brown black and queer

3 Responses to “Backyard BBQ”

1. on May 7, 2008 at 3:39 am1 dkd220

   Is cigarette smoking counter-revolutionary?

   Without focusing too much on the definition of commercialized definition of revolution, (for all intensive purposes let’s just say revolution is the end of all oppressions in society), does cigarette smoking interrupt and corrupt our work in the process of achieving this ideal?

   Who actually benefits from the purchase of cigarettes? Furthermore, whose pockets?

   Does it limit the ability of our activism? With 2nd hand smoking (aka breathing) as a more lethal lung killer than 1st hand smoking, are we committing communal suicide?

   a lil narrative:
   I was doing security at the Sean Bell Rally/March (Post-Verdict) in Queens in April. I was in the front and there was a lady walking next to me chain-smoking a pack of Newports. At first I just tried to keep a distance and hope the wind created by our marching would keep the smoke at a distance. Well, that didn’t work. I found myself coughing, contacts getting dry and such, (oh yeah - my body does not do well with the smokes). But as I looked around us, I saw a toddler in her stroller directly behind us.

   I thought about this.. the child’s mother pushing the stroller, deemed this activism important enough to put her child in a potentially violent position and march with the child in front of her. However, the only thing most harmful thing to the child was not the antagonistic racist police walking along the perimeter of the march, but rather, this cigarette smoke, which is extremely dangerous in contact with such small lungs. Who would’ve thought??

   Consider this in mathematic terms:

   lady’s addiction to cigarettes > health of child
   lady’s addiction to cigarettes > health of those marching around her
   lady’s addiction to cigarettes > health of the movement?

   
   
2. on May 17, 2008 at 2:48 pm2 brownblackandqueer

   This is why I think that revolutionary movements, movement for the betterment of the people, should include an ideology on physical health. It is extremely important for us to be really be focused on ourselves and each other. How can we sustain a movement anyways if we ourselves are not physically healthy? It doesn’t make sense. This is not the ONLY reason we should be healthy. It is a way of saying we are valuable. We should exist. We should want for those around us to exist as fully, as happily as possible.

   People have been eating healthy foods for years before all this heavily processed, fake shit was ever made and then sold for far too much dinero. Vegetarians existed before it was chic (and accompanied by cigarette smoking). We don’t have to be slaves to veggie brand names or anything like that to be healthy. I actually do not suggest giving up meat. I constantly refer people to this paragraph response about vegetarianism that Rebecca Walker said for Satya Magazine:

   Are you a vegetarian?

   “I was a vegetarian for eight years. It was not, ultimately, a healthy choice for me. Now I support organic farming plus free range and humanely grown chicken and beef products. I don’t believe in extreme views that do not take the complexity of human beings’ lives into consideration. Many people do not live in climates that are conducive to vegetation for instance, and have survived by eating animals for hundreds if not thousands of generations. Should they, or their ancestors in this country who have a genetic predisposition to eating meat, be judged? And what about the insects that are killed and displaced in the growing of vegetables? Do we not care as much about them as we do about the animals? Of course, I do not support the inhumane treatment of animals in the commercial chicken and beef industries. But I also do not support a simplistic, vegetarian-good, meat-eater-bad philosophy.”

   I agree that we are been living and growing with certain diets and it is not necessary to alter those. Instead, we need to be more focused on shedding out those things that we intake that really aren’t doing shit for us. Kaila Story told the audience at Zami Like Me: Queer Womyn of Color CipHER that she tries to eat an apple a day, as cliche as it sounds. I think that’s fabulous.

   Water, too, people. I know I am the queen of hating water. It’s not that I don’t believe it’s great, it just that I’m not in the habit of drinking it regularly. Recently, I’ve been trying to drink one glass of water when I wake up, just to get my day started on that note. That one glass is better than my previous no glasses, so I guess I’ll just have to be thankful for some kind of ability to change.

   Exercise. NO, you don’t need a BowFlex to exercise. I remember when I was in Baracoa, Cuba, I had a conversation with this community about basically how they stay in shape compared to my U.S. American friends (las gordas) because their daily lives are focused around some sort of manual labor. We got so hooked on increasing productivity and decreasing physical (and mental) effort that now we just sit around at our computers and only our fingers get to steppin.

   Also, part of this is decompressing. I’ve been trying to spend that one hour a day where I usually fuck around on the computer, and instead relax in my room with some good music (Erykah, claro), maybe some incense, some tea. I thought it would be such a strain on my schedule to do this, but I consolidated all that bull shit time I spend.

   Apple a day,
   glass of water in the morning,
   take the stairs,
   Erykah, incense and tea

   Makes the world go round.

   
   
3. on May 19, 2008 at 7:25 pm3 chica mexica

   This post was a sharp blow to the head. I say this, because well, yes, I am smoker. So I cannot deny that every time I light up, I think about my poor black-forming lungs and how my naïve habit is a social burden. My random cravings already make me feel guilty, and being called anti-revolutionary, damn, I am just feeling too fucking dialectical.

   *Keep in mind that smokers are used to hearing about the unhealthy factors. So, shedding light to the child nearby, that is a valid (and very realistic) concern. Still, the choice is that of the individual.

   
   

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website