Da’Shaun L. Harrison at Socialism 2026 argues that the policing of “Black fat flesh” is foundational to broader “entire systems of governance.”
“Without a population to discipline, there would be no BMI, no obesity epidemic, and no medical or scientific institutions organized around managing fatness,” Harrison says.
Well yes. Without a population there would be no human anything. That’s a tautology. He’s doing a Foucault, as have so many before him.
It’s true that human things are human, and that without humans there are no human things. But this is now, and it’s not without humans, so the insight is otiose.
Harrison argues that diet culture trains “obedience,” “self-denial,” and “discipline,” before expanding the framework into what Harrison calls “body fascism.”
That dude needs to have a conversation with his organs. They could tell him why obesity is not a mere social construct.
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