ideology, history, transhistory

[C. Petersen]

> >More innovative research in the service of validating racial claims 
> >through biology.  Like when Chief Gates hypothesised that Blacks are 
> >genetically pre-disposed to death by LAPD chokehold.
> 
> This subject has been on my mind lately, but in a different setting.
> Somebody who I generally respect and who I correspond with on a fairly
> regular basis mentioned to me that he thought that American Indians had "a
> genetic problem with alcohol." Unlike white people, they metabolize alcohol
> differently and become drunk easier. This is something I heard also from an
> old friend who used to live in Taos, New Mexico, where the Navaho and Hopis
> make up a large percentage of the population. She and the other white
> hippie/entrepreneurs used to complain all the time about Indian drunks and
> this genetic "explanation" got circulated widely.
> 
> It's interesting, isn't it, that alcoholism seems to afflict Indians,
> blacks and Irish, the three nationalities who had tribal origins, as
> Theodore W. Allen pointed out. Something tells me that alcoholism in these
> groups can be explained better by capitalist oppression rather than genetic
> propensities.

well, there are a ton of alcoholics in the irish side of my family, and I
use this genetic explanation. I think that cultures that used wine and
beer for many centuries such as Italians, Germans, Jews, Chinese, have
become acclimated to it - or perhaps people with the gene for high
tolerance of alcohol bred more. Alcohol wasn't used by american indians or
the Irish until the past few centuries. Why didn't the poor german or
Italian or asian immigrants become alcoholic in the same ratio as the
irish, otherwise?