Comments on: Fat People Are Too Damn Sensitive

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:57:58 +0000

I think it’s just baloney. Black men as a group are no fatter than white men as a group, and the socioeconomic situation in this country is still such that black men as a group are less likely to have jobs requiring them to wear suits than white men as a group.

From a sterile demographics standpoint, I’d expect the situation to be reversed, with a fat black professional being told “go to the Anne Arundel county store where the fat white guys shop.”

So either this kid at the unnamed warehouse-like men’s clothing store was just a dolt, or we start diving into ridiculous generalizations like, “Black guys like to look nice.”

By: Kara

Kara — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:26:02 +0000

Maybe it has to do with technology? Maybe fat, professional, white people are ordering their clothes online, and fat, professional, black people aren’t?

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 10:21:27 +0000

Really? What is this freakish no-fat-white-people phenomenon? Obesity rates are not that much higher for black guys, this must just be some twisted social thing.

Your last sentence made me LOL.

By: dad

dad — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 05:07:14 +0000

I really hate to step in this except to say I had a similar experience at a men’s clothing store — “try our stores in PG county, they have business clothes for fat black men”. I said “excuse me? how is that relevant”. Clerk said “You know — It’s more acceptable to be fat if you’re black. Fat white guys don’t wear suits. They’re slobs.” He says this to me – fat white guy me. The data may have supported his theory, but this kid really needs some training. I guess he was an equal opportunity jerk at least, but I won’t go back. I guarantee it.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:46:31 +0000

Wow. So “fat chick” goes to Macy’s, can’t find clothes in her size, Macy’s employee tells her straight that Macy’s has chosen not to cater to her size instead of telling her some lie about stock levels, and then said employee goes above and beyond by suggesting another location where larger clothes may be found — more likely from personal knowledge than from any particular coaching by her employers. None of this is phrased particularly well, but it’s all the truth and apparently offered in a spirit of helpfulness.

In response, fat chick writes scathing complaint about employee and Macy’s in general, alleging that she has been called fat, poor and low-class.

I dunno about poor, but I do know that beating up on people trying to help you makes you low-class.

And what’s so damned offensive about the demographics anyway? If she’s, say, 30 years old and wears a size 18, then 80% of her peers wear a smaller size than she does, with the most popular sizes being 12 and 14. I think Kara will back me up if I assert that a garment designed for a size 12 and then scaled up to an 18 is probably not going to fit well or look great. The “black Macy’s” probably stocks quite a few entirely different garments, not just bigger sizes of the same stuff. For the “average Macy’s”, stocking larger sizes might mean devoting shelf space to something that’s useful for 20% of their customers versus 80%.

If the sizes at the Macy’s in question truly stopped at 12 as the fat chick claims, that suggests that it isn’t an “average Macy’s” and that their demographic skews in the skinny-white-girl direction, which means it may be even worse than 80/20 for them.

I don’t see how this is anything other than good business. No company is going to be more interested in shaming fat women than in turning a profit.