Dear Rachel,

Dear Rachel,

They've been doing roadwork on 15th in the U district for weeks now. Every morning I walk past bulldozers and other vehicles. They're all made by the same company, Caterpillar, Inc. These bulldozers are not outfitted with special armor, they are not designed with the destruction of homes in mind, but they are roughly the same size as the bulldozer that killed you 8 years ago this month. That's all I think about when I walk beside them, when I hear the grumble of their engines.

The size of these machines is overwhelming from my 5 feet, 7 inches above the sidewalk. Never mind the blades they're wielding, the size alone is enough to make my hands shake a little. How did you stand your ground in the face of these things, Rachel? How did you stare them down right until they killed you?

I'd like to think that I could do what you did, but walking by these machines as they engage in nothing more provocative than road repair, I have to wonder. I have long thought of you as terribly brave, but these days I'm getting a more visceral sense of your courage. As a freshman in college, I returned one day to my small-town high school to visit some teachers. I ran into my history and government teacher and I told him I was studying Arabic. He asked if I was "going to go to Gaza, like that Corrie girl, and die helping terrorists kill Israeli babies." It was not the first time I've been called a baby killer, nor the last. That is what those who hate call you, a baby killer, an accessory to baby killing, and I can't help but think it is because your courage makes them afraid. Those are the words of men who live their small lives in fear.

I met George. You know George. George helped recruit you to the ISM. Meeting some one who had met you, had seen you when you were alive and still just a girl who liked Pat Benatar, it made you real to me in a way that reading your journals and seeing you on the news had not. Walking by these bulldozers has made the way you died real for me, too.

I have often thought that those of us still fighting for a saner US position on Palestine are like you, facing down the metaphorical bulldozers of US opinion and The Power That Be. I apologize for ever having this thought, Rachel. Walking to work each morning I am reminded that your bulldozer was literal, was all steel and sound, and that you must have been so scared to be so small beside it. You died standing your ground in a way that no metaphor can touch.

Sincerely yours,

Kelsey

Hello, I am fat

Most of you who live in the Seattle area have heard of Stranger writer Lindy West. She's great, in that ridiculous, hilarious kind of way that makes her writing so addictive. I'm sure there are people in the world who don't like her writing, but I have encountered few of them.

Recently she and slightly-more-famous sex-columnist/gay-rights activist/all-around genius Dan Savage (West's boss at The Stranger) have had a public discussion (fight? argument? conversation? it's hard to say) on Slog, The Stranger's blog. Lindy accused Dan of stigmatizing fat people, Dan denied it, slog readers took up the debate. And then Lindy won. I'm sorry, Dan Savage, I think you're great, but Lindy delivered this roundhouse kick of a manifesto that simply cannot be topped. I get the impression that Savage, for all of his faults, is the type of boss who can be called out like this and still be a big enough man to admit defeat, so here's to hoping that West doesn't regret firing back this way.

Please check out West's post in it's entirety, as it is brilliant and well worth a complete read. The highlight for me, though, comes right at the opening:

This is my body (over there—see it?). I have lived in this body my whole life. I have wanted to change this body my whole life. I have never wanted anything as much as I have wanted a new body. I am aware every day that other people find my body disgusting. I always thought that some day—when I finally stop failing—I will become smaller, and when I become smaller literally everything will get better (I've heard It Gets Better)! My life can begin! I will get the clothes that I want, the job that I want, the love that I want. It will be great! Think how great it will be to buy some pants or whatever at J. Crew. Oh, man. Pants. Instead, my body stays the same.

I'm sure there are others out there (male, female, heavy, thin, whatever) who know exactly what this feels like. Who can hear these words in their own voices. Because we have always believed that once we reach that summit- of thinness, or beauty, or wealth, or success, or whatever- our Real Life can begin. I have been thinner than I am now. As an adolescent cross-country runner there were times in junior high when I was very, very thin, perhaps even unhealthily so. I have also been very heavy, (unsurprisingly these times were also when I was the most poor and the most depressed.) These days I am somewhere between where I want to be and where I am afraid I'll end up. And there are things I will NEVER be, no matter how much I diet. I will never be a small person, I will never have feminine hands or an hourglass figure. I will never have beautiful skin. I don't imagine that I will ever be a contestant for America's Next Top Model (even in the plus-sized edition) and I am not that concerned about it, to tell you the truth. (Maybe that's why I'm a blogger.)

This does not mean that I don't think I'm pretty or that I don't think I'm lovable or that I don't think men will find me attractive. I have friends with the kind of hurts-just-to-look-straight-at-it kind of beauty, the kind of billboards and magazines and celebrities, and I understand that comes with its own kind of self-doubt, its own set of challenges. What I think Lindy West does so well in her post is what Elizabeth Cady Stanton did. After Frederick Douglass delivered an eloquent rant about how women's rights needed to wait until after black men had secured the right to vote, describing the horror and brutality of slavery and its legacy, Stanton rose to her feet and said "What about black women?"

Now, to be perfectly clear, I think Stanton and Dougalss each had their failings, and each was quick to abandon the rights of the other's constituency for the sake of their own. I think that Stanton would have taken voting rights for women even if it meant only white women, and Douglass certainly demonstrated his own willingness to accept the vote for black men alone. Lindy West and Dan Savage- both of whom I admire greatly- are, like Stanton and Douglass, more ally than enemy. Like Stanton and Douglass, I suspect they would find more success united than divided. The point that Savage has missed is that his campaign against bullying gay teens speaks to exactly the kind of bullying fat (or just unconventional) girls (and boys) have experienced, too. How many gay teens are also fat? Are they supposed to believe that It Gets Better, but only if they lose enough weight to measure up to the standards of beauty assigned by people like Dan Savage?

The thing I have admired most about the It Gets Better campaign is the honest-to-goodness kindness of it all. In a world where being ironic, aloof, cynical and sarcastic is almost as necessary as being beautiful, it was so moving to see so many people take to their webcams to just say something nice. I'd really like to believe that the sentiments might be applied, not just to gay or lesbian teens, but to all of us still waiting for perfection, still waiting for our Real Lives to begin. It does get better- but not until you stop waiting for yourself to change.

Anyway, read Lindy's post. It's brilliant and beautiful and funny.


.. you know.. these posts get much more difficult to end when I'm not signing off as a letter.