To merely criticize the composition of a political meeting is a defeatist practice. Yes, any anti-capitalist organization must reach out to the most disenfranchised and marginalized of our population. Yes, it is unacceptable if they are unable to speak for themselves. But what is most important of all is that you are there, whoever you are. What is important is that in a society which steals our free time, leeches our energy, and crushes any hope for an alternative, you have decided to commit yourself to the revolutionary possibility of that alternative. Guilt is a sad, passive emotion. Its foundation is the wish that the past was different, and the failure to recognize the possibility of acting to change the future. It is crucial for all socialist organizations, which today find themselves experiencing rapid growth, to formulate means of incorporating the excluded, in all their forms. The current composition of many of our organizations is a result of our lack of a social base — it’s a problem that we must overcome through organizing. But this will mean going beyond guilt and constructing ways to meet the needs unfulfilled in capitalist society, and the means of asserting popular power. You showed up. You are at a meeting. Your presence is an indication that it is possible to initiate the process of change. Do not allow yourself to be intimidated by guilt. Instead, sharpen your analysis and enhance your organization, until your ranks grow so large as to include everyone.

As a very fat person, and as the fattest person in most rooms where I live, diet talk is a constant. Nearly everywhere I go, people much thinner than me are eager to tell me everything they’re doing to avoid looking like me. Without knowing what I eat or how I move, they confidently tell me I’m eating myself into an early grave. It is surreal, being followed by a Greek chorus so eager to foretell my untimely death, seemingly relishing the opportunity to make me a martyr to their cause. But it doesn’t end with diet talk. Strangers remove items from my grocery cart. They recommend weight loss surgeons without so much as a hello. Some shout slurs and insults from passing cars, even in my otherwise progressive hometown.