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That is one big ass.
I'm gonna agree with those who say Buffie the Body isn't a perfect example of an obese woman. She doesn't appear to have much visceral fat, which is the kind of fat that kills you.
However, I also know what Debra's trying to say. I live in Memphis. The word is "thick". Thick can mean anything up to 350 pounds. Thick can mean ladies like the lady in that Eddie Murphy movie. Ladies whose ankles not only no longer touch, they're in two different zip codes. BIG ladies. "Mmm, she's thick," someone says as one of these super-plus-size ladies strolls by, setting off a chorus of appreciation.
On the one hand, there are black women like the friend who was my matron of honor. She's a professional woman, head of the teaching staff at a medical hospital, light-skinned, and she's always hated what she calls her "big black ass." She worked out and dieted obsessively, and although the rest of her became spindly, the ass remained. So she got lipo, only to discover that when you try to rearrange your body with lipo too much, the fat can come back in really strange patterns. So she got more lipo. It was a mess, and all this fuss over an ass that wasn't particularly big in the first place. On the other hand, there are the riding-cart women who can't make a short dash to catch a two-year-old who runs out into traffic, and the guys who like 'em thick. Neither of these seems like an ideal to emulate.
I applaud black men (and women) who reject the idea that the perfect body belongs to a skinny white girl with a butt like a 10-year-old boy's. But, as James Thurber said, You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
