We're straying slightly from the question here, but I think one has to be careful about how widely we generalize from sources like Douglass's autobiography, the first part of which was after all conceived as an anti-slavery statement.  It is also entirely possible to place Christmas drinking in a long tradition that would reach into English traditions (here we're touching on the debate especially in the 1980s in English social history on the tension between "popular expression" and "social control". It certainly stretches forward into other highly racialized contexts like southern Africa.  There in the 19th and 20th century there was an on-going tension between those (typically employers) who saw drinking on weekends and holidays as an opportunity to workers to relax, take a break, etc. (possibly be further tied to the employer through debt) and those (typically officials, some missionaries, white settlers) who saw drinking as dangerously volatile--as places where the rituals of obeiscance might be overturned, as the source of dangerous sexuality and criminality and where mob action might be fomented. 

Regarding the whiteness question, an earlier posting mentioned Jon Crush and my book, Liquor and Labor in Southern Africa, and the introductory essay which does consider the question at least indirectly.  As do a couple of essays on Zimbabwe by Michael West (and my individual chapter in Liquor and Labor.  Where it really surfaces is in the long effort to reserve certain kinds of drinks as exclusively "white".  In Africa as a whole this meant all spirits with a long effort made to argue that these were unsuitable for African consumption.  But in british east, central and southern Africa, Africans were forbidden to consume "European" type beer and wine.  This had less to do, I would argue, with Africans being forbidden these products (which were no stronger than the "traditional" drinks they were permitted) and everything to do with defining them as "white" and reserving them for white consumption.  The fights about relaxing these bans in the 1940s and 1950s--1960s in South Africa are quite illustrative of this.  

Chuck Ambler
Univ. of Texas at El Paso

-----Original Message-----
From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society on behalf of Padma Manian
Sent: Wed 5/31/2006 2:28 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: liquor as white privilege
 
Frederick Douglass in his autobiography noted that slaves were given a week's holiday from the day after Christmas until the New Year's Day. During this time, masters induced slaves to drink, in fact, encouraged them to abuse it and frowned upon slaves who preferred to work and earn a little bit of money, and on those who were preferred to be sober. Masters placed bets on which slave could drink more than any other and encouraged rivalry among slaves. Douglass noted that sobriety and useful work were thought to awaken rebelliousness. On the other hand, masters believed that giving slaves a false sense of liberty by indulging them to excessively drink would by the end of the week disgust slaves that they would gladly return to "arms of slavery".

Padma Manian
San Jose City College, San Jose, CA
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: S Powell 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 9:39 AM
  Subject: Re: liquor as white privilege


  For what it is worth, I am of the impression that during the period of American Slavery in the deep south, the slaves were not "permitted" or at least given alcohol because the slave masters worried about their behavior when intoxicated. I seem to remember there were exceptions to this on the plantations but for the most part it was generally desirable to keep alcohol away from them.
  This would certainly lend to a sense of "whiteness" and privilege in Antebellum Southern American White Culture. I cannot speak to the Canadian culture...

  As for sources, I am on the road and do not have access to sources...

  Regards,

  Steve Powell
  Odessa Pictures, Inc.
  View our Demo Reel Online at:
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  Tel: +1.716.316.6710
  On May 28, 2006, at 12:48 PM, Robert Campbell wrote:


    Hello,
    A colleague of mine has asked about secondary literature on liquor as a white privilege, particularly in the Canadian context. My work certainly has assumed that privilege, but it does not discuss how access to alcohol can be part of the process of creating "whiteness." 
    Regards,
    Robert Campbell


    Robert A. Campbell, Ph.D.
    Department of History
    Capilano College
    2055 Purcell Way
    North Vancouver, BC
    Canada V7J 3H5
    604.986.1911 x2477
    FAX 604.990.7838
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