I'm 5'11, 200lbs. Kevin Smith is about 2-3" shorter than me and has at least 50lbs on me. This rant isn't going to be about whether Southwest was right or wrong in removing him from the flight.
It's going to be about a little organization I learned about called:
National Assocaiation to Advance Fat Acceptance.
There are associations out there for pretty much anything you can imagine. Hell, there's probably some association out there called "Teabaggees Everywhere Against Boys Arbitrarily Gonadding" that's probably got my in-game character on their hit list or are lobbying various video game companies to stop making animations that could refer to the act of teabagging.
Some of these associations are necessary. As much as I hate to say it, an organization like PETA probably does more good than bad, but it's organizations like these that will jump on huge news stories for nothing other than to push their agenda.
Which leads me to the question of...
Who in their right f***ing minds organizes a group to teach people to accept fat?
I'm not a model of fitness and exercise, but it seems to me anyone can have one of two reasons for being fat.
1. An actual medical reason like Type II diabetes, thyroid issues or meds being taken for a different issue. An airliner in this case can simply ask for some simple proof of medical issues (prescription? doctor's note?) and keep it on file.
2. You're lazy and you eat nothing but fast food and don't exercise anything but your digits on the remote or game controller.
The VAST majority of people that are considered to be overweight/fat fall into the second group. There really is no excuse for it and why an organization called "NAAFA" is trying to work to make it so that fat people are accepted in all walks of life is beyond me.
In watching the Nightline article last night covering the Kevin Smith brouhaha, they had a representative from NAAFA (Golda Peretzky? I didn't quite catch her name) on there to discuss why this was bad for Southwest. As part of her spiel, she stated:
people of size to seek out and travel airlines that do not have such discriminatory policies
On top of that, she goes as far as to answer a question comparing Smith's debacle to that of Rosa Parks.
HOW IN THE F***ING HELL IS THAT EVEN CLOSE TO COMPARABLE TO WHAT HAPPENED TO ROSA PARKS?!?!? ROSA PARKS WAS BEING DISCRIMINATED AGAINST OVER SOMETHING SHE WAS BORN WITH. SHE DIDN'T GO OUT AND WILLINGLY CHANGE HER SKIN COLOR.
DON'T GIVE ME THIS "HE SPOKE OUT AGAINST UNFAIR TREATMENT ON PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION" BULLSHIT AS ANY FORM OF A COMPARABLE IDEA TO ROSA PARKS HERSELF.
/deepbreath
Ok, I get it. Medical reasoning aside, the guy next to you on the airline has to be completely cramped his entire flight just so you can continue to sit on the couch, shove whatever edible form of food you can get your hands on into your mouth, avoid exercising and watch TV all day.
F*** off lady. I'm overweight myself and if I get to the point where my fat rolls are surrounding the arm rests of an airplane's seat or my ass won't fit into one seat alone, I would expect to get kicked off the plane or charged double. And you know what I'm going to do if I get kicked off the plane?
I'm certainly not going to appear on Twitter or Nightline advocating that being insanely fat because I'm lazy is perfectly acceptable. I'm not going to convince myself that an airline should buy planes with extra large seats to accommodate passengers that can't fit into the current ones. I'm not going run around and act all butthurt because the staff of a company was thinking of safety. I'm not going to go on a rampage trying to get people to boycott said company because they were trying to make the other 149 passengers on the plane safer.
No, I'm going to park my fat ass right on a goddamn exercise bike or a f***ing treadmill and work my ass off until I can fit in the seat again. You want companies like Southwest to be considerate of your size?
How about you be considerate of the fact that your size takes away from the space of the others in the plane next to you? Space they paid for that you're occupying because you want shovel pork rinds into your pie hole 24/7 and drink 3 gallons of soda with every meal?
But wait! BOO HOO MAKING FAT JOKES HURTS MY FEELINGS. IT LEADS TO DEPRESSION AND THAT'S WHY I'M FAT.
Please.
If you weren't fat, jokes wouldn't be made. I'm sure I speak for the vast majority of people that make fat jokes when I say:
If we know you're fat for a medical reason, we leave you alone about it. If you're fat because you're a lazy slob? Deal with it. People make jokes about my man-titties all the time. Does it hurt my feelings?
No.
Why not?
Because they're there. If I were truly bothered by them, I'd work to turn them back into the pecs they once were.
Mimi Roth, at the end of that interview (from another oddball organization called National Action Against Obesity) pretty much nails it on the head when she says it's getting to a point in this country where fat people are getting super-sized senses of entitlements and expectations relative to their size over how they should be treated.
The fault isn't on the companies who's service you're requesting fat people. It's on your own head (usually).
I don't see anyone complaining about their three year old being unable to ride a carnival ride for being too short.
(I'm betting there's an organization out there against that too...)
Why? Because people understand if you don't fit in the restraints, you get thrown off the ride and killed.
How is an airplane any different? Come talk to me when a Chinese Buffet kicks you out because you're fat.
Even then, you won't have much sympathy from me.
As for whether Kevin Smith was wronged...he probably was. He still fit in the seat mostly comfortably. Southwest attendants used poor judgement there, but if NAAFA thinks they have a horse to hitch their wagon to with this case, good luck with that.
Click here for the ABC News Nightline article.
I don't have a problem with people wanting to advocate that the human race comes in lots of different sizes. I don't think that someone is less of a human being because they're fat and I think that wanting to support that isn't a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteI have rather more of an issue in how they dealt with this. Whilst I'm overweight I too can comfortably sit in an airline seat and do my seatbelt up too but should I get to the point where I can't, I'd much rather someone told me up front rather than waited until I got on the plane...