I’m a big guy. Both bigger and smaller than I used to be. I went from thin, to very muscular, to husky, to fat, back to dad bod, to now…trying to find the balance between size and efficient functionality. I’m the kind of big where when men greet or speak with me, no matter their size, they find it necessary to slap my back with the force of the Almighty Thor (during an embrace), punch me in the arm if they say something amusing, or otherwise test my thiccness. I have no idea if these actions are conscious, but it happens with so much regularity that it almost feels like a concerted effort among disparate people. I used to speak up, gently but firmly setting my boundaries. Now? I let it slide with the people I know and my reflexes are honed enough to mostly avoid any other unwanted, percussive touch. There seems to be an unwritten rule that no matter what physical contact they dish out, I’m able to take it and that I, somehow, enjoy it. Because I’m big.
Thick Gawd Silhouette
Part of it is how men—I’m including myself in this—are socialized. I know for my generation (and cultural context) many of us were raised in a cauldron of physicality. Slap-boxing. Contact sports; doing our best to slide-tackle our opponents in Footie, or trying to tackle ‘our man’ in football. In the lobby of the cinema, after watching back-to-back Shaw Brothers movies, trying to kung-fu each other into oblivion. Rock fights. Snapping each other with towels in the locker room after PE. We engaged in concussive high-fives. We hugged with our right hands firmly grasped and folded between us, providing a safe hetero-barrier, with this brief embrace concluding with two or three hard pats to the back. Male-to-male gentleness was not on the menu. Even baby boys weren’t safe.
We’d WWE them onto beds, couches and bean bags. We’d toss them from the top of a flight of stairs, to the other uncle at the bottom. They looked liked they enjoyed it, so we’d do it until they were too heavy to lift and toss. Then we’d slap-box with them. Frankly, living a mostly physical social life was an easy one, especially as a Black man. No one expected me to be smart, to have anything to contribute other than my body. My skin blared a story I had no hand in crafting. I wasn’t asked to contribute to anything of an intellectual or philosophical nature. But if someone needed help moving something, or breaking something apart, or needed back up in a brawl, I was on speed dial. Falling into the stereotypical strong Black guy trope staved off the hurt of not being seen as someone with worthy intellectual capacity. Growing up, very rarely was I allowed to share my dreams or thoughts, but my biceps and quads were highly desirable for their utility and how they made the lives of others easier.
I have Summas and Magnas all over the place, but the abilities of my mind have routinely taken a backseat to what others think my body can do, or what my body should be doing, for them.
Despite starting off fairly skinny, I was always stronger than I looked. Maybe it was the martial arts, or the genetics—I come from a long line of abnormally strong men, on both sides of my family—but I had the kind of strength that surprised the hell out of people. As a kid, I blew past every benchmark of the Presidential Physical Fitness test. I’d do dozens of push-ups for fun. I’d lift heavy things in front of the smooth guys who were bigger than me, to impress them and hopefully get an invite into the cool club. I wanted that more than anything because there was safety in numbers and I could be with people who would distract the frustrated smart kid in me, too afraid to even attempt to get out. I could just be a body that did things, instead of a mind that wanted to create, wander, and contribute.
Pre-slap Will Smith showing off
During middle school, I started to look like what I could do. I gained a couple of inches of height, and my musculature became more defined. This brought both wanted and unwanted attention. It was around this time I tried to make a hierarchy with my physical prowess being second to my intellectual. Being dyslexic and having a form of color blindness made this harder than it needed to be, but slowly, bit by bit, I was beginning to be known as a someone who was ‘smart enough.’ Not smart enough to be in the gifted courses, right away—that came later—but smart enough to not be considered, ‘another dumb Black boy’. I was in an intellectual/physical liminal state. I was stuck between the two, holding my breath due to the option paralysis I felt when contemplating engaging in feats of brain or body rigor.
When I hit university, it was like emerging from a cocoon. I shot to just over six-feet, and I was buff aka diesel aka shredded aka built. Now I wanted and welcomed some of the attention I was getting, and was intimidating enough to warn off the kinds of attention I wasn’t open to. Even through undergrad, despite me working extremely hard to manage and co-exist with my dyslexia, so I could earn decent grades, what my mind could do was secondary to what people thought my body could and should do. I figured this was as good as it was going to get. I’d earn a degree, get into a non-physical job, and ride out the rest of my life in a kind of pro-topia. In my mid-twenties, I started to recognize that my body/mind conundrum wasn’t something unique to me. I began to recognize that the world I was in was populated by similar bodies, on similar journeys. But it took me a while to recognize that population. Or to embrace my membership in it.
Author and consultant, Janet Stickmon (full-disclosure, she’s my wife), wrote about the phenomena I’d experienced once I got my growth, something I experience to this day, nearly every day. In her book To Black Parents Visiting Earth: Raising Black Children in the 21st Century (2019), an epistolary written to our daughter that explores how best to raise confident and secure Black children, she named an aspect of what I experienced, but I hadn’t named it: ‘big man understandin’:
There is an unspoken understanding between your Daddy and other men,
Usually Black but not always, ‘Hood, country, bourgie,
Big and tall, 270+ lbs. and no less , With kids in tow, or ridin’ solo
They look each other in the eye, And pass by with a nod of respect
Sometimes silent, Sometimes Wassup man? Or How’s it going boss?
Anywhere: grocery store, post office, movie theater, farmer’s market
Doesn’t matter, always a nod, This is Big Man Understandin’
An exchange that never happens between your Daddy
And small, skinny dudes, A little dude wouldn’t get it
This is a recognition, a common understanding
About what it’s like to be a big a man in this world
They don’t have to explain, needs no second thought
They just know, A shared admiration between strangers
Big Man Understandin’
It was unnerving to me to have someone see me, and my social context, with such clear eyes. This piece wasn’t the first time I’ve heard her mention the idea. I’d have friendly interactions with big dudes and my wife would look at me and say, ‘big man understandin;’ I thought she was just taking a shot. My wife isn’t much of a roaster (however our daughter is a Merlin-level roaster), but she will occasionally get one in. I thought this was what was happening when she’d say that. But no. She was fully aware of the social dynamics that were happening that, in hindsight, I knew were happening but didn’t pay that much mind to because I’ve been in a fluctuating, self-loathing relationship with my body. I assumed that those interactions were just two embarrassed big guys adhering to the ‘be jolly’ stereotype, playing our roles, as to stave off the self-hate, even for a minute. I’m big. You’re big. Let’s say, ‘hi’, make some small talk, and then walk away and fall back into our self-deprecating size self-talk.
I was projecting.
Not to accept a friendly overture at face value, in the spirit it was given, is an arrogance and hubris mixtape. I was so utterly full of self-loathing that I was damn sure that other men in my situation felt the same. This self-loathing came form not being able to have the fly clothes, because they didn’t fit. Being an inch or two too big to fit on a ride at the amusement park, so you hold the purses and bags and watch your family experience something you can’t. Just a genuine and general feeling that when society was built, they never considered your body type.
‘If you don’t like how you look, why not just lose the weight?’
The amount of times I’ve heard exactly this, or some variation, are too many to list. It is a valid question, albeit delivered with a splash of haterism and disgust. In my case, there are physical and mental constraints that I’m probably relying on too much. I’ve had two major abdominal surgeries, ripped the muscles in my left shoulder, and had my kneecap ripped off and then fixed by an expert surgeon, but after-cared for by a horribly incompetent physical therapist. Every so often my knee just gives way. I’m getting better a recovering from it, but it is still a bit of surprise and it becomes another reminder of my weight because when it tricks, I buckle. And when I buckle, I feel the pressure from my weight, and then I’m hit by a wave of fear. I cannot put too much weight or flex it too much, for fear of damaging it again. Whether this is a real possibility, or in my mind, it is impossible for me to separate the two. At the time of my knee injury—which, in looking back, was more traumatic than my being shot—I was in peak physical condition. I was functionally muscular and athletic. I was an avid martial artist (still trying to be) and very enthusiastic about indoor bouldering. When I discovered bouldering, aside from the marital arts I’ve been studying since I was a kid, I felt like I’d found another home. It felt right.
It was me, my body, and the wall. It was a kind of theology of gravity.
I was wholly reliant on myself to get up, across, and over the top, defying the Earth’s natural inclination to drag me down in the process. I met a whole lot of great people. When I got injured, I sank into a huge pool of pain and loss.
My bouldering and Filipino Martial Arts friends—and even a few co-workers—tried to stay in touch. But I’d lived through a life of such intense loss, this new loss (of not being able to climb) activated a latent asshole gene and I pushed everyone away. I saw myself in relationship with them, only within the container of the activity. I had my core group of small but mighty friendships, but I wanted my “bouldering” friends and my “Filipino Marital Arts” friends to stay in their own lanes and never interact. Not because I was ashamed of them or embarrassed by the activities I participated in, but I liked to keep my various groups separate. It was easier for me to focus on what was at hand, because the group had a singular purpose. I was so good at this separation that during my injury, my activity friends separated from me. More losses. I tried to process these losses through pints and pints of Häagen Dazs (Vanilla Swiss almond). And chips. And burgers. From knee surgery to getting my cast off, I gained 41 pounds. 41. Pounds.
This was a problem of my own making, but I was so disgusted with myself. At this point, therapy would’ve been the appropriate thing to do. I could’ve worked through all my feelings and made a plan to ease back into the life I had. But another track on that arrogance/hubris mixtape was on a constant loop: “I’m a mental health counselor. I’m good at what I do. I don’t need therapy because I know what they’ll say. I know what they’ll ask me to do. I can treat myself.”
Yeah. That didn’t work out too well.
So I wallowed. I wallowed so much that it felt like my wife and I were in a polyamorous relationship with sadness and sorrow, but my wife had no idea who the additional partner was. My daughter was also very little at time, and I missed quite a bit of playtime with her because of my injury and my sadness. This engendered more sadness, which I treated by consuming the shittiest of foods. If quizzed, I couldn’t even tell you how any of that food tasted in that two and a half year journey to my semi-full recovery. When I was cleared for light exercise, I was able to move from Jabba the Hutt to Jabba the Husky. And since then, I vacillate between chubby and husky with alarming frequency. And now that I’ve hit 50, I’ve finally been able to let go of the idea of being an absolute unit, like I was in my 20s-30s. That time has passed. Time to put away childish things. I’ve also been able to dig up and through the stratums of body disgust and actually begin to take steps towards getting healthier. Damn the aesthetics. As long as I have mobility, flexibility, strength, have a healthy outlook on life, and regard myself with honor and grace, I’m going to be good for a long time. And frankly, I want to be healthy but I really don’t want to lose any more of the space I occupy. If I did, I’d also lose out on the opportunity of having those ‘big man understandin’’ moments.
For so long, I convinced myself that I was walking a fat and lonely road, when in fact I was almost always surrounded by thicc company, and had mutually beneficial thicc interactions. These interactions were never planned, always organic, and brought me a measure of joy, if even for just a couple of minutes.
A few days before my sitting down to write this, my wife and I were at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, California. In front of the store we wanted to go into was a chubby security guard, decked out like he was about to overthrow a small country, and a big and tall man, his wife, and their dog, all who semi blocked the entryway. I am not the greatest fan of dogs, so I hesitated before entering. I cracked a joke and the man moved his dog, but then he and the security guard engaged me in lighthearted conversation. Lots of laughter. My wife and I entered, shopped, and exited. Upon our exit, the security guard re-engaged me to talk about his Siberian husky attack dog that only responds to commands in Russian. He looked to be so proud to let me know this bit of his life. I was grateful for the gift of his time and energy. We said our friendly, slightly louder than they should have been goodbyes, and my wife and I went about our business. She cracked a small and shot me a look.
Fly big dude
Big man understandin’.
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed it our not, maybe it’s a function of being a member of the thiccness, but some big men give off a vibe. The big dudes who keep themselves up, clothes and shoes fresh, grooming on point, confidence on megawattage, these cats are vibey as hell. They move with a sense of purpose that tells you, without telling you, that they are at ease with who they are and their place in the world. And that is, to me, what they project. I’m not privy to their interior lives, but what they present to the world makes me proud to be amongst their number. I think they have to do this, we have to do this, because we can only take so many hits.
A year ago, I was flying back home from a trip abroad and I was sat next to these two tall as hell white boys. They were muscular and had to be an easy 6’5”. I’m 6’1”, so I know tall. I had the aisle seat, which I thought was going to make the flight an easy one. Before taking off, the dudes were on their phones, and speaking to each other in Polish. Later found out they were basketball players. Dude next to me was talking to his friend in Polish, but texting someone in English. I glanced over to see his phone screen: ‘This big black guy sat down next to me. It’s going to be a long flight.’ It was like a knife to the gut. These guys were bigger than me, but because I wasn’t the right kind of big to them, there was no big man understandin’. My granny used too say, “What people say about you isn’t your business.” I tried to keep that in mind as I chomped down on the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t say something highly disrespectful. It wasn’t that I was scared of the guy himself, but was scared of the race difference and the no-fly list. I hate that I always have to consider the racial makeup of a situation before I can take an action. Years later, this incident sticks with me. It still bothers me. Yes, I was hurt. Being seen as some kind of detriment to a situation is painful. It also gave a very pointed understanding of which kind of big men are socially acceptable. I’m not sure why this is still something I contend with, because in February 2018, there was a seismic disturbance in the thicc-o-sphere.
Marvel’s Black Panther was a watershed moment, not only in superhero cinema, but in the broader culture as well. It’s influence far outstripped its humble 1966 comic book origins. From how black folks greeted each other with the ‘Wakanda Forever’ salute, how we dressed, the heated political discussions we had about the righteousness of Killmonger’s actions and why did Wakanda allow the trans-Atlantic slave trade to happen, Black Panther influences Black cultural thought just as much as Afrofuturism does. I’d argue that Panther isn’t Afrofuturist, but I’ll be presenting this “controversial” argument in another place. However, I think the film offered a particular cultural detonation that is less spoken about, less lauded, but I feel is equally, if not more important: M’Baku.
The King of the Thick-ums, Winston Duke
When M’Baku (played by thicc-god) Winston Duke, hit the screen, the collective inhalation of desire-tinged breath damn near shook the entire theater—I saw the film five times in the theater and at each screening, M’Baku’s thighs were lusted after. I sat there, feeling the bigness-acceptance expand in scale. Winston Duke’s glorious frame was not an object of ridicule or othering. It was hot, he was hot. He was sexy. People wanted his meaty thighs. Damn it felt good. Granted, Mr. Duke has a level of charisma many of us can only dream of, but the admiration of his body was like a global big man understandin’. We understood that as long as we are comfortable in the way our bodies move and look, we don’t have to give a damn about what others think about us. We can be who we be, without emotional or psychological interference from others. Self-acceptance is damn hard in a world where bigness is associated with taking up space in the wrong way, or being lazy, or being unhealthy, or possessing a perceived strength that reduces us to no more than tools to be used by others. There is nothing more dangerous than to live in the imagination of people who do not have your best interests in mind. And big men, not the muscular men we’ve been told is the only man to be via tv, film, and even action figures, but us chunky, husky, thicc men have been molded in the minds of others for far too long. It is time we control our own stories.
This is my attempt.
Biz and Heavy, just chillin’
So, to conclude, I would like to give a huge shout out to Heavy D (R.I.P.), Chubb Rock, Winston Duke, Pete Steps (dude from ‘round my way), the #dadbodsquad, Charles S. Dutton, Rex Navarrete, Raekwon, Rick Ross, Notorious B.I.G., Scarface, E-40, Biz Markie (R.I.P.), J-Live, Gift of Gab (R.I.P.), MF Doom (R.I.P.), Prince Markie Dee (R.I.P.), Grenville Braithwaite (my cousin and one of the flyest thicc-gods around), his brother, Neville Braithewaite (also supernaturally fly) and all the other big men who navigate our shared world with a level of bravery, confidence, and aplomb that can only be cultivated through experience, hard won in these anti-thicc streets.
I understand you.