The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

by Sonya Renee Taylor

Equally damaging is our insistence that all bodies should be healthy. Health is not a state we owe the world. We are not less valuable, worthy, or loveable because we are not healthy.

Your body is the body it is.

Ignoring difference does not change society; nor does it change the experiences non-normative bodies must navigate to survive.

If you are reading this book, you are probably located in some society with a government. That is, of course, unless you somehow found a copy of this book in a dark cave in a secret land where only you live, in which case ignore this section and consider yourself very lucky! The rest of us live under systems of government that are, by their very nature, about rules, laws, and bodies.

lol

“But I am a good person; I am nice to everyone” has never toppled one systemic inequity nor interrupted the daily acts of body terrorism leveled against humans throughout history.

Systems do not maintain themselves; even our lack of intervention is an act of maintenance. Every structure in every society is upheld by the active and passive assistance of other human beings.

No, you didn’t build the inaccessible building, but you did rent it, never considering its accessibility for all bodies, thus furthering the erasure of people with physical disabilities and their needs.

People who are full of hate and anger against their oppressors or who only see Us versus Them can make a rebellion but not a revolution.… Therefore, any group that achieves power, no matter how oppressed, is not going to act differently from their oppressors as long as they have not confronted the values that they have internalized and consciously adopted different values.

- Grace Lee Boggs

Some will deride our efforts with charges of playing to “identity politics.” We should remind those people that they, too, have identities that are informed by their bodies. Their lack of awareness about those identities generally means their body falls into a multiplicity of default identities that uphold the social hierarchy of bodies. The luxury of not having to think about one’s body always comes at another body’s expense.

Every day we awake to messages that reinforce the narrative that we are deficient. The body-shame amplifier will occasionally ring loud enough to feel like it is drowning out the chorus of our divinity. On those days, the work is still to love.