Youth Radio - Topic: beer

Beer For Kids?

rgee — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:40:57 -0500

Yesterday was International Beer Day. As a youth issue, drinking beer might seem irrelevant because the legal drinking age is 21 in the United States. Even so, I thought I’d take a look at some of the ways beer has been marketed to youth.

In Japan, beer for kids is not that unusual. At least two companies have specifically marketed beverages to children that look like beer. The company called Sangaria created a line of fake alcoholic drinks for kids in 2005. A website called Japan Trends explains, “Japan is well known for its group drinking culture, and this is actually a great way to include the kids during family celebrations. These are even sold at restaurants, which is ideal since most parties in Japan are done outside of the home. Of course, if you find your four-year-old passed out in front of the TV with a pile of empty fake beer cans around him, it might be time for an... intervention.”
Sangaria even created children’s versions of wine, champagne and cocktails. “The beer, flavored like apple juice, even foams at the top when poured into a glass!”

Another company, Tomomasu Co., created a drink called Kidsbeer, with the shocking slogan “Even kids cannot enjoy life without a drink.”
It is a sweet, carbonated drink aimed at children. The Japan Times reports, “The drink started out as Guarana, a cola beverage that used to be sold at the Shitamachi-ya restaurant in Fukuoka, run by 39-year-old Yuichi Asaba. Asaba renamed the sweet carbonated drink Kidsbeer, a move that made it an instant hit.”

The idea is that kids can be included in celebrations where drinking is involved.

"Children copy and mimic adults. "If you get this drink ready on such occasions as events and celebrations attended by kids, it would make the occasions even more entertaining."

How about in the U.S.?

In March 2010, the Anheuser-Busch company that makes Miller and Budweiser beers sued a Maryland firm for making baby bottles that look like beer bottles. Their catchy slogan was, “for your little drinker.” The baby bottle site read, “If you are an adult that cannot keep real beer, or a real beer bottle away from your toddler, you should not purchase this gag gift--Please leave the site now!' The bottles, according to the site, were 'not meant to encourage underage drinking.'

It’s generally thought that younger minds are more malleable and easily impressed upon. So what are the actual consequences of these ridiculous products? One study reported that the number of young people tasting alcohol is decreasing. “The proportion of fourth, fifth and sixth grade students who had ever tasted more than one sip of an alcoholic beverage fell 20% or one-fifth between 1993 and 1999 and the proportion who had consumed weekly dropped by over half during the same time period.”

In fact, in Japan, beer brewers are struggling to stay in business, according to an article on ABC News online. The article reads, “'Overall Japanese do not drink as much as they used to'... The lack of interest in alcohol among young Japanese is a sharp shift from the past.”

Once Upon a Bosnian Night...

shamik — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:40:11 -0600

(download mp3)

I’m considered an Irish-American girl but for one night each month, I get to try on a new culture. I get to be Bosnian.

My Bosnian-born friend Emina introduced me to Bosnian parties. Once a month we pack up from school and head to her house to dress up.

We arrive at the party around 8 and wait for the guys, who always arrive fashionably late at 9. As soon as I walk in, I can officially no longer hear anything. Techno music blares through the near empty warehouse.

We run to the bathroom every ten minutes to check our faces. We eat our Bosnian junk food: two pieces of white bread with greasy meat inside.

The concert includes a well-loved Bosnian singer, countless drunk men, women dressed in sexy clothes, drama, cigarettes, and lots of dancing. You have to dance a certain way or else it’s obvious you’re not Bosnian. And don’t look at the Bosnian boys too long because than they think you’re too easy and they lose interest.

So now that I know the rules, I fit in perfectly and the Bosnians never suspect a thing...

CNN's Beer Conversation Turns Into a Brouhaha

pharshaw — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:58:50 -0500

CNN hosted a roundtable discussion last night on the topic of the infamous beer at the White House. The guests at the roundtable were with John Ridley, Willam Bennett, and a good friend of mines, Basheer Jones. Basheer is from Cleveland, Ohio and is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Gerogia. After graduating from Morehouse, he took graduate classes at Howard University where he was my graduate assistant in the Charles R. Drew freshman dormitory. Basheer is someone to take note of, his appearance on CNN last night is the latest notch on a impressive resume. It’s a resume that shows he has the charisma needed to host a talk show for Radio One, his political awareness --he ran for Mayor of Cleveland, and his ability as an orator by way of numerous YouTube videos of him both reciting speeches and reciting poetry. Plus, he killed the freestyle cipher in my video about freshman year. Much respect to Basheer Jones.

And even more respect to CNN for "losing" William Bennett's signal when he was about to launch into a ranting rage.

Previously:

Jedi Mastering Racial Profiling

rpereira — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:48:55 -0500

As someone who has been a target of racial profiling several times, and was even arrested in front of my home and held in jail over the weekend for fitting the description of a burglar, I'm paying close attention to the White House hops invitational.

People joke that I'm King Anyi Howell, the King of getting pulled over, and they suggest that because I drive a Cadillac, I'm more susceptible to racial profiling. But I can say with confidence that Cadillac designers never said to each other, "Yes! With this year's model we focused on a scientifically advanced design that will get people of color pulled over and searched!"

I've been pulled over in an assortment of vehicles, foreign and domestic, often searched and rarely ticketed. Heck, I've been "pulled over" while on a bike and even on foot, belittling the term DWB -- driving while black. No it's more like LWB, and getting a citation for living while black makes me feel like something less than a real citizen. And I certainly don't feel served or protected. For many black people, police scrutiny is a given, and pretty institutionalized. But so is the "F the police attitude" that many people of color hold about the cops - neither side gives. Once you've been unduly sidelined by police, you lose trust in them as both enforcement and protection - the protection you're paying taxes for. If you're a victim of crime, you don't call the police. If someone breaks into my house right now, I say, damn, what do I do now?

And I've been profiled so often that I've developed almost an art form for asserting my rights, while not offending the officer while doing so. I read recently that black men, when pulled over, have to be some odd combination of Samuel L. Jackson and Sydney Poitier, the former being known for his aggression and the latter for his eloquence. It may sound appalling to some, but that's exactly the tightrope I've learned to walk in dealing with the blue line of racial profiling. Creating a customer care persona, cheerfully providing necessary information to police, while showing interest in their work, even though in reality that is a complete role reversal. I'm the customer.

There’s an unspoken understanding between the offending cop and me when I get pulled over. We both know it's not necessarily because a taillight is out, or my music is playing too loudly. And we both know it will likely end up in some sort of search, and as cops often tell me, it's because my sweater and my skin match those of some dude who committed some crime last week.

I don’t act indignant because I'm the Jedi master - employing mind control to get us both out of the situation as quickly as possible. But once I've turned the corner, then I turn my music back up. Because after all, that’s why I bought it. If our forefathers had cassette decks on their horses, they’d probably want to play their music loud, too. That’s life, liberty and happiness all in one action. That's the whole balancing act. I know how to not lose my cool and how to assert my citizenship at once.

No matter the details of what actually happened on Henry Louis Gates' front porch, there's again an opportunity for national acknowledgment of a divisive problem. It might take the form of increased candor about this issue from both police, and the people of color who are wary of them. It might lead to some policy changes, like a racial profiling task force.

No matter what follows from the beer at the White House this afternoon, I don't doubt racial profiling will remain a sobering issue in my life for some time to come.

WEB EXTRA: Youth Radio is curating other inspiring voices on the issue of racial profiling. Here is comedian Dave Chappelle in San Francisco: (download mp3)

Previously on Youth Radio: