Friday, February 1st, 2008...1:56 pm
Thin: Is It The New Caucasian?
Many people say there’s no “silver bullet” that will magically slay the ravenous monster that is the Obesity Epidemic, but the lawmakers of one state may just prove otherwise. They found their solution in the unlikeliest of places: the history books.
That’s right… the state of Mississippi is preparing to dust off an old, long-forgotten* standby: segregation!
Some people say its time has passed. In fact, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision which ruled that it was no longer necessary to segregate the races. However, the institution which was so memorably used to manage race relations in America for a century after its predecessor, slavery, was abolished is now being turned into another tool to help fight America’s most unsightly menace.
Under the terms of House Bill 282, certain restaurants would be required to weigh prospective customers as they entered. Anybody who is found to be overweight, as determined by a group of actual government officials, could not legally be served.
How will this cure the Obesity Crisis in the oh-so-aptly-named “Hospitality State”?
In layman’s terms, the active ingredient in this “policy pill” is a can’t-miss combination of good old-fashioned public humiliation and the exclusion of certain arbitrarily designated categories of food. Either one of these is obviously enough to permanently melt the pounds like wickedly fatty butter, as anybody who’s ever shamed a fat person or seen one on a diet can attest. Combine the two approaches together and they become–scienteriffically speaking–unstoppable.
We at the Institute applaud Mississippi Representatives W. T. Mayhall, Jr., Bobby Shows, and John Read for their visionary backward-looking stance. Once this law has proven that segregation can be just as effective a public policy tool today as it was forty years ago, who knows what use some enterprising lawmaker will put it towards next? The strength of a system like this is obvious: each time a group of people is successfully disenfranchised, it becomes easier to move forward with the next group as there’s less people left to protest.
The possibilities are truly limitless. in Mississippi, a state that has long been all but synonymous with the word “progress”, we may be looking at the beginning of a new golden age where people of “discriminating” tastes no longer have to put up with any unpleasant sorts.
* Results not typical
11 Comments
February 1st, 2008 at 2:08 pm
HySTERical!!!
February 1st, 2008 at 3:08 pm
The Hospitality State’s new segregationists have chosen wisely, as many thin people are already Caucasian! And rich! Poor people and minorities are more likely to be fat. Mississippi is thus blazing a trail towards removing all undesirables — the trifecta of fat people, poor people, and minorities — from public sight.
I suggest the Institute immediately launch a campaign for a new Mississippi slogan: “Mississippi: Reinforcing Hegemony By Prohibiting Access to Food.” I think it really captures the elegance of this proposal.
February 1st, 2008 at 5:40 pm
One thing worries me about a piece of otherwise Solonically wise lawmaking. This bill will cause fat women to be cheap dates in Mississippi. Guys won’t have to buy them dinner anymore, just a drink or two. Doesn’t that mean fat female Mississippians will have a more active social life if this bill passes? Will thin women languish at home? And horror of horrors, will fat people date each other and save even more dough — er, money? And maybe — *gasp* — reproduce? Might the bill backfire to produce a wave of fat babies in Mississippi?
February 1st, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Also, this bill doesn’t go far enough. Fat people can still eat food at restaurants that serve fewer than five people, are not enclosed, or do not have a health permit. Surely this will make a string of food wagons appear around Mississippi to serve the 30% of the state’s population who will no longer be able to go to larger restaurants. Do we really want fatties loitering on our sidewalks eating from vending carts in order to get their daily calories?
The Hospitality State needs to figure out a way to increase this proposed segregation, perhaps by forcing Fatties to eat only at home. Much like second hand smoke, no second hand fat viewing will be done in public. Keep the fatties eating at home so we don’t have to see them. What they eat in their homes will be their own business–at least for now!
Luckily the law does not restrict the type of restaurants that are going to keep fat people from eating there; we can forbid vegan restaurants and other healthy foods from fat people too because you know they will just order the unhealthiest thing on the menu. Fat people just don’t eat healthy things. I hear they spend the day eating something called “baby donuts”!
February 1st, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Kim, you have grasped the essential flaw in the bill, but you, too, do not go far enough. Fat people must be shamed into losing weight for their own sakes (and for our children!), and the only method for losing weight that is needed is to eat fewer calories than are expended. It’s as simple as that!
Under this bill, fat people are still allowed access to food via the grocery store, and yet if they stay at home, they will not be expending nearly enough calories to make up for the cheetoes and twinkies they will invariably consume. We MUST not allow fat people to continue to be a drain on our society, invisible or not. Therefore, we will need to amend this bill to limit the kinds of food fat people are allowed to buy, regardless of venue. In fact, it would be best if fat people could not buy food at all, since they will lose weight more quickly that way, and contribute to our ideal, beautiful, thin populace that much sooner.
Sure, we might lose a few through starvation, but it’s a small price to pay for the serenity of mind that comes with seeing only attractive people on the streets and in our homes!
February 1st, 2008 at 7:03 pm
@Jessica,
I am stunned by the brilliance of your argument. I too long for the day when we can grasp the twinkies out of the hands of fat people in order to make a more perfect America, much like the makers of this Mississippi bill hope for, as well.
As for the suffering that some fat people will go through, you know that you can’t make omelets without breaking a few eggs!
Although, we don’t want them eating omelets either!
February 2nd, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Perhaps a scale at the check out counter. If a patron weighs too much, no groceries that week. Nip the problem in the bud, I say! Don’t permit the thin to cross that fine but wide line from beauty into obesity
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
The solution to our conundrum is obvious. We just need to include a bar-code “BMI swipe card” that fatties hang from their key chains. They always have all sorts of unnecessary things on their key chains at any rate, they won’t notice one more thing. Then, when they go to pay for their food at grocery stores, a swipe of the card will determine which foods they’re allowed to buy, and which they’re not. Say goodbye to your Twinkies and baby-donuts, Fatties!
However, I’m concerned. I grocery shop with my children, and I’m worried that though they’ll be spared from the bad example of the fatty in restaurants, they will see fatties buying food in the grocery store. I’m afraid this will make them want more food and be fat. This bill clearly doesn’t do enough to protect children. They should know, from an early age, that being thin will allow them access to places, jobs, careers, and clothing fat people do not have access to. I want to make sure they know they are superior, and to hate and fear fat people enough so that they can’t ever catch their fat.
If I train my kids to be skinny, they inevitably will be.
February 4th, 2008 at 12:12 am
Clearly, this bill doesn’t go far enough.
Just the other day, my work took me to a place where people were providing FREE FOOD to anyone who came in. And nobody was judging by any criteria at all who had access to which foods.
They were even sending people away from the free meal with free groceries to eat later.
And a quick assessment of the kitchen revealed their true motives. Many of the volunteers were fat. And here they were, offering fat white foods and empty liquid calories to total strangers: milk, bananas, flour tortilla wraps, fruit juice, cream soups- it was an absolute travesty.
It’s not enough to keep the fatties out of restaurants. We need to get these fat-proselytizers out of our food banks, our soup kitchens, and our free community lunches.
They obviously don’t know how to feed themselves properly, they can’t be permitted to feed others.
February 4th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
“Solonically wise lawmaking.”
That might even be “Colonically wise lawmaking.”
February 7th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Excellent! Transcendent! The ideas presented in this thread are absolutely inspiring!
However, I think we ALL know where these, truly stellar, ideas should ultimately lead . What we REALLY need is program that’s proven to work. Something that even the current Administration can get behind. Something that-
1) Identifies;
By now it should be obvious that there is a growing number of Fatties who don’t KNOW that they are, in fact, FAT. No matter how many times this is pointed out in malls, restaurants, grocery stores, or even shouted from moving cars, they persist in this unreasoning state of ignorance. So it falls on us to label them. A bar-code tattoo on the forehead might prove be the best solution. Forestalling any black market trade in fake ID and attempts to ‘pass for skinny’ that a card might cause. Although branding Irons would probably be more cost effective.
2) Separates;
Once we’ve Identified the Fatties we can really get to work on removing them from the public consciousness. HB 282 is a start but, as many others on the thread have mentioned, it’s not enough. We’ve got to remove the mental trauma that seeing their disgustingly, fat, bodies in public spaces causes. Isolate the Fatties before their fat infectedness begins to spread, willi-nilli, amongst the healthy, well adjusted, beautiful, and frankly SUPERIOR, thin populous. And, of course, there are the Children. We MUST keep the Fatties away from THEM, ‘lest their immature minds find some illusory, fantastical, positive attribute in some fatty fat that might cause the child to want to emulate one (*shudder*). Also, One can’t help but notice that these concerns are, for the most part, social/medical in nature and that’s good. Because it leads us, rather neatly, to the Final Resolution.
3) Isolates:
Two words- Quarantine Relocation. Epidemic Concentration. Or just Obesity Camps. Ok, that’s six words but you get where I’m coming from. . . . . . Right?
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