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1997 State of NAAFA Address

Presented at the 1997 NAAFA Convention by President Frances M. White

On behalf of the Board of Directors and our Executive Director, Sally Smith, I want to tell you how happy we are you've come to the annual NAAFA convention here in Cherry Hill. I hope you've had as good a time as I have had. We all owe a great deal of gratitude to the Host Committee from Philadelphia and South Jersey NAAFA, and to all the volunteers from around the country who've worked hard before and during the convention to make this event so wonderful.

It is very special for me to be standing here tonight talking about the state of NAAFA. I don't know how many of you know that NAAFA almost closed its doors on October 31, 1996. The past two years were difficult times for NAAFA. We traditionally rely on the annual convention and two regional gatherings to provide the lion's share of funds to run the organization. These events, over the last two years, were not well attended. The bills were staggering. Even some of our greatest financial supporters were beginning to think that the Board, in our fund raising role, had gone to the well too many times.

Many people came forward with donations when asked. But there are two financial angels to thank for keeping NAAFA open. One is Conrad Blickenstorfer, former Chairman of the Board of Directors, who turned a loan to NAAFA into a gift that we don't have to pay back. The other is someone who made a large eleventh hour donation, but wishes to remain anonymous. I, for one, would like to thank Conrad Blickenstorfer and Mr. Or Ms. Anonymous.

So now that the doors remain open, where do we go from here? Let's discuss some issues that NAAFA has faced in the last year.

One issue I'd like to see laid to rest concerns some accusations that were leveled against NAAFA leadership about financial reporting in the past. NAAFA uses an accounting firm to do the annual audit/financial review and to file the necessary tax forms. All of the reports are public knowledge and are available to members who request and pay for the copying of the final fiscal close documents. This year, for the first time in our 28-year history, the IRS called NAAFA in for an audit. The auditor spent many hours poring over our records. All that was found was that we may need to pay some additional tax on income received from our 900 number for NAAFA Date. The IRS doesn't think that NAAFA Date conforms to our mission statement regarding support and education. But the IRS has found our documentation in order, so surely our members should be satisfied.

In the last year, the Board of Directors discussed changing the name of NAAFA. One point of view was that using the word "fat" in our name keeps potential members from our ranks. Given that the number of fat people in this country is estimated at 59 million, why isn't the membership in the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance higher? Since many fat people put their lives on hold, waiting until the magic moment when they hope to wake up thin one morning, would they want to join an organization that reminds them of a condition they find unacceptable about themselves?

But is the answer to change NAAFA's name? What message does that send to fat people who want to build their self-esteem? What message does that send to our foes in the diet industry? What message does that send to our friends in the media who seek us out as expert witnesses on size-related stories?

The Board of Directors solicited opinions about a name change from our members. We found that MANY NAAFAns would feel betrayed if we took "fat" out of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.

The Board voted to retain our name, the National Association to Advance Fat
Acceptance. We will continue to use the initials, "NAAFA." We will augment it with the tag line, "Advocacy, Education and Support for People All Sizes of Large." In this way, we tell everyone up front what our mission statement is. If you have ever received a letter on NAAFA letterhead, you know that it says NAAFA at the top. At the bottom it says, "a non-profit tax-exempt corporation working for size acceptance since 1969." We
have replaced that with a tag line that says volumes about what we want to accomplish and the way will accomplish it. Advocacy, Education and Support.

"Support" is one of the three important facets of NAAFA. When some of us first found NAAFA, we hadn't met anyone who felt quite the way we did about the discrimination we encountered at home, at school, in the workplace and merely walking down the street minding our own business. Just being able to connect with someone else who has shared our experiences is very liberating. When we know there are others who feel as we do, we can band together to work on problems that face us all. The role of the local chapters, Special Interest Groups, Area Facilitators and our Pen Pal program is key to providing support. At the Board meeting on Thursday, we approved several new chapters and Area Facilitators to carry the work of NAAFA into more communities. Wouldn't it be great if we had a chapter in every Area Code of the U.S.?

Education is an important component of support. We need to educate the people outside of NAAFA about our mission to improve employment, medical, social, and public access conditions for all large-sized people. We need to win allies of all sizes to our cause because they believe in our essential human rights. And we need to educate people within our own organization, that with societal pressures to conform to a Hollywood image, many, many sizes of large people need the support of NAAFA. We can no longer be judgmental about different sizes of large. It is not acceptable to hear someone say about another, "What are you doing here? You're too thin for NAAFA!" It is equally as offensive to hear, "I never want to look as large and out of control as you." There are to many enemies beyond the world of NAAFA to turn our backs on some of our members and potential members.

We have to be very supportive of our members as they find NAAFA and start their journey of self-acceptance. As with some journeys, the path to self-acceptance is difficult and can have pitfalls. One of the major problems our members can face is being able to hold firm against the seductive lure of diet drugs and weight loss surgeries. The offer of yet another quick fix, especially when promoted by well-meaning family members, can be hard to resist. As with a family member who engages in self-destructive behavior, NAAFA must provide accurate information to help the person the right path. We must be ready to welcome the member back when s/he finds the light.

The NAAFA Newsletter is an invaluable source of information about surveys and studies you can use with your family and/or your doctor to combat the false claims of the diet drug companies and quack surgeons. And it continues to be our goal to publish the newsletter bi-monthly. It is an overwhelming job of education we must do when you realize that in 1996, 18 million prescriptions were written for the drugs Fen/Phen and Redux. 18 million! That many despite growing reports of horrible death due to pulmonary hypertension, heart valve irregularities and brain damage that some people who take these weapons of destruction suffer. And if these complications aren't enough, we now have anecdotal evidence of birth defects being visited on the next generation of children conceived by mothers who've taken these deadly drugs.

When you realize the extraordinary lengths people will go to and the untold suffering they put their families through, in the individual's pursuit of an ideal body that is impossible to achieve and maintain, it is a daunting task NAAFA has set for itself. NAAFA is the equivalent of David battling the Goliath of the diet industry.

But we are no longer alone. Fortunately, there are many more groups joining in the fight
for size acceptance than when NAAFA started. And we are seeing more authors in the mainstream press promoting the size acceptance message, like Dr. Glen Gaesser, who spoke at our welcoming breakfast on Wednesday. Advocacy is such a cornerstone of the size-acceptance movement. We need to first accept ourselves and then we can join forces to fight size discrimination with a variety of allies. We need to learn political lessons from other marginalized groups in this country so we as fat people can win our rights to equality.

In my home state of California, residents recently voted to end a system that set quotas for admission to the state University system based on race. I was afraid that the idea of making size a protected class like race, age, gender, religion, national origin and sexual orientation was no longer an option in my state because of that vote. However, at the Grand Ventures event the Board of Directors ran in San Francisco on Memorial Day Weekend, I learned otherwise. We had a workshop presented by a large woman who is very active in San Francisco politics, attorney Carole Cullum. To reward her support in his campaign for mayor, Willie Brown appointed her to the Permit Board of Appeals. This is a plum assignment for someone interested in influencing policy about public accommodations for large people! This year, she became the President of the Permit Board of Appeals. She has forged a great working relationship with the head of San Francisco's Human Rights Commission, a very small, thin woman. This woman "gets it" about size discrimination. The head of our Human Rights Commission, because of being an ally of Carole Cullum, is interested in holding hearings about size discrimination suffered by people who either live or work in San Francisco. I'm proud to say that the San Francisco-Bay Area chapter of NAAFA, working with Marilyn Wann, publisher of FAT!SO?, will be working toward establishing a statement in the Human Rights Policy that will ban discrimination based on size in San Francisco and in all companies with which the City and County of San Francisco does business.

As I look around the room, I don't see a lot of people here who live in San Francisco. I'm sure you must be wondering, "Why should I care about what goes on in San Francisco?" You should care because we may be able to set precedents for similar laws that can be enacted in your community. We have to be known to those local politicians who are going to enact laws favorable to our cause. It isn't enough to just vote for someone we like. We must work actively in their campaigns. We must make local politicians know that our issues have strength and validity. If you came to a local politician and asked him or her to support your issue that may be unpopular or unfamiliar, you wouldn't get very far. But if you, ______________, had worked for the election of your local candidate for the city council, he or she would know you personally, and would understand that you had a legitimate issue that needed to be addressed. Writing checks to finance the campaign of your local candidate is nice, but it isn't as good as working that precinct to get out the vote. If you can't walk the precinct, you can stuff envelopes and staff the phone banks to get out the vote. But get yourself known first. It is that kind of advocacy that put Carole Cullum in a perfect spot to be an ally with an important City Commission to influence potentially monumental change for all large-sized people.

It would be wonderful if NAAFA had the resources to be an advocate for everyone who experienced discrimination on the job, in housing and with access to decent health care. Imagine what it would be like if we had the membership database that would support a lobbyist in Washington DC to fight against FDA approval of bogus drugs, that could provide a health plan so as individuals we could be able to buy health insurance, that would pay a staff member to act as a Chapter Coordinator who could travel around the country helping to set up new chapters or resolve conflicts in existing chapters. We could be the AARP for large-sized people. And if you brought in just one more member, you would help NAAFA grow its membership database to support that kind of advocacy.

We need to learn how to cooperate and build alliances not only with large-sized people but with others who are sympathetic to our issues. We have to understand how much we can accomplish when we learn to leave our egos at the door. We may not be successful in our initial attempts at organizing to change public policy. After all, the National Association to Advance Colored People was founded in 1909 and it took until 1964 to forge the first Civil Rights Act. That Act didn't come about until large numbers of people outside the Black community came on board because they recognized the importance of Advocacy, Education and Support for a group of people who been systematically denied of the benefits our society.

People often wonder, when NAAFA solicits donations, " What do I get for my $40 membership?" My friends, revolutions are not free. Let us recognize that with every check we write to NAAFA, we are buying a ticket to ride on the Freedom Train to Size Acceptance!