by Whitney Trotter | Jan 10, 2021 | anti-racism, diet culture
January is usually filled with resolutions and goals, about weight loss, new beginnings and new challenges. January is less known, for also being Human Trafficking awareness month. In light of recent events that transpired at our nation’s capitol, I can’t help but discuss how diet culture, racism and human trafficking are all interconnected.
Currently there are approximately 30.2 million people held in captivity, slavery or servitude. The year 2019, marked 400-years since the first African was taken from their home and brought to the United States to be sold into slavery.
So, what does anti-diet, anti-racism, and anti- trafficking all have to do with one another? Body liberation. In a world free of white supremacy, capitalism, colonialism, and human trafficking, there wouldn’t be a need for anti-racism work.
If black and brown bodies weren’t feared, or if calculations like the B.M.I (body mass index) didn’t exist, would we really need the “Anti-diet” movement? The diet industry is a multi-billion-dollar industry which makes its profits off false promises of shrinking your body, in hopes of being smaller, thus becoming more successful.
Fat-phobia at its core is rooted in anti-blackness. Slavery and human trafficking are rooted in the purchase, selling and harm of bodies. The majority of bodies that continue to be victimized, traumatized and sold for profit, are black and brown bodies. True body liberation and body autonomy is to exist in a world free from diet culture, racism, fat-phobia, transphobia and human trafficking.
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Whitney Trotter is a Registered Dietitian, Nurse and Yoga Instructor. Whitney is committed to the work of body liberation and freedom of diet culture and the notion that shrinking your body equates to success.
Resources
www.restorecorps.org
https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html#What_is_Human_Trafficking
by Whitney Trotter | Dec 8, 2020 | Uncategorized
Let me first start off by saying, I am not the voice for all black and brown folks. This is the opinion of one Black woman.
Secondly, I am not here to help you with your fragility or guilt that has come up in conversations about anti-racism. I am here to give you some more insight and perspective on what it is like to be a person of color in white-dominant spaces. Particularly being a clinician of color in the eating disorder community.
I have been a Registered Dietitian for ten years. I am also dually licensed as a Registered Nurse and yoga instructor and working on my Doctor of Nursing Practice to become a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. I have held numerous board positions in my community and co-founded a non-profit to help eradicate human trafficking. I have worked alongside the FBI, Homeland Security, local and state law enforcement. Why am I telling you all of this? Because that is what black and brown professionals must do, to occupy majority-white spaces. We are always having to prove our worth.
I cannot speak for every dietitian when I say this, but being a black dietitian working in eating disorders is often isolating, lonely, and oppressive. If an eating disorder treatment center has a person of color on staff who is in a leadership role or a therapist or dietitian, they are often the only ONE.
We are constantly having to prove our self-worth, discipline, and credentials to get a seat at the table in which you lead.
This is what I am asking you to do. I am asking you to continue using your privilege, your voice, and your influence to help those who do not look like you. Work on behalf of marginalized communities. Pay dietitians and clinicians of color their fair service fee when you ask them to come and speak at your events. Make a commitment to not only engage in anti-racism work but commit to do the work of deconstructing colonialism in all aspects of your life and community. I am also asking you to examine the ways in which you internalize white supremacy and uphold its roots. Acknowledge how your relationship and need for titles and certifications upholds gatekeeping.
Collectively we can dismantle oppressive gatekeeping systems.
