Lessons From Donda West

I was shocked when I heard of Donda West's passing. I was even more shocked when I found out the circumstances of her passing. This was a completely avoidable situation. Completely. Unfortunately I am worried that a great deal of black women and black men are not going to pay attention to the very real lessons that this situation presents to us as a group.

I read and commented on a write up on the subject on another site. I was particularly disturbed that the author opened with the oft sited claim that black women have healthy body images compared to white women and are "immune" to the Hollywood image factory. I agree that there are far to many anorexic women on the fashion runways and on the TV screens, but it is simply not satisfactory to use that as an excuse for the truly awful eating habits that many Americans have and that black folk in particular engage in.

While Black folk may be trailing far behind white people in eating disorders (read starvation, bulimia, etc), we are tops on the charts for high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and other ailments that can be traced directly to diet and lack of exercise. How can we brag about not killing ourselves by not eating and/or purging) when on the other hand we are literally eating and sitting ourselves to all manner of avoidable disease? Being comfortable with ones body is not healthy when it becomes accepting any which way it grows. However, as bad as that situation is, it is not the biggest of the lessons available.

America as a whole are impatient people. Americans want what they want and they want it NOW. Fast food from a drive up window. Imagine that. The food is already made but people don't even want to walk into the store and stand, yes stand in line to get it. No they want to sit on their asses from the time they get into their cars to the time they park at work. Then sit on their asses all day because much non-manual labor requires sitting. Get up and get to the car to sit to get to whatever fast food place, get the food (still sitting) come back to the office and sit and eat. So those pounds quickly show up. The problem is that as easy as the weight comes on, it does not leave at the same speed or with the same (lack of) effort. No gaining weight is easy. losing it is hard. But Americans don't want to do the work required to lose and then maintain a healthy weight (for their body type) so an entire industry was born to suck the fat out of the places it accumulates (usually the hardest places to lose). So we see the advertisements for same day liposuction. We see before and after pictures. These places offer various financing plans so that even YOU can afford to have that tummy tucked.

No need to stop eating the fatty foods. No need to change the way you view food (it is not there to comfort you). No need to actually take time out of your day to do some exercise. No need for any of that. Just pay a surgeon, lay on a table and voila insta-slim. This attitude is what cost Donda West her life. I'm not blaming the victim here I'm laying out the social construct that made Donda West think that going under the knife was an acceptable solution to her perceived problem.

Some people will attempt to counter with the recent report that came out saying that being "slightly overweight" is "good." Umm no. See I have a BMI index that states that I am overweight. Anyone who knows me would be shocked by this. I am not. I run and have more muscle mass than what a 6 footer would have. In fact anyone on a given baseball, football, soccer teams would be considered "overweight" by strict BMI standards.

Ultimately we have to get past this whole being fit is "white" thing. It's literally killing us. We need to get off most of the fast food. We need to get off frequent "soul food" eating. We need to care more about the state of our bodies than the state of our hair. It is unfortunate that Donda West had to pass but I hope that it will provide a wake up call to the community at large.