Most of the bull crap Dr. Kawasaki or whatever his name is has been discredited, and rightly so. But the comments on Madame Noire had me scratching my head bald. Yet even in the idiocy, some grains of truth sparkled through the dung heap.

One commenter over there gave me pause, because frankly, I think he’s spot on:

I may be out of depth here, since I am white and just stumbled upon this site by accident. I’ll comment anyway. Singling out an entire race as less good looking as another race is ridiculous, as many on this site have pointed out. I love beautiful women, I have collected high-end art for many years, and I am a good judge of beauty. My years in Japan, Indonesia, South America, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the U.S. have convinced me that there are spectacularly beautiful women in each. I favored blond Scandinavian types for a long time, including marrying one. But love shows up when it wants to; I am now married to a Haitian of pure [South African / Khoisan] blood, and have three children, two of them adopted and also pure blood, the last girl 50% African, 25% German, 25% Italian. The two girls, along with their mother, are extraordinarily beautiful. They are tall, athletic, and brilliant in school. So this kind of article is just stupid. But let me take the other side of this for a moment. When I go to the U.S., I am just astounded at the number of hugely fat people. More of them are white, because there are more whites, but the number of fat black woman is amazing, at least to eyes that spend more time in Haiti and other parts of the Caribbean than the U.S. I have also spent time in Kenya. If there is any justification for this article, it has nothing to do with “natural” beauty, or a lack thereof, but is about the figure-and-face distorting effects of weighing 220 when your body should weight 120. Sorry gals [and guys], but the U.S. is the world capital of fat chicks, and ain’t none of ’em very attractive when compared to their relatively underfed sisters. It’s not about race, it’s about burritos.

One phrase in particular stood out to me, “..it has nothing to do with ‘natural’ beauty, or a lack thereof, but is about the figure-and-face distorting effects of weighing 220 when your body should weight 120.”

He’s right about that. Four out of five black women are obese. I have a 300-pound half-sister who is 4’9. Her idea of a balanced meal is Twinkies, fried pigs skins, fried chicken and Kool-Aid–extra sugar. She used to cry on the phone to me about how nobody wanted her because everyone is so shallow and can’t see passed her weight. Frankly, I got tired of hearing it, because WHENEVER she’d point out a man whom she thought was good looking he was THIN. So…she thinks she’s entitled to a fit body and the guy should just accept her as-is, rolls and all. By the way, she’s so big she walks with a cane.

So when people say black women are “fat,” this assertion can’t simply be dismissed because it makes us feel bad about ourselves. Unlike our skin tone, hair, and facial features (all of which I find gorgeous) weight is 100% under our control. Let me say that again. Weight. Is. Something. We. CAN. CONTROL.

And before you tell me about your big bones and your thyroid, I’m not talking about you. But if Twinkies and fried pig skins are on your food pyramid and you don’t have the metabolism of a jack rabbit, then truth in the stereotype that black women are fat MUST be acknowledged, even if it’s hurtful.

Even if it’s uncomfortable.

Even if it puts Wonder Bread (the maker of Twinkies) out of business.

Yes, the media play a big role in perpetuating stereotypes, that’s why I’m going to figure out how I can support inititiatives to fight against the machine, like this movie my Facebook friend, Arlene Fenton passed along:

But at the same time, let’s not act like those stereotype come from nowhere:

Yep. That’s the lady who sat on a train of tortured passengers as her loud arse yapped on the phone for 16 HOURS STRAIGHT, and THEN got mad and said SHE felt “disrespected.” Wholly geezus. Of course, shes so fat she waddles and wears a weave. The media hone in on her because it supports the stereotype, but NEWSFLASH!!! This is a REAL person, who REALLY did this. These are not cartoons, folks. But trust and believe people are laughing at us.

Let’s stop giving the bully more fodder to tease us with. And if you think for one second that you’re not an embassador for every black person since Harriett Tubman, you are sorely mistaken. Whether we want to be or not, the singular is judged as the whole when it comes to minorities.

Shhhhhhhht! No sense arguing. You know I’m right.

The good news is that I think we’re starting to get it: just look at Jennifer Hudson, Jill Scott and Raven Simon. And big fat hugs to everyone in the BB&W crew travelling on their own journies to get fit and healthy!