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Amidst the raft of deaths of African-American men at the hands of police that has captured the nation’s attention recently, we have seen repeated descriptions of the purportedly enormous size of several of the victims; indeed their size has been cited as an explanation for their death. Darren Wilson — himself 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds –testified regarding 6-foot-4, 292-pound Michael Brown, “[W]hen I grabbed him, the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan. … [T]hat’s just how big he felt and how small I felt just from grasping his arm.” Twelve-year-old Tamir Rice was estimated by the officers who killed him to be “maybe 20.” On CNN’s The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer last Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-New York) asserted that Eric Garner’s death by chokehold at the hands of a policeman was due not to his race but to his obesity: “If he had not had asthma and a heart condition and was so obese, almost definitely he would not have died from this.”
King insinuates here that Garner’s death was his own fault, and this sentiment was echoed repeatedly on a discussion board for police officers, one of whom commented, “Lets stop making excuses for criminal behavior because they are black. This guy would have died going up a flight of stairs. His diet killed him.” The coroner’s report on Garner’s death mentioned his weight as a contributing factor. His body size at the time of his death may have helped dissuade the grand jury from prosecuting the offending officer.
This imagery of the giant, brutish, King-Kong-like black man threatening our cities is far from new. Currently it seems to be intersecting dangerously with another popular rhetorical image: the obese person who is responsible for his own frail, unworthy body. This intersection was especially on display in Garner’s case. He is held responsible for his threatening body, which required subduing despite his being unarmed and engaging in no threatening behaviors. Simultaneously and paradoxically, he is blamed for his own death in virtue of having made his body too vulnerable to withstand “normal” handling.
