In this episode, we talk with Dr. Jada Wiggleton-Little, assistant professor of philosophy at ‘an’ Ohio State University, about fat phobia and the dismissal of fat patients' pain. She unpacks how clinicians treat such pain as normal and even deserved — a "desert pain" framing that casts patients as unentitled to further investigation, empathy, or care.

Additional Readings:

• Kate Manne, Unshrinking: How to Face Fat Phobia

• Sabrina Strings, Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia

• Roxane Gay, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

Dr. Wiggleton-Little’s Selected Publications:

• "Black Women and 'Doing' Pain: An Insurgent Act," American Philosophical Quarterly (Special Issue on Contemporary Issues in Black Philosophy), forthcoming.

• "Cure but Not Cured: Gene-Editing Therapy and The Ethics of Framing Language for Transforming Sickle Cell Disease," (with Shameka Poetry Thomas, Kristin Seastrand, and Consuela Albright), Hastings Center Report, forthcoming.

• "Pain Dismissal and the Limits of Epistemic Injustice," Hypatia, 1-17, 2025.

• "Sharing Pain: A Hybrid Expressivist Account," Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 102(3): 808-822. 2024.

• "'Just' a Painful Period: A Philosophical Perspective Review of the Dismissal of Menstrual Pain," Womens Health (London), 20:1-6. 2024.

In this introduction to Inked by Faith, we begin the story of Operation Tat-Type, a Cold War civil defense program that blood-typed and tattooed thousands of Americans in the early 1950s, including children.

The series begins with a family discovery: a grandmother’s tattoo; never hidden, just never talked about. From there, we ask a larger question—not about secrets or conspiracies, but about how communities normalize extraordinary measures in moments of fear… and how those memories fade.

This episode sets the stage for the stories still waiting to be told.