Hi friend,

 

The website is back up, and should be faster! There were a few different issues I spent part of the week fixing, but it has a nice new look and speed now. It's not perfect**, but for a one-person business, I'm so proud of it.

 

 

In last week's letter, I talked about how as a community, we treat our activists as disposable. One of the reasons I asked not to receive feedback about that piece was that I wasn't done (but also didn't want to send you a 5,000-word essay in one email).

In that letter, I intentionally elided activism and business, because after all, how different are activism and business when you think about them as exchanges of energy?

 

If I run a business, you give me a resource (usually money) in exchange for a good or service.

 

If I'm an activist, I'm creating change -- a service -- and the resources to do that have to come from somewhere.

 

Bear with me here.

 

 

The author John Scalzi published a piece years ago about privilege where he explained:

 

"In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.

 

This means that the default behaviors for almost all the non-player characters in the game are easier on you than they would be otherwise. The default barriers for completions of quests are lower. Your leveling-up thresholds come more quickly. You automatically gain entry to some parts of the map that others have to work for. The game is easier to play, automatically, and when you need help, by default it’s easier to get.

 

…As the game progresses, your goal is to gain points, apportion them wisely, and level up. If you start with fewer points and fewer of them in critical stat categories, or choose poorly regarding the skills you decide to level up on, then the game will still be difficult for you. But because you’re playing on the “Straight White Male” setting, gaining points and leveling up will still by default be easier, all other things being equal, than for another player using a higher difficulty setting.

 

Likewise, it’s certainly possible someone playing at a higher difficulty setting is progressing more quickly than you are, because they had more points initially given to them by the computer and/or their highest stats are wealth, intelligence and constitution and/or simply because they play the game better than you do. It doesn’t change the fact you are still playing on the lowest difficulty setting."

 

 

I can't speak to anywhere else in the world, but here in the U.S., we have some really strange ideas about what it means to run a business, especially a small business. There are all sorts of myths, like:

 

 

» Artists over app stores, friends. If you have any option at all to subscribe that doesn't involve paying through the iOS app, please do consider it. (read)

 

» Coming up: Intersectional Perspectives on Fatness, Aug. 29 (online)

 

» Coming up: Exploring Your Body Story Workshop (Portland, OR)

 

» Social Media May Have Safeguards for Teens, But Stigmatizing Ads Can Slip Through the Cracks (read)

 

» When fat influencers get thinner—and need to tell us about it. (listen)

 

» #StyledSeated is a campaign to bring inclusivity to non-adaptive clothing. (read)

 

» The irony of folks insisting health is an individual endeavor amidst a pandemic in a settler nation-State where the health & livelihood of poor and working class Black, Indigenous & other people of color are sacrificed as collateral damage for the economic interests of a white supremacist settler government is not lost on me. (read)

 

» Stop censoring fat bodies (read)

 

» When The Collective Taste Doesn't Include You (read)

 

» Why Ultra Processed Foods Save Family Dinners (listen)

 

» Out of control COVID means permanent segregation for many disabled people (read)

 

🦄 Unicorn chaser: Lost Lake and the Milky Way (watch)

 

Just because you run a business doesn't mean your difficulty setting changes (even if running your own business is the best choice for your specific life, marginalizations and/or chronic illness).

 

And running a business doesn't exempt you from bias, discrimination and prejudice.

 

Yesterday I had lunch with an acquaintance -- another very fat small business owner -- who was in town and who I think will become a dear friend. She's been investing a ton of time over the last few years into learning and growing her business, from going to local business mixers to taking courses to winning a spot in a business incubator.

 

And what she's found is what I've found, a continent away. (And what every other very fat business owner I know has discovered.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seems silly to worry about this sort of thing -- when we talk about it, the response is often "don't worry about them, just do what you believe in!" but when you're a business owner, these connections are important. They're what get us into publications, how we get referrals and mentors and contacts.

 

Running a business is about more than just you and the customer; it's also about the community you exist within. Hold that thought; we'll come back to it next week.

 

Unapologetically fat,

* The photo at the top of this letter is of my niece and her husband, taken while we were killing time before a family wedding earlier this year. I didn't photograph the wedding itself, but I loved this casual shot. I took it with a borrowed iPhone; this is straight out of camera.

 

** *There's still something crashing it once in a while, and I'm gradually replacing a bunch of old and broken design blocks and buttons, so if you see something wonky, be patient.