Over the Rainbow? Why Queer Beer Is Important

So you don't know about LinkedIn? Google?

It sounds like you have never seriously thought about this prior to this conversation, or put much effort to actually live by what you tell others to do.

That tells us something important.

So who makes the parts of your computer or automobile and what are their labor practices? The chair you're sitting on?

 

I do not know.

Do you know the answers to your questions?

Are we not supposed to do anything unless it's perfect?

I know where my personal lines are, do you know where yours are?

Remember, this whole conversation is about supporting people, when you can. Some folks care not about the background of a product, as long as it is cheap, and, via amazon, easily available to them, then bitch about Bezos shooting himself to space. Well, Bezos can only do that because folks won't stop at the store for paper towels, and buy them from Bezos. The instant one gives their money to Bezos, it becomes his money. You don't want Bezos going to space? Stop buying shit off Amazon.

If I were in an area with, say, 6, breweries I'd never visited, and 5 were owned by white doctor/lawyer/architect types, and 1 by a multi-cultural community college teacher, I'm gonna visit the 1 first. I'll get to the rest of them, sure, but I'll make a point to not skip the one that others might intentionally pass over, for reasons.

 

Do you?

 

Again, I await your answers to your own questions.

 

I do not. Then again, I'm not the one arguing that we ought to mediate our business transactions on the basis of the identity or qualities of the person(s) we are doing business with. I think you missed the point.

 

I would visit the one that I believe makes the best beer, or the beer most suited to my liking. If that happens to be the multi-cultural community college teacher, great.

 

And I think you are intentionally avoiding honest talk. As I suspect you do in your classroom.

Good day sir.

 

I find it pedantic and facile to parade one's moral credentials invoking Stalin and whatnot to claim in a beer forum to be supportive of minority groups. Talk is cheap, and moralism is just as cheap.

 

No no no, you missed the point. You are supposed to seek out the outlier and visit them first for the soul reason of their identity, even if their beer is inferior or their venue doesn’t suit your personal taste. It’s part of the SJW code.

 

FTFY.

 

Always the loudest ones that can't get it right

 

I also find it utterly patronizing and insincere to say:

"If there's three breweries and two are owned by white males and the other by a person of color, I'm going to the one owned by the person of color first!"

This is overt bigotry camouflaged under political correctness.

Why should we assume in advance that (a) because someone is a member of an under-represented minority group one must be either decent person, or in any case more worthy of support than those of non-minority groups? And why should we assume that (b) if one supports a business ran by members of an under-represented minority group one supports the interests of the minority group as a whole, or in any case advances the cause of achieving equality of opportunity in the industry or world?

The world doesn't end on race, nation, culture, or gender, important as these might be to individual and collective identities: people are qualified by their unique experiences and qualities. You might be a LGTB beer owner that's an utter asshole, underpays their employees, and makes crap beer. And you may have a pastry white heterosexual male who, lo and behold, saves puppies in his free time and who was the child of domestic abuse, who came from poverty and made it to the top, etc.

This kind of cheap idealization of identity politics is pseudo-activism at its inane peak, perfectly catered to contemporary consumerist culture. For the price of one minority-brewed hazy IPA you get your drunken haze AND your ticket to the heavens.

 

Oh yes, indeed, I know about those companies. I know about the companies that make many of the things I buy. Some of the things I buy are from companies who engage in things that disgust me. But I need their technology if I am to do the job that I do. And my job is related to the ending of oppression. This, in my opinion, is an important job and I want to do it well. As such, I need to buy shit from companies I dislike. It sucks and it takes a bit of a toll on me, truth be told. I have the opportunity to reduce the oppression that exists in this world, but, to do it, I need to buy crap from companies that are far from perfect. It doesn't sit well with me, but backing out of all of it and living off the grid doesn't sit well with me either, as I have skills and knowledge to help others.

I want to be clear about this Dansac, I am not telling anyone what to do. I am not without sin in this area. I am typing on a Macbook with a Wifi connection provided by Verizon. There shall be no moral finger wagging here. So if your position is that no one should give a shit what I suggest because I'm not perfect, fine, you win. But is this really an all or nothing conversation? Is your position that because a person isn't in total alignment with a particular value 100% of the time then that value is worthless? That seems silly, in a world as complex as ours. I live in a very old house and, as a result, I am often doing a lot of home repair projects on it. I strongly disagree with Home Depot's anti-union practices. As a result, I try to avoid shopping there whenever possible. But I'm not going to lie, sometimes I go. I check the locally owned hardware store first for whatever I need for the house, but, if they don't have it, I go to Home Depot. And you know who appreciates that? The people who own the local hardware store. They like that my first reaction isn't "Fuck it, can't win 'em all, I'm going to Home Depot." They know they don't have everything Home Depot has and they know that sometimes I'm going to go there, but they sure as shit appreciate that I check with them first. And a little bit of extra money for them and a little less for Home Depot is, in my opinion, better than nothing.

To bring it back to beer.....we are all fortunate enough to have the money to buy craft beer. Taking an extra minute to better understand the experiences and struggles of the people who make this product we all love so much doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Trans people are discriminated against. This is not a matter that is up for debate. If some brewer wants to bring attention to those struggles and maybe raise a few bucks to help mitigate them well keeping themselves in business, that's great in my book. It's fine to not care about such an effort. Not everyone cares about everything. But to fly into a thread and say "who cares" seems dismissive and counter-productive.

Also, on a personal note, I am sorry to hear about how you are treated as an adjunct professor. Adjuncts get royally fucking ripped off and it's not right. For whatever it's worth, I am trying to change that too. And part of me changing that is getting people who would normally say "who cares, so long as people get their diplomas" to consider the struggles and experiences of the adjuncts.