Ignorance is a poison that needs to be stopped!
I had the unfortunate pleasure of reading one of the most ignorant FB posts I have ever read in my life. Not up there with the McNance gay rant’s but its close. The name has been withheld to protect you from going to her FB to read more of her ignorance. I said this needed to be stopped from spreading! LOL. The statement that follows was taken directly from the horse's mouth, nothing has been changed.
“Man! I can't agree with you more! I saw on the new that TSA was going to alter the proceedure b/c some people were complaining that it was against their religion. My problem is this...If it’s against their religion, my guess is that they... are not from this country. And the way I feel is that if your are flying/Living in AMERICA then we shouldn’t have to alter OUR security procedures to protect OUR country. If they want to fly / live here…then they need to alter their religion! It’s just common sense. I mean at school and work we can’t even worship God or have a Christmas tree in the lobby b/c it’s offensive to other religions. How far is our country suppose to bend ? I do realize that not everybody who has a different religion is a forigner, but you get what I'm saying.”
Spelling errors have not been changed either. I said this was an ignorant post. First this person asserts that if someone claims something is against their religion they aren’t from this country. Gee, I wonder who she could be pointing the finger at there. Well hun, I hate to point it out to you but this country was founded by people running away from religious persecutions. And since when does a religious objection equate to a non-American? Did you know that is was an American housewife who objected to prayer in schools? And that American was able to plead her case before the United States Supreme court, and it was that court compromised of nine American justices who ruled that Christian prayers in schools was unconstitutional. And it was American atheist who first objected to “Merry Christmas?” No you didn’t know that I am sure of that.
Thomas Jefferson, one of our founding father’s first authored the phrase “separation of church and state,.” He recognized the havoc that could be weaved when a state sets out to sponsor one religion at the costs of all others. Jefferson, a man who himself was a Deist, with his own Bible that he authored removing all the miracles. So you see if you bothered to do a little research instead of spouting off the same ignorant rantings that you heard on the radio you would know that all the things you are upset about were started and carried about by Americans.
And Christianity is not an United States construct dear. It actually came to fruition in the Middle East as well. Just because your Bible may say made in the USA doesn’t mean your religion was.
You are asserting that people should alter something as deep seeded and personal as their belief system just to get through a security check point when you yourself is balking at the idea that you can got o work and see a Christmas tree? A truly pagan leftover in the first place? So I guess whatever is good for the goose isn’t so good for the gander?
And you are asking how far is our country supposed to bend to protect the right’s of its citizens? So what you are putting on that table is that this country stops catering to its own citizens when you don’t personally agree with it? Well I don’t like how come Christian churches protest the funerals of soldiers killed in this “war on terror.” So from you’re statement I’m not an American? I mean does it hurt for you to think about putting your pants on one leg at a time? Do you and Bill O’Reilly share the same brain cell?
Monday, November 22, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
The continued genocide of the Black Community
The Genocide of the Black Community
The state legislature of Georgia is considering a bill that would outlaw abortions based on race and gender.
The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act would apply to abortion "the same standards of nondiscrimination" that govern employment, education, government and housing, said Georgia state Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Republican who introduced the bill. It brings up the question, is there a reason for this bill? Guttmacher Institute figures say that of 1.2 million abortions obtained in 2005, 37 percent were to black women. Blacks make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population. "We are not demonizing black women," said Catherine Davis, director of minority outreach for Georgia Right to Life, to CNN last week. "What we are saying is that the abortion industry has targeted, specifically, the black community.The goal is to alert the community and awaken the community," she said.
This systematic destruction isn’t a phenomenon that just started in the 21st century; this goes back to the first time American sailors set feet on the black continent, Africa. Angela Davis, a noted Black activist and former Black Panther noted, “Judged by the evolving nineteenth-century ideology of femininity, black women were practically anomalies.” From our introduction to this country we as Black women were exiled from the White ideal of womanhood.
Dr. David Pilgrim, and professor of sociology at Ferris State University described the first contacts Europeans had with their African counterparts. “European travelers sailed to Africa and through their ethnocentric eyes viewed the local dress and tribal dances as lewd and proof of the insatiable sexual appetite of the savage natives.” Never did they stop to think that the heat and the lack of wooly animals could have been the reason for the scantily clad natives they found. The African custom of polygamy, which is still practiced by many African tribes, was thought to be another indicator of the savage’s sexual appetite. These views fueled the myth of the Black Jezebel. “Black women have always been these vixens, these animalistic erotic women. Why can’t we just be the sexy American girl next door?” Supermodel Tyra Banks‘ words captured the raging battle that African American women, who are solely defined by their sexual appetites, still face to this day face. Elizabeth Hadley Freydberg, a professor at Northeastern University said, “ White men not only appropriated the children of Black women under slavery, they also appropriated Black women bodies through rape. And, when their offspring bore silent witness to rape, these men profited from the unholy harvest by selling their own children and justified their violent subordination of Black women by labeling them promiscuous seducers.”
Not only were black women blamed for seducing white men into raping them they were blamed for the ills of the black community. Historian Philip A. Bruce in 1889, explicitly tied Black women sexual impurity to our dangerous mothering. He reasoned that Black women promiscuity not only provoked Black men to rape white women but also led the entire Black family into depravity. Professor Howard Odum, at the University of North Carolina attributed Black’s poor home life partly to the sexual and domestic laxity of Black mothers. Decadent Black mothers, are then responsible for the menace to society that the black family poses to the American social order. Something had to be done. North Carolina, in 2003 became the first state to work to rectify its role in the near successful genocide of the Black race. A campaign that took the right to bear children away from an estimated 450,000 black women, according to the United States Government Accounting Office in 1977.
First the United States government tired to rid of the country of the Black menace by targeting black women, when that became illegal the focus was shifted to black children with abortion rates that far outstrip the Black population. Georgia a southern state that fought for the south’s right to keep slaves has become the first state to realize this and they are trying to correct it.
The state legislature of Georgia is considering a bill that would outlaw abortions based on race and gender.
The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act would apply to abortion "the same standards of nondiscrimination" that govern employment, education, government and housing, said Georgia state Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Republican who introduced the bill. It brings up the question, is there a reason for this bill? Guttmacher Institute figures say that of 1.2 million abortions obtained in 2005, 37 percent were to black women. Blacks make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population. "We are not demonizing black women," said Catherine Davis, director of minority outreach for Georgia Right to Life, to CNN last week. "What we are saying is that the abortion industry has targeted, specifically, the black community.The goal is to alert the community and awaken the community," she said.
This systematic destruction isn’t a phenomenon that just started in the 21st century; this goes back to the first time American sailors set feet on the black continent, Africa. Angela Davis, a noted Black activist and former Black Panther noted, “Judged by the evolving nineteenth-century ideology of femininity, black women were practically anomalies.” From our introduction to this country we as Black women were exiled from the White ideal of womanhood.
Dr. David Pilgrim, and professor of sociology at Ferris State University described the first contacts Europeans had with their African counterparts. “European travelers sailed to Africa and through their ethnocentric eyes viewed the local dress and tribal dances as lewd and proof of the insatiable sexual appetite of the savage natives.” Never did they stop to think that the heat and the lack of wooly animals could have been the reason for the scantily clad natives they found. The African custom of polygamy, which is still practiced by many African tribes, was thought to be another indicator of the savage’s sexual appetite. These views fueled the myth of the Black Jezebel. “Black women have always been these vixens, these animalistic erotic women. Why can’t we just be the sexy American girl next door?” Supermodel Tyra Banks‘ words captured the raging battle that African American women, who are solely defined by their sexual appetites, still face to this day face. Elizabeth Hadley Freydberg, a professor at Northeastern University said, “ White men not only appropriated the children of Black women under slavery, they also appropriated Black women bodies through rape. And, when their offspring bore silent witness to rape, these men profited from the unholy harvest by selling their own children and justified their violent subordination of Black women by labeling them promiscuous seducers.”
Not only were black women blamed for seducing white men into raping them they were blamed for the ills of the black community. Historian Philip A. Bruce in 1889, explicitly tied Black women sexual impurity to our dangerous mothering. He reasoned that Black women promiscuity not only provoked Black men to rape white women but also led the entire Black family into depravity. Professor Howard Odum, at the University of North Carolina attributed Black’s poor home life partly to the sexual and domestic laxity of Black mothers. Decadent Black mothers, are then responsible for the menace to society that the black family poses to the American social order. Something had to be done. North Carolina, in 2003 became the first state to work to rectify its role in the near successful genocide of the Black race. A campaign that took the right to bear children away from an estimated 450,000 black women, according to the United States Government Accounting Office in 1977.
First the United States government tired to rid of the country of the Black menace by targeting black women, when that became illegal the focus was shifted to black children with abortion rates that far outstrip the Black population. Georgia a southern state that fought for the south’s right to keep slaves has become the first state to realize this and they are trying to correct it.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Take out the trash Palin!
So Sarah Palin’s show debuted on TLC and broke its viewing ratings. Which if you ask me isn’t hard to do on TLC. However a few of the show’s critics were obviously vocal about their dislike of the show and of Sarah Palin.
What they weren’t expecting was for Sarah’s little bears, Bristol and Willow to personally attack them back on various social networks, namely Facebook, according to The Daily News. The most shocking words flowed from the littlest Palin daughter, Willow. She went on the hurl several homophobic epitaphs at a classmate. Calling him “so gay” and “such a faggot.” And then big sister Bristol also chimed in taking a pot shot at her child’s father.
Is this the sort of behavior we could have expected from the Vice President’s children? Is this their normal behavior? Does Bristol call the father of her child a loser during her talks to high school students about the dangers of teenage pregnancy? IS the garbage coming from her facebook page worth the thousands of dollars she is paid for these so called “informative” talks?
In this climate with many of us fresh off the Day of Remembrance and the McCance scandal for Willow Palin to even let those sort of words pass over her keyboard is outrageous, and we should all be pissed off. She is old enough to be held accountable for her actions. So where is the HRC campaign to demand an apology from her? Where is the facebook backlash? Where is the righteous indignation that so quickly swept through the internet that even Anderson Cooper took notice?
Are the Palins above morality? Is it ok for Willow to speak those disgusting words and use them as daggers against another student? Is she no different from the bullies who forced several teens to commit suicide a few weeks ago?
I say, off with her head!
What they weren’t expecting was for Sarah’s little bears, Bristol and Willow to personally attack them back on various social networks, namely Facebook, according to The Daily News. The most shocking words flowed from the littlest Palin daughter, Willow. She went on the hurl several homophobic epitaphs at a classmate. Calling him “so gay” and “such a faggot.” And then big sister Bristol also chimed in taking a pot shot at her child’s father.
Is this the sort of behavior we could have expected from the Vice President’s children? Is this their normal behavior? Does Bristol call the father of her child a loser during her talks to high school students about the dangers of teenage pregnancy? IS the garbage coming from her facebook page worth the thousands of dollars she is paid for these so called “informative” talks?
In this climate with many of us fresh off the Day of Remembrance and the McCance scandal for Willow Palin to even let those sort of words pass over her keyboard is outrageous, and we should all be pissed off. She is old enough to be held accountable for her actions. So where is the HRC campaign to demand an apology from her? Where is the facebook backlash? Where is the righteous indignation that so quickly swept through the internet that even Anderson Cooper took notice?
Are the Palins above morality? Is it ok for Willow to speak those disgusting words and use them as daggers against another student? Is she no different from the bullies who forced several teens to commit suicide a few weeks ago?
I say, off with her head!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Stupidity Hurts Children
In the opinion section of the Aussie newspaper the Courier Mail was a starling piece that I had to read to believe. David van Gend theorizes that same-sex marriage hurts children. He claims that the issue of gay marriage is not about the union of two loving people, but at its core an issue of what is right for the child. Now let’s just for sanity’s sake assume that every gay couple that wants to get married wants to have children, because let’s face it everyone wants children, right?
He fails in his piece on several fronts. The most glaring to me is that thinking automatically that gay parents equals a world filled with nothing but men or women. That only lesbians hang out with other lesbians and gay men only shoot the breeze with other gay men. Being a straight black female I find myself hanging out with gay white men, gay black men, straight Mexican men, lesbian Asian woman, tall white guys and short black woman. My life is enriched with the encounters that I have on a daily basis and the eclectic mixture of friends that I surround myself with and I am sure that Mr. Ven Gend is the only person on the planet who hangs out with people who are exactly like he is. And even then I am sure there is some liquor involved.
He says that the law of the land should stay out of the fundamental rights of the child to a mother and a father, but implying that this is a right means that there is some level of a law involved. However the last time I checked the rights of a child as it pertains to what a parent is obligated to do is only to feed, house and cloth the child. No where does it say that a child has the right to a mother and a father. And then if it did the law would have to define what a mother and father is. Are we then to genderize the role of mother and father? Is this putting women back into the kitchen where many of us don’t want to be and men back out on the battle field where again many of them don’t want to be. Would this make stay at home father’s feel less than the men that they are? Would this make working mother’s feel ashamed of the paycheck they bring home to keep their kids swaddled in Nintendo’s and Air Jordans?
Sure a woman wouldn’t be able to show a male child how to properly hold his penis to use the bathroom, though there are youtube videos that can, but could a woman not get a male relative to do the same? Could a man not get his female mother to show his daughter how to properly use a tampon? This piece totally places the raising of a child squarely on the shoulders of two people. That is not the experience of a child, it takes a village to raise a child. That saying was spoken God knows when but it still holds true today. Now more than even with the increase in parental working hours.
More and more children are being raised by grandparents, aunts, uncles, godmothers, non-blood family friends. Very few children are raised solely by their parents, even if both of them are present.
So why are we to believe that a female mother and male father are in the best interest of a child when statics speak otherwise? Barak Obama, the President of the United States was raised by his single mother, and his grandparents and look what he managed to accomplish in his life. George Bush was raised with a mother and father and look how he turned out.
Well now Mr. Van Gend has brought nature into the equation. Well let’s take a look at nature. Human beings are alone in the fact that we care for our young from the time on conception to the time either the parent or the child stops breathing. Turtles lay their eggs on the beach, cover the nest with sand and walk away. Bird lay their eggs, watch them hatch, and then push the birds out of the nest. And in fact humans beings are the only animals on the planet where the sperm donor actually stick around. Every other male in the animal kingdom does a quickie and then leaves. So the nature argument doesn’t hold water.
He goes on to quote an atheist philosopher (does anyone else see the irony here) “As he wrote in Marriage and Morals: "It is through children alone that sexual relations become of importance to society, and worthy to be taken cognizance of by a legal institution."” I want to know who in the hell is sitting around thinking about the sexual relations of some random person on the street? I seem to find that in this present sexual cultural that children and sex are as separate. The only institution that should be concern with who I’m having sex with is the Department of Health. And only then when I invite them into my sex life. Pray tell what legal institution should be given the key to our sexual relationships? Last time I checked society scoffs at prom stars who flaunt their public sex on our TVs and monitors. Oh wait that’s right, they are having sex simply for the pure enjoyment of it and not to produce children. That’s what makes it dirty and something to be scorned. My mistake Mr. Van Gend I thought sex was first and foremost for the simple pleasure of it. A fact that God intended for it to be by placing the majority of our nerve endings in our genitalia.
I think the excuse that gay marriage should be barred because it can’t produce children is a pure crock of crap. I personally can’t have children so then should I be denied a meaningful marriage with a husband of my choice? Should the court void all the marriages of the infertile couples around the world?
He ends his piece with , “Opposition to gay marriage is all about the child, and no parliament has the right to impose a motherless or fatherless life on a little child.” So then divorce should be taken off the books then, because you have to go to court to divorce someone. Just like you had to go to court for the license to marry that person. You can’t have your cake and eat it to Mr. Van Gend. You can’t say the court can do this and only this when agree with it and then tell the court to go to hell when it does something you don’t agree with. If the court can sanction divorce, a procedure that breaks up a household then it should sanction gay families. A action that brings households together.
Mr. Van Gend, you argument is full of holes and quite amateur in its assumptions. And frankly you have made a right ass of yourself. Thank you very much for you time.
He fails in his piece on several fronts. The most glaring to me is that thinking automatically that gay parents equals a world filled with nothing but men or women. That only lesbians hang out with other lesbians and gay men only shoot the breeze with other gay men. Being a straight black female I find myself hanging out with gay white men, gay black men, straight Mexican men, lesbian Asian woman, tall white guys and short black woman. My life is enriched with the encounters that I have on a daily basis and the eclectic mixture of friends that I surround myself with and I am sure that Mr. Ven Gend is the only person on the planet who hangs out with people who are exactly like he is. And even then I am sure there is some liquor involved.
He says that the law of the land should stay out of the fundamental rights of the child to a mother and a father, but implying that this is a right means that there is some level of a law involved. However the last time I checked the rights of a child as it pertains to what a parent is obligated to do is only to feed, house and cloth the child. No where does it say that a child has the right to a mother and a father. And then if it did the law would have to define what a mother and father is. Are we then to genderize the role of mother and father? Is this putting women back into the kitchen where many of us don’t want to be and men back out on the battle field where again many of them don’t want to be. Would this make stay at home father’s feel less than the men that they are? Would this make working mother’s feel ashamed of the paycheck they bring home to keep their kids swaddled in Nintendo’s and Air Jordans?
Sure a woman wouldn’t be able to show a male child how to properly hold his penis to use the bathroom, though there are youtube videos that can, but could a woman not get a male relative to do the same? Could a man not get his female mother to show his daughter how to properly use a tampon? This piece totally places the raising of a child squarely on the shoulders of two people. That is not the experience of a child, it takes a village to raise a child. That saying was spoken God knows when but it still holds true today. Now more than even with the increase in parental working hours.
More and more children are being raised by grandparents, aunts, uncles, godmothers, non-blood family friends. Very few children are raised solely by their parents, even if both of them are present.
So why are we to believe that a female mother and male father are in the best interest of a child when statics speak otherwise? Barak Obama, the President of the United States was raised by his single mother, and his grandparents and look what he managed to accomplish in his life. George Bush was raised with a mother and father and look how he turned out.
Well now Mr. Van Gend has brought nature into the equation. Well let’s take a look at nature. Human beings are alone in the fact that we care for our young from the time on conception to the time either the parent or the child stops breathing. Turtles lay their eggs on the beach, cover the nest with sand and walk away. Bird lay their eggs, watch them hatch, and then push the birds out of the nest. And in fact humans beings are the only animals on the planet where the sperm donor actually stick around. Every other male in the animal kingdom does a quickie and then leaves. So the nature argument doesn’t hold water.
He goes on to quote an atheist philosopher (does anyone else see the irony here) “As he wrote in Marriage and Morals: "It is through children alone that sexual relations become of importance to society, and worthy to be taken cognizance of by a legal institution."” I want to know who in the hell is sitting around thinking about the sexual relations of some random person on the street? I seem to find that in this present sexual cultural that children and sex are as separate. The only institution that should be concern with who I’m having sex with is the Department of Health. And only then when I invite them into my sex life. Pray tell what legal institution should be given the key to our sexual relationships? Last time I checked society scoffs at prom stars who flaunt their public sex on our TVs and monitors. Oh wait that’s right, they are having sex simply for the pure enjoyment of it and not to produce children. That’s what makes it dirty and something to be scorned. My mistake Mr. Van Gend I thought sex was first and foremost for the simple pleasure of it. A fact that God intended for it to be by placing the majority of our nerve endings in our genitalia.
I think the excuse that gay marriage should be barred because it can’t produce children is a pure crock of crap. I personally can’t have children so then should I be denied a meaningful marriage with a husband of my choice? Should the court void all the marriages of the infertile couples around the world?
He ends his piece with , “Opposition to gay marriage is all about the child, and no parliament has the right to impose a motherless or fatherless life on a little child.” So then divorce should be taken off the books then, because you have to go to court to divorce someone. Just like you had to go to court for the license to marry that person. You can’t have your cake and eat it to Mr. Van Gend. You can’t say the court can do this and only this when agree with it and then tell the court to go to hell when it does something you don’t agree with. If the court can sanction divorce, a procedure that breaks up a household then it should sanction gay families. A action that brings households together.
Mr. Van Gend, you argument is full of holes and quite amateur in its assumptions. And frankly you have made a right ass of yourself. Thank you very much for you time.
Monday, November 15, 2010
English Drinking Culture
If you’ve been living under a rock for the past two months then you don’t know that since September 14th I’ve been living and studying abroad in Manchester, England. And frankly I’m upset that you haven’t been paying more attention to me but that isn’t the purpose of this.
While I’ve been living in England I’ve been in a house of 5 with people younger than me. As it always seems to be I’m the oldest person in the house. So as a matter of course I’ve become friends with my flatmate Victor, who happens to be at the tender age of 20. Bless his heart. Victor has in turn introduced me to all of this friends and has invited me along to several flat parties and out to clubs, or discos as our Spanish cousins call them.
On these excursions I’ve had the pleasure to witness drinking culture here in England. I have to say that I’m not impressed and in fact have had to amend my previous thoughts that maybe the United States should lower its drinking age from 21 to match the rest of the world which has that drinking age set at 18. I now see the folly in this train of thought.
In the States we’ve all heard the reports that a lower drinking age would reduce the instances of alcohol abuse, it would produce more responsible drinkers and blah, blah. The European model is held up as the way for the United States to. I mean after all their primary school system is beating us hands down so they must be on to something with this as well, right?
Well I beg to differ. In the US at least drinking is still treated as something that needs to be done behind closed doors without the rest of the world knowing what you are doing. Thus all alcoholic drinks must be concealed in brown paper bags as you leave the ABC store. Well, here in England you can walk into any local grocer, gas station, off license shop and buy anything from beer, to Jack Daniels and coke in a can, to Smirnoff vodka. Then you may proceed to stand in the middle of the sidewalk and consume your beverage. No one is going to stop you, no one is going to tell you that public displays of drinking and drunkenness is not only inappropriate but in poor taste. In fact you may be cheered on but several passerbys.
Drinking is celebrated like its a national hero. Like the drink itself is the reason the sun never sets on the Empire, which is a popular saying here in England. I was certainly shocked when I walked into ASDA (the Wal-Mart equivalent) and saw Vodka on display on the next isle from toilet paper. No I’m not prude and as many of you reading this will know that I do in fact drink, but I may be the only person in history to have waited till I was 21 to in fact drink. Not that I was waiting till I was legal it just wasn’t high on my lists of things to do. I, however absolutely detest being drunk and I’ve only done it twice in my life and I regret both of those times. There is nothing cute or funny about hanging your head in a toilet to throw up your insides.
Here in England that seems to be the only reason to drink. Drink till you are drunk and throwing up in the middle of the street with all of your mates around you cheering and taking pictures to post up on Facebook and to text to other friends who aren’t there to witness your finest hour. Public drunkeness seems to be alright and people just walk past the unfortunate soul who can't hold their liquor. No one stops to help and in fact people hurl insults and slurs at the person inability to hold their drink.
Getting up at 5 in the afternoon and zooming down to Sainsberry to snagged bottles and bottles of wine, alcohol and beer to be consumed before 7pm is the greatest fun to be had on a Friday afternoon. And in deed by the time me and Victor, with several other friends in two have arrived at a flat party by 10pm we are the only sober ones and in fact the only ones able to stand without the whole world spinning. This ritual is repeated again on Saturday and Sunday and then the following weekend.
Yes binge drinking happens in the States, I'm not saying that it doesn't or even saying that the United States is doing a better job at curbing the rise in alcholics, but this just my take on the British drinking culture as I'm an outsider.
Allowing 18 year olds the ability to legally buy and consume alcohol doesn’t produce more responsible drinkers. Nor does it cut down on the instance of alcohol abuse, all it does it lower the age for liver transplants. You are expecting a person who has had all major life decisions made by their parents to handle something as serious as alcohol with adult . I am by no means calling an 18 year old a child, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call them an adult. After all the majority of these kids running around here in England with a wine bottle pressed to their lips are living on mommy’s money anyways.
I said all of that to say that I don’t agree with the United States lower its drinking age to 18 if the English model is being held up as the example.
While I’ve been living in England I’ve been in a house of 5 with people younger than me. As it always seems to be I’m the oldest person in the house. So as a matter of course I’ve become friends with my flatmate Victor, who happens to be at the tender age of 20. Bless his heart. Victor has in turn introduced me to all of this friends and has invited me along to several flat parties and out to clubs, or discos as our Spanish cousins call them.
On these excursions I’ve had the pleasure to witness drinking culture here in England. I have to say that I’m not impressed and in fact have had to amend my previous thoughts that maybe the United States should lower its drinking age from 21 to match the rest of the world which has that drinking age set at 18. I now see the folly in this train of thought.
In the States we’ve all heard the reports that a lower drinking age would reduce the instances of alcohol abuse, it would produce more responsible drinkers and blah, blah. The European model is held up as the way for the United States to. I mean after all their primary school system is beating us hands down so they must be on to something with this as well, right?
Well I beg to differ. In the US at least drinking is still treated as something that needs to be done behind closed doors without the rest of the world knowing what you are doing. Thus all alcoholic drinks must be concealed in brown paper bags as you leave the ABC store. Well, here in England you can walk into any local grocer, gas station, off license shop and buy anything from beer, to Jack Daniels and coke in a can, to Smirnoff vodka. Then you may proceed to stand in the middle of the sidewalk and consume your beverage. No one is going to stop you, no one is going to tell you that public displays of drinking and drunkenness is not only inappropriate but in poor taste. In fact you may be cheered on but several passerbys.
Drinking is celebrated like its a national hero. Like the drink itself is the reason the sun never sets on the Empire, which is a popular saying here in England. I was certainly shocked when I walked into ASDA (the Wal-Mart equivalent) and saw Vodka on display on the next isle from toilet paper. No I’m not prude and as many of you reading this will know that I do in fact drink, but I may be the only person in history to have waited till I was 21 to in fact drink. Not that I was waiting till I was legal it just wasn’t high on my lists of things to do. I, however absolutely detest being drunk and I’ve only done it twice in my life and I regret both of those times. There is nothing cute or funny about hanging your head in a toilet to throw up your insides.
Here in England that seems to be the only reason to drink. Drink till you are drunk and throwing up in the middle of the street with all of your mates around you cheering and taking pictures to post up on Facebook and to text to other friends who aren’t there to witness your finest hour. Public drunkeness seems to be alright and people just walk past the unfortunate soul who can't hold their liquor. No one stops to help and in fact people hurl insults and slurs at the person inability to hold their drink.
Getting up at 5 in the afternoon and zooming down to Sainsberry to snagged bottles and bottles of wine, alcohol and beer to be consumed before 7pm is the greatest fun to be had on a Friday afternoon. And in deed by the time me and Victor, with several other friends in two have arrived at a flat party by 10pm we are the only sober ones and in fact the only ones able to stand without the whole world spinning. This ritual is repeated again on Saturday and Sunday and then the following weekend.
Yes binge drinking happens in the States, I'm not saying that it doesn't or even saying that the United States is doing a better job at curbing the rise in alcholics, but this just my take on the British drinking culture as I'm an outsider.
Allowing 18 year olds the ability to legally buy and consume alcohol doesn’t produce more responsible drinkers. Nor does it cut down on the instance of alcohol abuse, all it does it lower the age for liver transplants. You are expecting a person who has had all major life decisions made by their parents to handle something as serious as alcohol with adult . I am by no means calling an 18 year old a child, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call them an adult. After all the majority of these kids running around here in England with a wine bottle pressed to their lips are living on mommy’s money anyways.
I said all of that to say that I don’t agree with the United States lower its drinking age to 18 if the English model is being held up as the example.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)