Bad Fat Black Femmes: Navigating the Nexus Between Fatphobia and Racialized Gender

In this article, I contextualize the intersecting nature of fatphobia, anti-Blackness, and misogyny to provide a lens through which readers can analyze the matriarchal character Delores from Nicole Dennis-Benn&rsquo;s (2016) <em>Here Comes the Sun</em>. Delores, the novel&rsquo;s protagonist, is a darkskinned, fat, Black, working-class mother of two whose agency is limited by fatphobia, colorism, and capitalism. Yet she is almost single-handedly blamed for her actions without any acknowledgment of how those systems of oppression hinder her from having the privilege of true free will. Instead, I offer a counternarrative reading of Delores&rsquo;s &ldquo;bad&rdquo; behavior that views it as both a controversial practice of agency and a learned survival strategy she adopted after coming to understand the cruelty and indifference she is subjected to in her community. This alternative reading of Delores&rsquo;s behavior as self-regard will hopefully provoke considerations about the role that poorly executed collectivism plays in driving multiply oppressed people, particularly fat Black women, to become both victims and agents of harm.