6. Say the Quiet Part Out Loud
If the albatross around your neck could ask you for one thing, it would be for another albatross to keep it company
If you are in the beer industry, then you likely are going or know someone who is going to the Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) in Nashville, Tennessee at the beginning of May. In case you live a very privileged life where you consider discrimination and outright hatred of marginalized communities “politics” and you don’t do “politics,” Tennessee has passed several laws that threaten the safety and health of its citizens. Most relevant to this discussion is the denial of gender-affirming healthcare to minors and the banning of “male and female impersonators” from performing in public or in the presence of children. Alarmingly, the “anti-drag bill,” as it’s commonly referred to, contains extremely vague and overreaching language that technically makes it possible for a non-binary individual to be arrested for existing in public in clothing that does not conform to their gender assigned at birth.
To date,1 the Brewers Association (BA) has not made a public acknowledgment or statement regarding the passage of these laws in Tennessee, their decision to hold CBC in a state that was already actively trying to legislate marginalized communities either into submission or out of existence, or whether/if they will engage state and local legislators and communities about these laws.
The best case scenario to me is that the BA pulls out of Tennessee entirely and states the reason why. Can you imagine what a statement that would make? If you’re a member of a historically excluded community within the beer industry, how meaningful would it be for a large, influential trade organization - arguably the largest and most influential - to stand up for you, to say that your safety and well-being is more important than money, to say that it meant it when it said two of its core values are nurturing a collegial and supportive community as well as advocating for fair access and equitable treatment?
You know, that organization that makes sure to take close-up pictures of the relatively few people who are not men and/or white at their events to use in their marketing campaigns throughout the year? #PanOut, amirite?
We see the bigger picture, even when you try to obscure it, I assure you.
For those of you getting your typing fingers ready right now or constructing your hypothetical “devil’s advocate” argument to me in your head, I’ve done the work for you. In fact, it’s the whole point I chose this as my topic.
Yes, that would be the best-case scenario, but it’s also the least likely. And I’m not villainizing the BA or anyone who is attending CBC. I will be there. One hundred percent ethical consumption under capitalism is impossible. We all move through the world making ethical compromises. It’s necessary for all but a very dedicated few and those few are likely not reading this newsletter. Although I thank (not really) the “ally” who popped into my DMs to mansplain to me why the BA won’t cancel CBC, that isn’t and hasn’t been my goal.
I understand that there is a ton of money invested in CBC and that many conference venues and contracts are settled years ahead of the actual conference. I imagine that canceling CBC at this late date would be financially devastating to the BA. It would also be an expensive cancelation for all the attendees who have arranged travel and paid a lot of money to attend the conference. In conversations I’ve had with local Nashville businesses, they have also expressed their gratitude for people who are still attending because it represents an opportunity to support local businesses who are supporting threatened communities.
Let’s just start saying the quiet part out loud.
Yes, it would be great for the BA to issue a statement along the lines of “We care about the entire beer community, not just the deepest pockets so we’re out.” But how refreshing would it be to have them say something along the lines of “We don’t like this either but financially we can’t take this hit so we’re moving forward with it.”
No political posturing, flowery sentences that don’t actually say anything at all, or attempted misdirection. Just an honest admission of why they’re making their decision.
FOOLS RULE, BOOTLICKERS DROOL
You may recall from my December newsletter (my physical and mental health are doing much better after being the first person in history to have gotten a cold during winter, thank you for your concern), I spoke virtually at the Australia Pink Boots Society annual general meeting, wherein I expressed that I wasn’t in a great place to be inspirational but that I would solve the easier problem. Another piece of advice I gave is one that has become like a personal mantra to me, which is “Make it hard for them.”
Solving the easier problem and making it hard blend rather paradoxically into the concept of the holy fool. As explained by Malcolm Gladwell in Talking to Strangers,2 the holy fool is an archetype that portrays the social role of doubt. The holy fool is a societal outcast, but “their position on the outskirts of society affords them the power to see and speak truths that otherwise remain unspoken due to people’s desire to adhere to the social norms of their culture.”3
Think of the boy who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes - that’s an example of the holy fool. In other words, a holy fool can be a whistleblower or simply someone making it hard for others to avoid saying the quiet part out loud.
How do we do that? First, we recognize in ourselves when we’re not speaking up and/or policing others speaking up because of respectability politics. Respectability politics is the concept that the “supposed worthiness of a marginalized group should be evaluated by the values of respectability set solely by the dominant group.”4 Historically excluded communities are expected to communicate their lived experiences and the harm done to them by the dominant group in a manner dictated by the dominant group as acceptable before the dominant group will address the problems. This looks like saying Colin Kaepernick kneeling was unpatriotic, slut shaming, valuing property over people during protests, or buying into the model minority myth.
Personal accountability and self-awareness are key and sometimes it feels awful and is uncomfortable but that’s how we grow. And when we do it enough, we become comfortable being uncomfortable. And we become more comfortable with making others uncomfortable.
This doesn’t have to look like a confrontation that escalates. For me, one of the most effective tools I have in my toolbox (foolbox?) is asking innocuous but direct questions. Asking questions is effective for addressing macro- and micro-aggressions and also leaves space for learning opportunities for the person who is being asked to say the quiet part out loud.
I have two personal anecdotes to share. In 2021, I had a virtual meeting with the attempted union-busting CEO of a Georgia brewery and his VP of Impact regarding their participation in the Mikkeller beer festival. I knew the invite to meet was an aggro move on their part because several women received the same copied and pasted message essentially challenging us to a meeting. At one point during the meeting, the CEO proudly said that they didn’t just hire the VP of Impact because of the stories being shared on Brienne Allen’s Instagram page. As a matter of fact, he went on to say, they had hired him in July 2020.
“Why?” I asked, “Did something happen in June 2020?”
The quiet part was not said out loud that day but the opportunity to say that they had hired him in the wake of George Floyd’s murder had been presented.
A few months later, I was in a job interview with a supplier for a sensory analyst role. The role was in a heavily agricultural community and the company’s work was very seasonal. I asked the HR rep about their inclusion and equity efforts. She told me how important diversity was to the company. She then told me about one employee who was a member of Pink Boots5 and then said that there was a Spanish-language radio station where they sometimes advertised jobs as part of their diversity outreach.
“Oh, that’s cool! Did you advertise this job on that station?” I asked. The answer, of course, was no, they advertised their seasonal harvest jobs on the Spanish-language radio station.
It’s not always easy to play the role of the holy fool and many of us have the privilege of aligning with respectability politics rather than risk being ostracized. When you find yourself retreating into that privileged safety, please remember that there is a greater impact on the perpetrators when those with power and privilege respond. I don’t challenge every aggression I see and I don’t expect others to either.
Here’s the part I struggled with whether to include but I’ll say the quiet part of playing the fool out loud: sometimes it really fucking sucks and sometimes there are real consequences to challenging the status quo.
This is not news to anyone, but I hesitated to include this part of the discussion because I don’t want people to select not to challenge out of fear of the consequences. That’s what “they” want you to do. I did not get offered the sensory analyst role. I have learned about opportunities that were not offered to me because the leadership at my former brewery (I bet you can guess which one!) threw their weight around and said I was not to be involved under any circumstances.6
When I have been successful at getting the quiet part said out loud, it sometimes really really fucking sucks. It can be disappointing to have the quiet part said out loud because it’s there, right out in the open, and we can no longer Schrodinger’s cat our suspicions.
But the information is there and we can choose how we move forward with it. For me, this has looked like declining to participate in events, deciding not to work with certain people in the industry, and phasing people out of my life. But it’s also looked like building a community of friends who challenge me to become the kind of fool I aspire to be, knowing that I showed up when I could have easily retreated into privilege, and being a source of support for people struggling with their own holy fool journeys.
Support routine smell testing
No one has asked me this but I wish someone would so I’ll offer it up here: one of the most overlooked aspects of improving your palate and sensory skills is taking care of your mouth and your nose to the best of your ability. I have a whole host of (some likely pseudo-scientific) habits I’ve built to protect my palate, from carrying humidifiers everywhere with me (this is my favorite travel humidifier) to practicing good oral hygiene to mouth taping (which is exactly what it sounds like) at night to train myself to breath through my nose when I’m sleeping.7
I could write an entire book about how smell has been disregarded as a baser sense and how Eurocolonialism perpetuates the myths that vision is the most valuable sense as well as that humans are bad at smelling (maybe I will, HMU publishers). The sense of smell and its importance to our lives got more attention due to the COVID-19 pandemic and made “anosmia” a household term.
The importance of our sense of smell and smell training will hopefully keep gaining momentum in our society and rightfully occupy its space as another way to measure our health, particularly over time. Loss of smell can be a symptom of many things, such as Alzheimer’s disease, and can be dangerous - imagine not being able to smell a fire in your home or a gas leak.
Vision tests, hearing tests, and dental visits are all considered routine medical tests, but smell testing isn’t, even though our sense of smell starts to age just like our other senses. How would you know if you were becoming less sensitive to smells, especially if it happened gradually?
If you, like me, would like to see smell testing become a routine medical test, please take a few minutes to read and sign this petition from the Smell and Taste Association of America.
And finally
Before we leave each other, here are a few more things that I am up to these days:
Working on my virtual presentation for Crafted for Action’s Craft Beer Conference - Turning the Beer Judging Tables: Strategies for an Inclusive Judging Environment. Get excited about this, everyone, because I am so stoked about this presentation. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to broaden beer judging and sensory and this presentation has the potential to be a game-changer. Or at least it will make it harder for beer competition organizers to continue not saying the quiet part out loud about who they want at their judging tables.
This is by far my favorite beer conference in the industry. It’s also the only one that can boast 84% of its panelists being BIPOC. Honestly, this year is probably the last year I’ll participate in conferences and events that don’t show those kinds of numbers. Jen Price has shown that it’s possible to organize an annual beer conference that centers the voices and experiences of historically excluded communities and I will no longer accept anything less from other conferences.
You can attend in-person events as well as virtual presentations.
Reading Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol by Mallory O’Meara. This book is bad to the bone. It is a comprehensive history of the roles of women in various alcohol industries throughout the world (not just white women), with a critical eye on the role white supremacy and sexism have played in erasing the contributions of women.
Listening to this interview with Firmenich senior flavorist and newly-minted sommelier Allison Freedman on the Perfumer & Flavorist+ Two Sense podcast. It’s relatively short (<15 minutes) and is just a goddamned delight. I haven’t had the opportunity to hear about the journeys of flavorists and chemists into alcohol sensory and it’s super interesting.
March 31, 2023
Yes, I know Malcolm Gladwell is not the most reliable author whose correlations are often fallacious, such as his assertion that Asians (you know, that one monolith that is not made up of literally billions of people) are good at math because …rice paddies?
LitCharts. “The Holy Fool Symbol Analysis.” LitCharts, 2022. https://www.litcharts.com/lit/talking-to-strangers/symbols/the-holy-fool.
Chen, Emily, and Jenny Dorsey. “Understanding Respectability Politics.” Studio ATAO, 2022. https://www.studioatao.org/respectability-politics.
Employers, stop doing this. It doesn’t send the message you think it does.
One of these opportunities was for me to moderate a panel on supporting women in beer.
Seriously, one of the best things you can do for your health is to stop breathing through your mouth.