Gabourey Sidibe Is Going to Do Her Thing, No Matter What Concern Trolls Say

by Oriana Asano

At the Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Gala, the lovely Gabourey Sidibe gave a kick-ass speech about cookies, confidence, bullying, and being an asshole. God, I love her. Sidibe recounts how hard it was to get bullied at school and at home, but remains grateful to the haters for making her stronger, finding her beauty, and being funny as hell. Still, the hate doesn’t stop. Sidibe is constantly the target of racism and sizeism for being a black, fat woman who refuses to hide. 

“It’s not easy. It’s hard to get dressed up for award shows and red carpets when I know I will be made fun of because of my weight. There’s always a big chance if I wear purple, I will be compared to Barney. If I wear white, a frozen turkey. And if I wear red, that pitcher of Kool-Aid that says, “Oh, yeah!” Twitter will blow up with nasty comments about how the recent earthquake was caused by me running to a hot dog cart or something.  And “Diet or Die?” [She gives the finger to that]  This is what I deal with every time I put on a dress. This is what I deal with every time someone takes a picture of me.”

 Still, even after calling people out for constantly trying to tell her what she needs to be doing with her body, the body police are still trying to play doctor! As annoying as an Internet troll is, concern trolls are by far the worst, because they claim that they’re only trying to help. These are the people who are like, “Oh, that’s great for you, but you should lose weight before you die of being fat” or “Please try to lose some weight, you need to be healthy.” The sense of entitlement that concern trolls have is completely displaced as they think they’re legitimately qualified to give Sidibe medical advice. And please, as if Sidibe even has time to read their quack. She’s too busy making movies, going to award shows, and being awesome in her private jet!

 

It doesn’t matter what Sidibe does or says, people still think it’s ever relevant to concern troll her. This girl wins an award? Tell her congratulations, and to lose weight. Seriously, the first thing that comes up when you Google Gabourey Sidibe is “Gabourey Sidibe weight.” Like it’s any of your damn business! Blogger and dancer Ragen Chastain says:

“It seems that fat people aren’t allowed to succeed at anything, except weight loss, without being concern trolled about our health.  Sadly we can’t stop the bullshit fairy from posting in every comment section, but we can see this for what it is – Pure unadulterated bullshit.  I don’t think for a minute that this is about our health – I think it’s about people wanting to feel powerful and using fat people to do that.”

And of course, I agree. These strangers don’t care about Sidibe’s health as they continue to dehumanize her by ignoring all of her accomplishments, skills, and career successes, and simplifying her to just being fat and black. Whatever, Sidibe “mos def cried about it on that private jet on [her] way to [her] dream job.”

Read the entirety of Sidibe’s speech here; it’s important and vital to your life. 

 

Pictures courtesy of TheGrio, Vulture, and Time.

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