Letters to the Editor
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Dear Salon: An Open Letter About Debra Dickerson
How many times do we have to suffer through this with Dickerson before you "get it?" over there at Salon's editorial offices?
Dickerson is not a voice for women, she's not a voice for African-Americans, and she's not a voice for liberals, or progressives.
She's a voice for emotionally disturbed, self-absorbed people.
She's a patient in need of a therapist.
Instead of getting the help she needs, you're paying her to attempt -- unsuccessfully -- to work out her demons in public, and at our expense.
I DARE anyone on Salon staff to tell us WHY you REALLY keep publishing Dickerson. But you won't. Why? Because the ONLY explanation for why you keep her around is that she's your paid "TROLL" columnist, designed to totally infuriate and incense people with her writing, which then generates significant page views (translates to INCOME) for YOU at Salon. She's Salon's Glenn Beck.
Seriously, here's a recap from the Dickerson Fan Club, just in case you are looking to hand out some red stars for the RIGHT reasons...
Many magazine publishers love controversial women and the articles they write, but having a rump the size of Debra Dickerson can put magazines at risk for subscriber sclerosis.
--Anonymous
Can DD write an article that doesn't trash people unreasonably or unfairly? This time it seemed like DD was auditioning for Meme Roth's job over at Fox. Let her go salon. ...can someone tell DD to stop writing articles about herself, and her trivial dislikes?
-- fetboyDebra Dickinson should give up journalism and start a fish stall specialising in red herring. She'd clean up.
-- JudgeMentalFor the love of God, Debs--could you _please_ either work out your self-hatred in therapy, or go home and bury the hatchet with your family? You are fooling no one with your concern-trolling about black folks and pretending to care--you hate being black and it shows in every single "helpful" piece you write. Why not duke this out with your family instead of trying to make the rest of us feel like shit? You are as bad as SALON's resident misogynists who also should take their issues up with their moms instead of trying to torture the rest of us.
-- deeringEvery article you write is a piece of crap. Always wrong, and wrong in the worst possible way. I can't really express my distress and distaste for your consistently wrong hearted and wrong headed attitudes. But I think you need help.
-- Ken ErfourthWhy am I not surprised that Debra Dickerson used to "harangue" her co-workers about their lunches? What a perfectly unpleasant thing to do. It matches Dickerson's writing style perfectly.
-- BennyBrooklynMs. Dickerson, please do better for yourself and us. I'm not generally a fan of Dr. Phil, but he might ask an appropriate question: How is writing like this working for you? How is it working for anyone?...She is castigating women. She's slinging the stones.
-- LBS
It would seem to me that many of her negative feelings stem from the early conflict with her own mother. If she wanted to write about that, perhaps it might be have been more interesting...it certainly it would be less rude. I can't believe that an African-American woman who grew up with a mother who wanted her to be less buff and who is a part of a culture that has such varying degrees of female beauty, but who decided to be a gym nut and food fanatic -- and a scold -- doesn't have a more nuanced and interesting story to tell than the one she did.
-- rebecalouise
Debra Dickerson once again is given free range to hate other black women, under the guise of sanctimoniously knowing what's best. I'm truly at a loss as to why a progressive publication continues to allot space to this hateful creature. I can only imagine that she has become "The Black Paglia", a ranting hypocrite with some distant credibility who is retained because they generate so many letters (which equal page views, ergo ad dollars).
-- Howard K
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Oh Crap!
Earlier in this section I was informed that "a BMI over 30 is simply not okay."
Crap! I only have a few pounds left before I'm carted away to mandatory fat camp!
Honestly, when will skinny people understand that people's bodies work differently, and that people with BMIs over 20 do not necessarily spend their entire days eating fried chicken by the bucket?
In college, when I was eating hot dogs and ramen noodles every single day, I was very thin. I didn't weigh enough to give blood. I've gradually gained weight throughout my 20s, despite improving my diet significantly. My blood tests are always fine. I'm healthy as a damn horse. I've also been told I'm kind of hot, but I guess that's just some perverse fetish.
My point is twofold: firstly, please, please stop assuming that every person over a size 6 is a gluttonous sloth who's just too lazy to quit eating. Just doing a PubMed search for "obesity" will show you that the picture is infinitely more complicated than that. And secondly, I don't lecture strangers on whether or not they drink alcohol or smoke or ride motorcycles or any number of other things that put them at risk for disease or death. And whether you like it or not, those are things people choose to do. Very, very few people choose to be obese. I'm sure there are people out there who are just lazy slobs, but I will tell you a little secret: most of the lazy, McDonald's eating, videogame playing slobs I know? Are thinner than I am.
We all wish it was as simple as "being fat is unhealthy, so I'll just stop being fat!" But it's not. There are real issues of physiology, genetics, and psychology that we're just barely beginning to understand. Isn't it reasonable that the same factors that make us different in terms of eye color, hair thickness, height, etc. would also maybe have a hand in how easily we gain weight? It's fine to encourage good eating and physical fitness, and of course I think it's important that people know how to take care of themselves. But informing anyone that their size is "simply not okay" is just unbelievably tacky, and, if I might borrow a popular word of the times, un-American.