Alcohol and Racism, Too Hard To Quit
Racism is like alcohol, we know it’s bad for us, but no one wants to fully give it up
Photo by Vinicius "amnx" Amano on Unsplash
Alcohol is linked with cancer.
The more you drink the higher your risk.
Women who drink increase their risk of breast cancer.
Medium writer, brian g gilmore (bumpyjonas) wrote about this James Baldwin quote,
“I don’t want to be in a rage. It is not healthy, Jimmy Baldwin, not good. I can’t leave this country or perhaps I can. But where am I to go? The hate of here is everywhere. It is like hand sanitizer but it does not clean,” in his piece Baldwin’s Quote. Brian asked writers to use this as a prompt, answer two questions, and tag him.
When did I experience my first moment where I knew I was being treated differently because I was African American (Black)/Other?
I was always aware of racism. I didn’t always want to believe it was racism.
We moved to Canada from Trinidad when I was three. My brothers and I were bullied at school. My accent, my hair, with its tightly coiled curls. Back then I was also the type of person who was fearless. Hurt me and mine, and I’ll beat you up or down. Whatever works.
My dad moved back to Trinidad to be a senator. My two brothers, my mum and me, stayed in Canada. I grew up in Ontario.
I’ve lived in different places since becoming grown. But, it’s Canada that formed most of my experiences.
On a visit to my dad’s in Trinidad, I was thirteen. At this point, my dad is well known throughout the country. Walking down the street. Stopping to buy a Solo Champagne cola, it was gushing cries of, “Mr. Valley! Mr. Valley.” Each interaction is an interminable length of time, especially for a child who wanted time with their father.
We walk into this restaurant, a lunch date or something, me and him. It was unusual that he and I did anything alone, the two of us. As we sit, he asks me a question I don’t remember. I respond, asking him if he feels watched? I tell him, I always feel watched. It’s weird.
He tells me, quite seriously, teeth clenched, no one is watching me.
He’s misunderstood my question. He thinks I’m asking if people watch me because I’m special, unique. Which isn’t what I’m saying at all. The grit in his voice puts me off from clarifying. Besides, I’m a bit confused now as to what I meant.
I say nothing.
The moment has stayed with me for life. I order the filet mignon, it seemed worldly, sophisticated. It was very red. He let me exchange it for fish.
I pocket the question in that space reserved for later examination when more information is available. Years later I finally understand what I was trying to say. I’m watched, not because I’m me. Because I’m Black.
Growing up, I believed we were past all that racist nonsense I heard the adults talking about. I said to my mother, “Racism is over. I’m not Black. I’m human.”
When eyes followed me in stores, I didn’t understand. When I was slighted in school, I didn’t understand. I did understand. I didn’t accept racism was the answer.
Every Saturday we went to church, Seventh-Day-Adventist. In all the years we attended that church in Burlington, a very white suburb of Ontario where we lived, we were never invited to the pastor’s house for dinner. The after-church meal was dinner.
I thought maybe I wasn’t accomplished enough, which was why we didn’t get invited. I worked to impress. Look at me, I’m as good as Sylvie, my rival. I played piano and flute. I sang in the choir and did solos.
The Italian family that joined the church spent their first Saturday dinner with the pastor and his wife. The next week those kids were calling them, “Uncle and Aunty.” My family never visited their house, despite our years of attendance at the church.
I resisted naming my experiences as racism. No one else in my family seemed to be feeling what I was.
I felt it before I believed its name.
How do I feel about the actual quote by Baldwin?
I too am enraged. It ebbs at times and roars back with blind rage at others. I know this rage isn’t healthy. I wonder where I can go. I despair that this hate has been exported everywhere, and infected Black and white alike.
Sometimes, I am optimistic and can see how the future can be. It’s right there, easy to reach and grasp.
I can see the beauty we can have, the freedom to breathe and be. I can see how living together as people, not colours, allows us to have the opportunity to reach our potential.
Then another child is murdered. Another Black man or woman is shot to death in their home. Or jumps out of a window to escape the police who refuse to see their humanity.
Another story surfaces of an actor that I used to adore growing up, using that hated word, n****r on set. He says he didn’t mean to offend anyone. But it was used only for the Black crew to hear, although luckily, a few white people also heard. Now the Black crew can be believed. They have white witnesses.
Only the Black crew leave their jobs. The set is toxic and the show must go on the CBC implies. Nothing is done, at least publicly, to the white actor.
And I realize nothing will change.
It’s like alcohol
We’ve had stories for years about the boost to your health from drinking red wine. A glass of it can protect your heart. It’s the resveratrol in the grapes that’s beneficial.
Protecting your heart studies pop up ever so often, interspersed with stories dutifully reiterating uninteresting reasons about the dangers of alcohol. They’re as stimulating as that parent (me) lecturing my child for the umpteenth time on why cannabis is better than the grape.
My voice, its cadence, rings in at that precise level marking it as white noise. Besides all their friends drink as do their parents. Drinking is acceptable, legitimate. Cannabis hobbles along the edge of scandal. Besides, I’m a Black woman, advising cannabis sounds cliche.
Back in the days when I was a married woman, my ex enjoyed his wine, my rush was reading about the wines and food, and buying the bottles. Drinking wine didn’t zing for me. I never developed a taste for alcohol, unlike my offspring. That might be the Scottish riding high in them.
One day my ex showed me a study, touting the protective benefits of a glass a day. The benefits to your heart and its anti-aging properties. I didn’t plunge into the study, he told me and that was sufficient. We added a daily glass, confident we were enhancing our health. My new habit didn’t take and was dropped. My ex still drinks and alcohol is legal. I used to smoke cannabis, an illegal drug in Canada, until recently, yet without the cancer-causing specter.
Folks want to drink and they will. It’ll be irrelevant to many that recent expertise refashions alcohol as not beneficial in any amount. Alcohol is the new tobacco. Revelations will come and we’ll learn the industry knew all along. It’ll be a same soup, different cracker reveal. We’ve heard these stories before.
My father was a voracious drinker. I once spent an evening with him and his friends. They played dominoes and cards, going from bottle to bottle. I was past exhausted, struggling to stay awake, and these men smoked their cigars and drank non-stop. They each must have drunk 2 - 750ml bottles of rum. Daddy drove us home afterward. Daddy died of colon cancer, he wasted away. A 6ft tall man transformed into a small child carried by his son.
Racism is like alcohol. We know it's bad for us, but no one wants to fully give it up. We get a study that erases doubt, it’s good in moderation. Another study weaves magic, informing us of the health benefits. We buy into it because it’s familiar, known, comfortable. We don’t want to lose this tradition.
Originally published on Medium at https://aninjusticemag.com/alcohol-and-racism-too-hard-to-quit-1e431b2af5d8 on January 17, 2022