According to the local news, that’s the message that got a New Hampshire doctor in trouble. He said that to an overweight woman and got taken to court over it. The court apparently ruled that he could say it, and he’s not in trouble.
Here’s what bugs me – in interviews, the doctor says that he doesn’t regret his action because he needed to be “blunt”. It’s pretty clear that the doctor thinks he’s in trouble because he said to the woman : “Lady, you’re fat!”
But that’s not the issue, at least as presented by the news. That makes it appear that the doctor said something racist, or at the very least insensitive abiout race, not that he was “blunt” about weight. He implied that only black guys would find a fat woman attractive.
In the first place, it’s not true – I’ve never seen or heard anything to convince me that most black guys prefer fat women. And anyone who’s perused the racks of men’s magazines or the internet knows therre are plenty of white guys who like their women plump. I’ll extrapolate that there are guys of oriental ancestry who fall in this preference, too.
The statement is outrageous because it presents an outrageous racial stereotype, but that’s practically ignored.
For all I know, the original brouhaha was about the doctor saying “Lady, you’re fat!”, and the media seized on a statement he’s reputed to have said. Media slants can be weird (the way the report of the guard dog run amok at the Teddy Bear exhibit centers on destruction of Elvis Presley’s teddy bear, and ignores the other $800,000 in damage), but this seems odd.
If the doctor was himself a black man I could probably let it slide. (The whole “I can play on the stereotypes of my own race” card is largely acceptable to most people) Otherwise that was a pretty dumbass thing to say. There’s blunt, and then there’s crude, and the only thing blunt about his statement was the portion of his brain that made him think that it was okay to say it. Personally I’ve never heard that black men prefer large women. It’s generally bandied about that they like nice round butts (reenforced by the songs various black artists have written on the subject) but that’s not a weght thing. It’s a nice ass thing, and who doesn’t appreciate a nice ass?
Not even House could get away with remarks like that.
The reason why it’s offensive, may be the underlying message of, “You’re aren’t attractive enough to get a white man, therefor you will have to settle for the lesser black man and what self-represpecting white woman would want that? Lost the weight and attract a nice white guy…”
Of course, since I don’t know what the Dr. really meant, this is subjective of course.
He should never have been in court for saying it. Freedom of speech don’t you know.
It was an unfortunate way to tell her to lose weight. I wouldn’t judge him too quickly either. Every person at some point utters a stupid statement, and many times is clueless to the true nature of the offense. A repeating history of making such statements is good grounds for an organized boycott There are way too many super sensitive people that have no tolerance of other’s right to say what they wish. Once you remove the right to state your thoughts, the mind police are next.
There is a nugget of truth in the doctor’s statement. The nugget of truth is that black women as a group tend to have fewer body image issues than white women. There is a belief based on this, and it may or may not be true, that more black men than white men percentagewise prefer heavy women. Even if true, this doesn’t mean that most black men prefer heavy women.
The sick thing about this statement is not the assumption that black men prefer heavy women in larger numbers. The sick thing is the assumption that if it is true, that it’s a bad thing.
If bad bedside manners were a capital offense, he’d be on death row.
As a former fat (reeeally fat) woman, I wish he’d expressed his concerns for her health in a more even-keeled manner. Doctors like this often drive obese patients away from health care for fear of being talked down to or made fun of.
Obviously I wasn’t there, but I feel his implication was that black men as a group were somehow not desirable (just like fat women) and therefore, she was up the creek.
The really sick thing about this is that you and I had to pay for foolishness to run through our court system. Racism is not illegal, nor is medical disapproval of obesity, nor is stupidity, nor insensitivity.
Here’s one article on it, with a black male supporter of Dr. Bennett repeating the “widely-known” preference.
<<Michael Mosley, who is black, wore a T-shirt that said Bennett was not prejudiced. Mosley acknowledged that some people might interpret a racist message from Bennett’s purported comment, but he is not one of them. ''Me personally, and I know most of my black friends . . . they admire a woman with a curvaceous figure, and that’s known by everybody. At least I thought it was," he said.>>
But here it puts Dr. Bennett’s comments like this:
<<According to the woman’s complaint, Dr. Bennett told her, “Let’s face it, if your husband were to die tomorrow, who would want you? Well, men might want you, but not the types you want to want you. Might even be a black guy.”>>
Yeah. The tone is, “Because a woman (of any size) isn’t complete without a man in her life.” Nice.
I’ve always felt that the best way to get someone to work on better physical health is to hit her unabashedly in her already low self-esteem. It’s so stimulating, don’t you find? Makes me want to run at top calorie-burning efficiency right into this guy’s office and deck him.
Blame the doctor for that, not the “fat bitch.” He was the one who took it to court in the first place. The patient complained to the State Board of Medicine, she didn’t sue. And she acted appropriately. The doctor’s behavior wasn’t illegal, but it was unprofessional, and likely to indicate a deeper problem in his practice of medicine – which is, of course, the thing the State Board of Medicine is worried about in cases like these.
As a white woman who used to be morbidly obese, based on my experiences I do think that black guys tend to be more attracted to curvier/heavier women than white guys are. Hasn’t anyone here ever heard of Sir Mix-A-Lot? At times when white guys ignored me at best (or treated me rudely at worst), black guys would come up to me and tell me I was pretty or beautiful.
Different cultures usually have different standards for beauty, and I don’t think it’s racist to acknowledge that there are cultural differences between black and white people in America.
Nonetheless, the way the doctor worded his comment is pretty clearly offensive, making it sound like being “stuck” dating black guys is a horrible fate, and that the main reason women should lose weight is to get a man. I can understand that he may have thought that shock tactics would get her attention and motivate her better than playing nice…but I definitely agree it was the wrong way to go.
As a medical student, I’ve noticed that doctors can be quite hostile to overweight patients - not surprising, since after all, docs are human beings with the normal human tendency towards prejudice. I think it is important for doctors to be educated about how to talk about weight sensitively and effectively with patients.
Believe me, fat people know that people hate them. In many case, they hate themselves just as much or more. Making fat people feel worthless is not the way to give them the resolve and motivation to make the drastic changes many of them need to make to get down to a normal weight.
When was the last time that doctor had a date? My 400 pound doctor charted that I was ‘mildly obese’ when I was 212 (5’8"). Yes, I was, but it floored me that he could stand there, his morbidly obese self, and say that to me with a straight face. I realize now that his physical state has nothing to do with my physical state and I did lose 30 pounds but I never went back to him. Meanwhile, I was asked out by a variety of mostly white men but some hispanics and one black man.
My point; this doctor’s ideas are outdated and/or he’s watched that Sir Mixalot video too many times.
Yeah. The (hopefully tongue-in-cheek) stereotyping is not nearly as offensive as this.
Um, that depends on what exactly he was being tried for (if, indeed, that happened), now, doesn’t it?
If he was tried for some sort of criminal offense, that presumably it was for something illegal, not for being racist, disapproving, stupid, or insensitive. If he was subject to a civil suit, chances are fairly good it was something with at least some legal merit as well, as most lawyers won’t take on impossible cases.
Either way, I have great difficulty understanding why people are so willing to jump on this “frivolous lawsuit” foolishness - particularly in a situation in which no actual information on the supposed lawsuit has been brought to bear.
Ahh! Suddenly the story makes a lot more sense.
Such a poor, oppressed, maliciously-prosecuted racist doctor, huh?
What, she mentioned during her physical how much she doesn’t like to date black guys? I don’t really find that terribly plausible . . .
I don’t get it. Because he was fat, he shouldn’t have told you that you were fat? He shouldn’t have said it with a “straight face”? Should he have told you that you were obese, then started crying and suggested you two join Weight Watchers together? What’s wrong with a fat doctor telling a fat person that they’re fat?
I guess this is supposed to be tongue in cheek or a whoosh, but really, come hang out in Vancouver some time.
At times when white guys ignored me at best (or treated me rudely at worst), black guys would come up to me and tell me I was pretty or beautiful.