by Amanda Cooper and Tigress Osborn

The protests of 2020 have made an impact, focusing the world's attention on police violence throughout the U.S., and possibly even reducing police violence in areas with the most active movements. But unfortunately, police are still using violent tactics that result in harm and death throughout the country.

This problem hit home for NAAFA Board Member Amanda Cooper this spring, when local police in her Alameda, CA community responded to a call about a mile from her. A young man, Mario Gonzalez, was sitting in a park on a warm Monday afternoon. Some neighbors called the police non-emergency line and said they were afraid of him, even though they admitted he was not threatening them or doing anything remotely violent. The police came to the scene, attempted to arrest him even though he posed no harm, and he died with his face in the dirt as they held him down.

The police statement put out about his passing had eerie echoes of the statement Minneapolis police made after the death of George Floyd. Even more disturbing, the Alameda police made this statement the day before Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder after pinning Mr. Floyd to the ground.

Another thing that felt familiar about Mario Gonzalez's story was his size. "My heart sank when I saw a photo of him," says Cooper. "He was fat. And I immediately remembered Eric Garner, and how they blamed him for his own death. And how crestfallen I was when the police who killed Mr. Garner were not held accountable. I didn't want that to happen again."

So she reached out to NAAFA Board Chair Tigress Osborn who quickly connected her with allies at FLARE and Fat Rose. FLARE connected us to the Disability Justice League, and together we got to work drafting a letter to the Alameda city leaders demanding they change their practices to protect the lives of all they come into contact with.

"There are many reasons, including race, employment status and struggles with mental health, why people like Mario are harmed by our current approaches to community safety. But we are writing this letter to highlight a particular aspect of Mario's life and death that we can speak to from our own lived experiences, as fat people navigating our communities, and legal and carceral systems," the letter explains.

"It is common in our culture for people and organizations to blame higher weight people for their own health problems, and in this case the Alameda police have taken it even further by blaming Mario for his own asphyxiation. The APD lawyer claimed he was 300lbs, and that his size and strength are the reason the officers behaved as they did. If the common pattern holds, they will later say that he died because he was unhealthy as evidenced by his weight. This is how police use people's size to blame them for both the violence of their arrests and their own death that results from that violence."

The group hopes this collaboration will be the beginning of ongoing work to raise awareness of the particular dangers fat people--and especially if they are disabled and/or people of color-- face in encounters with the police. We hope to advocate along with other police reform and abolition groups for changes in police practices and programs that redirect emergency calls to other first responders and that build community safety programs that work for all bodies.

Whether you are new to these issues or already deeply committed, we encourage you to check out Fat Rose's "Bustin' Out" speaker series which aired live in June and presented a variety of topics at the intersection of abolition activism and fat liberation. Although the series was presented prior to this publication, they are available on Fat Rose's Instagram @fatlibink for viewing. We asked Fat Rose why the timing was right for this series now, and here's what they had to say:

"In 2014, the world watched NYPD's Daniel Pantaleo murder Eric Garner -- and then blame Garner for his own death, explicitly because he was fat. As Fat Rose began to organize radical fat folks, including fatties working to end carceral violence, we had a lot of big questions at the intersection of fat liberation and PIC abolition. How else do systems of policing and incarceration use anti-fatness to bolster anti-Black violence? How do the surveillance practices of diet culture influence and impact the acceptance of a much broader carceral surveillance culture? How are fat people targeted by carceral systems, and left out of transformative justice processes? We're so honored and excited to have this crew of 9 rad fatties to share their wisdom on Instagram Live."

You can find the videos for “Bustin’ Out” on IG:

• Bustin' Out 1: Anti-Blackness and Anti-Fatness (Cancelled due to a crisis)

• Bustin' Out 2: Carcerality, Punishment & Anti-Fatness

• Bustin' Out 3: Fat Bodies and Surveillance

• Bustin' Out #4 Transformative Justice and Fat Liberation

Amanda Cooper (she/her) joined the NAAFA Board of Directors in 2020. She is an activist, organizer and Senior Partner at the LightBox Collaborative, a communication consulting firm. Amanda has more than twenty years of experience working with organizations throughout our social justice movements, including organized labor, civil rights, and reproductive health and justice.

Tigress Osborn (she/her) is the Community Outreach Director and Board Chair. Tigress joined the NAAFA Board of Directors in 2015 and became Director of Community Outreach in 2017. She is the founder of Full Figure Entertainment in Oakland, CA and co-founder, with activist/blogger Nicholet Deschine Parkhurst of Redstreak Girl, of PHX Fat Force in Phoenix, AZ. Her professional background as a youth advocate, diversity educator, and equity and inclusion consultant informs the fat liberation activism she has engaged in since 2008.

OPINION DISCLAIMER: Any views or opinions stated in the NAAFA Community Voices Blog are personal and belong solely to the blog author. They do not represent the views or opinions of NAAFA or the people, institutions or organizations that the owner may or may not be associated with in professional or personal capacity, unless explicitly stated. Any views or opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual.