Synopses & Reviews
To be fat hasnt always occasioned the level of hysteria that this condition receives today and indeed was once considered an admirable trait.
Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture explores this arc, from veneration to shame, examining the historic roots of our contemporary anxiety about fatness. Tracing the cultural denigration of fatness to the mid 19th century, Amy Farrell argues that the stigma associated with a fat body preceded any health concerns about a large body size. Firmly in place by the time the diet industry began to flourish in the 1920s, the development of fat stigma was related not only to cultural anxieties that emerged during the modern period related to consumer excess, but, even more profoundly, to prevailing ideas about race, civilization and evolution. For 19th and early 20th century thinkers, fatness was a key marker of inferiority, of an uncivilized, barbaric, and primitive body. This idea--that fatness is a sign of a primitive person--endures today, fueling both our $60 billion “war on fat” and our cultural distress over the “obesity epidemic.”
Farrell draws on a wide array of sources, including political cartoons, popular literature, postcards, advertisements, and physicians manuals, to explore the link between our historic denigration of fatness and our contemporary concern over obesity. Her work sheds particular light on feminisms fraught relationship to fatness. From the white suffragists of the early 20th century to contemporary public figures like Oprah Winfrey, Monica Lewinsky, and even the Obama family, Farrell explores the ways that those who seek to shed stigmatized identities--whether of gender, race, ethnicity or class--often take part in weight reduction schemes and fat mockery in order to validate themselves as “civilized.” In sharp contrast to these narratives of fat shame are the ideas of contemporary fat activists, whose articulation of a new vision of the body Farrell explores in depth. This book is significant for anyone concerned about the contemporary “war on fat” and the ways that notions of the “civilized body” continue to legitimate discrimination and cultural oppression.
Review
"A groundbreaking and extremely innovative book."
"As American are becoming increasingly sensitized to ingrained racial pathologies, Katheryn Russell's book, particularly her highly original chapter on racial hoaxes, is a crucial addition to the national discussion on race."
"Russell brilliantly scrutinizes the demonization of black men in the mass media and criminal justice system. Since slavery whites have fabricated fictions of dangerous black men and a distinctive 'black crime,' while playing down the real dominance of (unnamed) 'white crime.' Russell demonstrates that media distortions and racial hoaxes grow from and feed black demonization. Reviewing the failure of reforms to create a fair criminal justice system, and society, she offers imaginative, workable solutions."
Review
“An eye-opening history about how fatness obtained its stigma in the US. Provocative and illuminating, Farrell unearths fats associations with whiteness, citizenship, feminism, and civilization. Fat Shame will interest scholars of the history and sociology of body politics and those involved in projects of the self, as well as readers who can't help but wonder, ‘When did we start hating fatness? And why? Farrell has penned a new classic.” -Kathleen LeBesco,author of Revolting Bodies? The Struggle to Redefine Fat Identity
Review
“In this bold and powerful book, Amy Farrell uncovers the history, meanings, and consequences of fat stigma. With passion, insight, and eloquence, she condemns the many institutions that denigrate fat people, from the medical establishment and diet industry to the popular culture. Fat Shame challenges Americans of all sizes to accept each other without judgment.” -Elaine Tyler May,author of America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril and Liberation; and Homeward B
Review
"As part of an actual campaign against weightism, as opposed to Colbert's satirical one, Fat Shame allows us to see how discrimination against fat people became a central feature of American life. Armed with this history, we can better imagine a day when the declaration Farrell made on The Colbert Report-"I like the word 'fat'"-won't be greeted with laughter." -Bitch Magazine,
Review
"In this groundbreaking and fascinating text, Farrell repositions the fat body within a political framework...a must-read for feminists, body theorists, and anyone interested in understanding our cultural obsession with fat"
-Amanda Cosco,Women's Post
Review
"Farrell's explorations of fat primitivism in mainstream and feminist cultures are invaluable to understanding the contemporary stigmatization of fat that has become nearly ubiquitous in America today...a soon-to-be classic text in the field of Fat Studies." -Deborah McPhail,Teachers College Record
Synopsis
When Americans are asked what concerns them most about the direction of the country, crime and racial tensions invariably figure prominently in the answer. In the minds of many, these two problems are inextricably linked. Yet opinions and beliefs about race and crime are often informed as much by myth and preconception as by fact and reality.
In this important book, Katheryn K. Russell surveys the landscape of American crime and identifies some of the country's most significant racial pathologies. Why do Black and White Americans perceive police actions so differently? Is White fear of Black crime justified? Do African Americans really "protect their own"? Should they?
Perhaps the most explosive and troublesome phenomenon at the nexus of race and crime is the racial hoax--a contemporary version of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Examining both White-on-Black hoaxes such as Susan Smith's and Charles Stuart's claims that Black men were responsible for crimes they themselves committed, and Black-on-White hoaxes such as the Tawana Brawley episode, Russell illustrates the formidable and lasting damage that occurs when racial stereotypes are manipulated and exploited for personal advantage. She shows us how such hoaxes have disastrous consequences and compellingly argues for harsher punishments for offenders.
Stressing that journalists, scholars, and policymakers alike have an ethical imperative to disregard and refute inflammatory or wrong-headed work on race, The Color of Crime is a lucid and forceful book, impossible to ignore.
Synopsis
When Americans are asked what concerns them most about the direction of the country, crime and racial tensions invariably figure prominently in the answer. In the minds of many, these two problems are inextricably linked. Yet opinions and beliefs about race and crime are often informed as much by myth and preconception as by fact and reality.
In this important book, Katheryn K. Russell surveys the landscape of American crime and identifies some of the country's most significant racial pathologies. Why do Black and White Americans perceive police actions so differently? Is White fear of Black crime justified? Do African Americans really "protect their own"? Should they?
Perhaps the most explosive and troublesome phenomenon at the nexus of race and crime is the racial hoax--a contemporary version of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Examining both White-on-Black hoaxes such as Susan Smith's and Charles Stuart's claims that Black men were responsible for crimes they themselves committed, and Black-on-White hoaxes such as the Tawana Brawley episode, Russell illustrates the formidable and lasting damage that occurs when racial stereotypes are manipulated and exploited for personal advantage. She shows us how such hoaxes have disastrous consequences and compellingly argues for harsher punishments for offenders.
Stressing that journalists, scholars, and policymakers alike have an ethical imperative to disregard and refute inflammatory or wrong-headed work on race, The Color of Crime is a lucid and forceful book, impossible to ignore.
About the Author
Katheryn Russell-Brown is Professor of Law and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law. She is the author of Protecting Our Own: Race, Crime, and African Americans and Underground Codes: Race, Crime, and Related Fires (NYU Press).