Seen on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/OrwellNGoode/status/1309236208690659334
I had to look up the book, it’s real.
It’s on Amazon for preorder, the release date is October 14th.
This is the description:
Beer in the United States has always been bound up with race, racism, and the construction of white institutions and identities. Given the very quick rise of craft beer, as well as the myopic scholarly focus on economic and historical trends in the field, there is an urgent need to take stock of the intersectional inequalities that such realities gloss over. This unique book carves a much-needed critical and interdisciplinary path to examine and understand the racial dynamics in the craft beer industry and the popular consumption of beer.
The lead author, Nathanial Chapman wrote an article for an online magazine Consume This! which I suspect gives a preview for their book.
The craft beer industry and culture also has a race problem. As Anderson[5] observes, the modern craft brewery is a predominantly “white space”. While women represent a growing segment of craft drinkers, people of color, particularly African Americans, have not seen a rise in consumption. Dating back to the 1960s, the beer industry marketed malt liquor (a beverage viewed to be inferior to regular beer and characterized by higher alcohol contents and large format bottles) and other “less-than” beers to the African American community. Today, the marketing of some craft labels resorts to appropriation of African American culture. A popular brewery in Torrance, CA Monkish is known for using rap lyrics as names for their beers. In a recent interview, the late Anthony Bourdain lamented that craft beer culture as nothing more than a bunch of hipsters writing tasting notes and listening to 90s hip hop. African Americans are not represented in the industry either. Currently, there are fewer than 50 African American-owned breweries operating in the US. Given the rapid growth in the industry, and the sheer number of breweries opening each year, this is a tremendously disproportionate representation in the industry. This has trickled down to the culture as well. Less than two percent of craft beer is consumed by African Americans, a growing problem for a craft culture that promotes the idea that beer is without race or gender.
Apparently bemoaning the lack of diversity in the craft beer industry is more popular than the IPA trend.
Thrillist did an article on this too:
There Are Almost No Black People Brewing Craft Beer. Here’s Why.
Nearly all craft beer brewers started out as craft beer drinkers, so it stands to reason that if there are to be black brewers, there would have to be black drinkers.
Turns out the latter are few and far between. A recent Nielsen study commissioned by the Brewers Association found that while black drinkers compose 11.2% of the US population, they consume only 3.7% of the country’s craft beer.
So it’s worth asking: why has the overall American beer industry always been white?
I dunno, maybe it’s because beer, as we know it in America, is the product of German, Irish, and English immigrants who brought their respective brewing styles to this country. The drink we know as beer, using malted grains and hops, comes from central Europe. Even the word beer, comes from the German “bier,” which is middle-High German.
But don’t worry, the author is going to blame racism. Not that there are any signs hanging outside craft breweries that say “no colored people allowed.” It’s that there isn’t perfect representation in the craft brewing industry and that is enough evidence of racism.
It’s important to note that no one I spoke with for this story claimed or even hinted that the enthusiasm gap between white and black consumer bases was driven by racism. Instead, the takeaway of many of these conversations boiled down to a simple fact: craft beer is white because the overall American beer industry has always been white.
So for the most part, black people don’t even care about craft beer. They are happy without it. So why give a shit?
Here’s where I’m going to make us all uncomfortable. Should we, the white craft beer majority, care that black people don’t partake in the culture we love? If craft beer is indeed “white people shit,” and black people are cool with that, then what’s the harm, right? Isn’t this all just a big, foamy glass of white guilt masquerading as a beer story?
Yes, yes it is. This is what these fucking people do. Black people don’t seem to be terribly upset that they aren’t represented in craft beer. So this is just some guy who wants to find something people are enjoying and fucking ruin it for everyone because he’s got nothing better to do.
That’s it exactly. Go find a therapist and figure out another way to live.
I don’t think so. There are two major downsides to allowing craft beer to remain homogeneous.
If craft beer doesn’t prioritize racial diversity in its ranks the way it does product diversity, we’ll eventually wind up with homogenized craft beer. That’s already happening, to a certain extent. Any good craft beer aisle will feature at least a dozen IPAs from a dozen different breweries — but I don’t think I’ve ever seen an African-style sorghum beer. That’s not to say it doesn’t exist, or that all black brewers should or would brew African-style beers, but just imagine all the culinary and brewing traditions we’re missing out on.
Oops. Scratch a progressive, find a racist.
“This is a good beer, but not enough black people were involved in the making of it so I’ll have to give it low marks” is a racist statement.
And yes, he thinks that black people should brew African fermented drinks. What if some white hipster brewed an African sorghum beer? He’d be canceled for cultural appropriation.
The great Progressive conundrum, how to have diversity and segregation at the same time.
If there was actual discrimination in beer or brewing, that would be one thing. But just some progressive feeling that his racial quotas are not being met in a particular subculture and using that to attack the subculture is everything that is wrong with progressivism.
Yep, they are doing this in the film industry (and others). “Black people aren’t interested in your product? Therefore you are racist for failing to make them interested”. It’s OUR responsibility to convince black people they really DO like beer, even though generally they don’t. And so white people are supposed to alter black culture, and introduce “white” trends? Isn’t that racist, like “colonization”. Hey, I really like country music; what we need to to, to improve black people, is to convince them to stop listening to hip hop and start listening to country music, because it’s just better music, and they’ll be better off listening to it, right? Funny, that almost sounds like something people would call racist.
Meanwhile, they complain in one breath that somehow the craft beer industry has “failed” to attract black consumers, in the next whining because some white beer makers “appropriated” hip hop lyrics to name their beer. Maybe he was trying to appeal to black drinkers? How do you appeal to them if you are barred from using anything they can culturally relate to because it would be “cultural appropriation” to use Black cultural themes as a white owned company. Hip hop of course BELONGS to Black people, and white people are not allowed to quote it or use it or to join in. But we also need to make beer a diverse industry with more black people.
As usual, whites are not allowed to emulate or participate in any form of black culture; we already “owe” them collectively for stealing their music to make rock and roll out of (would never be allowed to happen today, and they actually demand “reparations” for all the profits white people made off the rock industry. Seriously), but at the same time whites are racist if they fail to fully open and diversify every aspect of their own culture. Not only are we not allowed to bar anyone entry if we wanted to, we are chastised for failing to encourage them.
I used to think it was a nutty conspiracy theory, but over time by logic tells me this road goes to cultural destruction. Which is apparently exactly what they want. European culture is being chopped up with torches and parted out to the lowest bidders, and the remaining unsold parts are in the process of being melted down and destroyed. That’s pretty much it. In the name of Diversity. But all other cultures are building fences and protections around their own, making them sacred and inviolable.
“Social Justice” scholarship has got to be the laziest way to earn a paycheck these days. I should get a copy of this book, do a ‘Find and Replace’ for every reference to “beer” with damn near any other hobby and presto… Gimme a grant.
Fishing, model trains, model rockets, archery, fencing, karate, knitting, sewing, antiquing, decoupage, aquariums, gardening, typewriter collecting…
How can karate be racist when it has belts of all different colors? Oh, wait. Belts were invented by who, again?
Nevermind. Asterisk is racist, therefore racism is everything. And thus the term becomes meaningless.
OMG – is there no end to it?
I suspect Republicans and Libertarians are strongly under-represented in the “craft” beer industry as well. I suspect theater majors and California Dims are strongly over-represented. They seem way more pretentious than winos. Real men drink Coors out of the bottle.
Nope.
Wow, too much.
I am again reminded of why I play the racist game. Always substitute the word racist for white, in all situations. Dinner is served on racist plates. I am going to buy the racist car. I think I will paint the trim of my house racist.
It sounds ridiculous. Just like the people on the left.