponsible. These negative misrepresen- tations are ampli ed for fat Black women. Yet, for centuries, fat Black women have resisted knowledge produced about them from outside their communities. Their own de nitions of health, sport, nutrition, and beauty have been based on alternate epistemologies to dominant medicalized, Western knowledge systems. This paper provides a historical and social context for various representations of `obesity' and fat Black women before offering a case study of fat Black women who run and share their experiences on social media. In addition to a critical discourse analysis of websites, blogs, and news articles devoted to Black women's running, we examined 14 media offerings from two runners: Mirna Valerio and Latoya Shauntay Snell. We examined their websites, Twitter pages, and blogs collected over a ve-month period from September 2020–January 2021. The results of this study show that female athletes are using social media to comment on anti-fat bias, neoliberal capitalism, ableist sexism, and white supremacy, some of the pillars of colonialism. Importantly, and in line with Mignolo, we use the term `decolonial' to highlight a refusal to accept colonial knowledge systems. Decolonial resistance includes epistemic disobedience or a “delinking from the web of imperial/modern knowledge and from

female athletes are using social media to comment on anti-fat bias, neoliberal capitalism, ableist sexism, and white supremacy, some of the pillars of colonialism. Importantly, and in line with Mignolo, we use the term `decolonial' to highlight a refusal to accept colonial knowledge systems. Decolonial resistance includes epistemic disobedience or a “delinking from the web of imperial/modern knowledge and from Societies2021,11, 95.

Societies2021,11, 95 2 of 17 the colonial matrix of power” [1] (p. 178). The colonial matrix created knowledge about sport and bodies, presented as rational and neutral so as to hide their racist and sexist origins; decolonial resistance, therefore, requires “the (re)iteration, (re)interpretation and (re)presentation of the meanings of muscle, bone, fat and skin—the materiality of the body itself” [2] (p. 9). Whereas running is often positioned as a weight-loss-focused and White-dominated colonial project, through their very presence and use of strategic communication to amplify their experiences and build communities, these runners show how being a fat Black woman runner is an act of decolonial resistance. 1.1. The `Obesity Crisis' and Fat Studies In recent years, at least three approaches to research on the fat body emerged. First, some research re ected a so-called `obesity crisis,' which has become a major public health concern. As described by Syed, “alarmist views of obesity have, over the years, escalated to anti-obesity hysteria” with links made between `obesity' and cardiovascular problems, arthritic conditions, mental health co-morbidities, economic costs to society [3] (p. 1), and as Lewis et al. note, stigma to individuals and communities that constrain leisure physical activity participation [4]. The positivistic, biomedical view of `obesity' pathologizes individuals and assumes that it is a disease caused by a combination of over-eating and under-exercising. Extensive research that posits that an estimated 80% of Black American women are `overweight' or `obese' [5] and that African American women experience the highest rates of `obesity' compared to any other subpopulation in the United States fails to recognize the broader material and social issues connected to `obesity' [6]. Those in the biomedical eld might attribute a Black woman's higher weight to a lack of willpower and self-control when it comes to diet and exercise. The emphasis on personal responsibility for one's weight not only among the medical community but also in the general public positions `obesity' as one's own fault, as directly related to ill-health, and as inherently, individually, and morally bad. Meanwhile, there is a second area of health research that recognizes broader social determinants of

when it comes to diet and exercise. The emphasis on personal responsibility for one's weight not only among the medical community but also in the general public positions `obesity' as one's own fault, as directly related to ill-health, and as inherently, individually, and morally bad. Meanwhile, there is a second area of health research that recognizes broader social determinants of health, such as ethnicity, migration, acculturation, socioeconomic status, geography, and exposure to stress [7], as well as nutrition and access to healthy food and medical services, when considering the causes of weight-related diseases and dispro- portionately high rates of `obesity' among Black women [8]. The social determinants of health eld shifts the blame from individuals to the structures in which they are embedded. However, some of these health professionals continue to see larger bodies as (having) a problem. In this context, rather than viewing human beings as coming in a range of sizes, `overweight' is problematized, which allows anti-fat bias to ourish. The third area of research, aligned with the fat acceptance movement, uses the term fat rather than `obese' to more neutrally describe individuals in larger bodies [3,9–11] and rejects the negative stereotypes and assumptions associated with both medicalized terminology and the word `fat' [12]. Fat Studies is often viewed as a radical academic eld founded on refusing the medicalized conceptions of `obesity' and reclaiming the word `fat' to reinforce identity and pride [3,13]. Scholars in the area of fat studies point to biomedical approaches toward `obesity' for constructing a pathologized body: the `obese' Other [3]. Instead, scholars of fat studies draw theoretical tools from Black feminism in recognizing the ways in which fatism, or anti-fat bias, interacts with other social oppressions such as racism, sexism, and ableism, creating multiple, compounding axes of discrimination [14,15]. Hill Collins notes the medical eld has played an important role in perpetuating suppos- edly “scienti c and common-sense beliefs about bodies, tness, evolution, reproduction, science and the state, as well as about ability, race, ethnicity, gender sexuality, age and nation” [15] (p. 255). These ideas have historically coalesced to de ne health and

multiple, compounding axes of discrimination [14,15]. Hill Collins notes the medical eld has played an important role in perpetuating suppos- edly “scienti c and common-sense beliefs about bodies, tness, evolution, reproduction, science and the state, as well as about ability, race, ethnicity, gender sexuality, age and nation” [15] (p. 255). These ideas have historically coalesced to de ne health and constructs of (ab)normality in intersectional ways: “a fat studies approach offers no opposition to the simple fact of human weight diversity, but instead looks at what people and societies make of this reality” [10] (p. x). The Health at Every Size (HAES) movement suggests concerns about weight should be de-linked from concerns about health and vice versa [16].

Societies2021,11, 95 3 of 17 Chastising a large person, Taylor notes, is “a body shame tactic...more likely about the ways in which we expect other bodies to conform to our standards and beliefs about what a body should or should not look like” [11] (p. 21). This tactic is ableist and used in misogynist and racist ways to erase fatness and blackness from Western aesthetics and beauty standards [17]. 1.2. Anti-Fat Bias and Neoliberal Capitalism Beyond health and aesthetics, fatness and blackness are linked to morality, happiness, and responsibility in the Western imagination. The notion of the fat Black woman as an irresponsible mother, speci cally, exempli es `misogynoir' a term coined by Bailey to capture “the co-constitutive, anti-Black and misogynistic racism directed at Black women, particularly in visual and digital culture” that combines “misogyny, `the hatred of women,' andnoir, which means `black' but also carries lm and media connotations” [18] (p. 2). Speci cally, Black women in the United States, who live in worlds steeped in anti-Blackness and coloniality, experience (in)direct violence against their bodies, often with an emphasis on fat-phobia or anti-fat bias [17]. This bias was born out of “protestant moralism and the disdain of indulgence” since as early as the 18th century [19] (p. 209), when an understanding of fat bodies was projected onto `Africans' as perverse and wrong, allowing the French and British to engage in a form of abjection to rein in their own bodies [20]. This fat and Black rejection continued into racial scienti c literature before making its way into the medical eld most recently [19]. Strings goes on to explain how the development of the thin White ideal was essentially predicated upon an image of the fat, diseased Black woman to “both degrade black womenanddiscipline white women” [19] (p. 211). It is no wonder, then, that a fear of being fat is so widespread and common now in the West. Understanding the present-day context of anti-fat bias or stigma requires analysis of the in uence of neoliberal capitalism in the dieting and running industries and their role in framing `obesity' as

“both degrade black womenanddiscipline white women” [19] (p. 211). It is no wonder, then, that a fear of being fat is so widespread and common now in the West. Understanding the present-day context of anti-fat bias or stigma requires analysis of the in uence of neoliberal capitalism in the dieting and running industries and their role in framing `obesity' as a failure of morality, a lack of discipline, and an inability to `progress' [21]. Fox explored how the Western desire for transformational weight loss (and thereby for temporal progress) is a re ection of `colonial temporality' [22]. Within colo- niality, Rose similarly argues, colonizers' grasp of temporality and need for improvement formed the foundation for “their vision of a future that will transcend the past”, altering the colonizers' sense of time so much that it enabled them to “understand [themselves] in an imaginary state of future achievement” [23] (p. 17). Fox argues that dieters “experi- ence their lives according to these forms of time” [22]. In this way, temporality based on colonialism has resulted in a focus on the body in particular futures, essentially voiding its value in the present [22]. Running, too, has been described by Bridel and Rail as a future-oriented means to “lose weight, to change body shape, or simply to become “healthier,” each of which was positioned as having aesthetic implications” [24] (p. 135) for a “sleek and thin” look [24] (p. 136). Using these logics, in spaces where Black futures are intentionally circumscribed, limited, and made fungible through state apparatuses that deny futures [25], the large Blackpresentbody exempli es a complete rejection of colonial temporal progress frameworks. Whereas the imperatives of whiteness and slimness create “an ideal state of embodiment” [17] (p. 9), requiring the rationality and self-discipline of “the perfect subject-citizen [who] is able to achieve both eating and thinness. . .[as] out-of control consumer and self-controlled subject” [21] (p. 444). Black women running to lose weight become viewed as moral, worthy, exercising discipline over their bodies, and personally sharing the burden of governance with the state [26]. A study of neoliberalism, soul food,

rationality and self-discipline of “the perfect subject-citizen [who] is able to achieve both eating and thinness. . .[as] out-of control consumer and self-controlled subject” [21] (p. 444). Black women running to lose weight become viewed as moral, worthy, exercising discipline over their bodies, and personally sharing the burden of governance with the state [26]. A study of neoliberalism, soul food, and diet among Black women found that: Black women who are physically active, on diets, undergo gastric bypass surgery, or publicly announce a weight loss strategy are increasingly deemed, within the context of neoliberalism, to embody a rationality and self-discipline (read: Whiteness) that those who are fat (and poor) lack. [27] (p. 807)

Societies2021,11, 95 4 of 17 Thompson questions, then, whether the woman is still resisting both whiteness and slenderness, if she becomes a dieting Black woman and, similarly, if a fat Black woman becomes active, for the purpose of losing weight, is she still resisting neoliberalism [27]? Beyond these questions, we wonder, how do those who are physically activebut without the goal of losing weight t into (or resist) this neoliberal, colonial society? 1.3. Colonizing the Black Female Body and Running—Historical Perspectives Present-day Western aesthetic standards and discourses about fat Black women did not suddenly emerge. They have been shaped by powerful actors over a long historical period. Shang explains that the colonized body has meaning de ned by the colonizer who: Imagines himself [sic] as endowed with the priority to speak for the other,. . . to invest the other's body with epistemic difference [which] would characterize the manner in which the body of the native is eventuallythingi edandobjecti ed under the exigencies of colonial “modernity” and “civilization”. [28] (p. 145) The institution of slavery as a primary tool of colonization was essentially contingent upon the existence of thisobjecti edOther. Indeed, Black feminist theory posits that the devaluation of Black women in the United States and globally is rooted in the institution of slavery, in which Black female bodies were routinely violated for the pro t and pleasure of others [29,30]. The idea of Black women's over-sensualism proliferated through controlling images such as the hypersexual `Jezebel' or `Sapphire' [31]. This hyper-sexuality, as Awad and colleagues explain, derives from women's construction “deserving of sexual exploita- tion or as breeder women lawfully usable for populating owner's [sic] plantations with new slave stock or for the generation [of] revenues” [30] (p. 1). Racialized and gendered intersections of privilege, oppression, and power cast the Black woman as prone to sexual and oral indulgences [32]. This idea of Black women's sensualism is now used in the present day in relation to eating and `obesity' to frame Black women as a threat to public health [32]. Both Strings and Forth suggest that the concept of Black

and gendered intersections of privilege, oppression, and power cast the Black woman as prone to sexual and oral indulgences [32]. This idea of Black women's sensualism is now used in the present day in relation to eating and `obesity' to frame Black women as a threat to public health [32]. Both Strings and Forth suggest that the concept of Black oral insatiability is distinctly misogynist—typically placing Black women, rather than men, at the cen- ter [20,32]. Thus, there has always been a particularly racialized and gendered element of anti-fat attitudes. The story of Sartjie Baartman is perhaps the most shameful and well-documented individual example of how anti-fat attitudes were racialized and gendered through colonial practices. Sartjie Baartman was Khoisan, born in 1789 in South Africa. In 1810 she was asked by her then captors, for whom she worked as a servant, and an English ship surgeon, to come to England, according to Mattoscio [33]. It is unclear how informed Sartjie was about what was to be the true purpose of her time in England, but records show she entered into a specious contract to “share in the pro ts made on her exhibition in Europe” by Dutchman Henrik Cezar [34] (p. 90). Baartman had what the colonizers viewed as a fascinating, inferior, and oversexed body due to its size and her “unusually large” buttocks [34–36]. Sartjie arrived in England, where she became a spectacle, half-clothed in a cage, in London's Piccadilly circus. She would eventually be moved to France in 1814, where she worked for a man who showcased animals and treated her as such, forcing her to perform shows for private audiences. In both England and France, Saartjie was ridiculed and commodi ed, while her British and French superiors exploited the nancial reward of her body as a spectacle [35]. Usiekniewicz highlights how Sartjie's legacy formulated the notion of “Black fatness” as “a sign of degeneration” and “different manners of body policing” that are still to this day perpetrated on those living in fat, racialized bodies [37] (p. 12). The rejection of racialized fatness is further explained in the

exploited the nancial reward of her body as a spectacle [35]. Usiekniewicz highlights how Sartjie's legacy formulated the notion of “Black fatness” as “a sign of degeneration” and “different manners of body policing” that are still to this day perpetrated on those living in fat, racialized bodies [37] (p. 12). The rejection of racialized fatness is further explained in the ndings of the 19th century Western ethnographers and travelers: In such cases, fat was not simply a reference to body size and shape butwas viewed as a tangible example of softness, looseness and even greasiness, re ect- ing the sensuality, indolence, and other moral defects often attributed to such peoples. In this way, it performed a cautionary function for Western elites them- selves, especially in relation to the beauty of women. If becoming corpulent was

The article explores the experiences of fat Black women runners and their resistance to societal norms.