NOT "Like Crack"

Apparantly I have the kind of face that gives people permission to 1) ALWAYS ask me for directions, even if there are 100 other people on the street, they will undoubtedly ask me, and 2) tell me ANYTHING.  I don't know why strangers think I'm trustworthy, but it seems that I have that aura.  Just this week a random stranger showed me a bag of heroine and his change and told me where he had just bought dope because I "look like a state worker and probably want to know." 

Maybe it was this odd little moment that brought me back to my days in drug treatment court as a public defender that spurred this train of thought.

And maybe its because it is the holidays and everyone is pinning and posting, wanting you to know that THEIR family recipe is THE BEST in the whole world.  So good, that it is practically addicting.

Uh oh, rant time.

While food addiction is certainly real (and not so great, ergo, not something you should use to boost the street cred' of your recipe...) I can guarantee you that your brownies, your dip, or your homemade bread is NOT, in fact, like crack.  No, not at all. 

That makes each of these descriptions heinous lies:

And, below, the chef proclaims to the world that they "like crack," sure ya do, hun...

Why you would name a treat intended for humans after a commercially produced dog food is beyond me.

And my personal favorite:

 I can think of no description less appetizing.  No, not one.  It is unfathomable that this "white trash/ crack dip on crack" has so many re-pins.  My faith in humanity is dwindling.


The white, middle class women who undoubtedly made these asinine comments about their recipes have literally no idea what they're talking about.  They honestly can't.  If they had even a tiny little scintilla of an idea of what crack actually is, then there is no way they would make these ridiculous comparisons.

And I almost get it, pop culture downplays crack and even makes it funny sometimes.

After all, if you can be a mayor of a major North American city like Toronto and use crack without any real ramifications, then its not that big of a deal, right?

(Although let's be honest-- do you really want to be like that^ guy?)


After knowing more than a few crack addicts in Philadelphia, I could not help but find depressing humor in the wildly inappropriate episode of Always Sunny in Philadelphia where Dee and Dennis get laid off, lie about using crack to get welfare, only to realize they must take a drug test to qualify, and in their efforts to purposefully fail the drug test, become addicted to crack.

Like I said, wildly inappropriate.  Yet a humorous view of a very serious issue.  (Also, I'm pretty sure that corner^ is right by my old apartment.)

So what is crack?  It isn't sugar or brownies or gooey cheese.  It is COCAINE.  Cocaine that is diluted usually with baking soda and water, and cooked into a hard substance that "cracks" into chunks that can be vaporized and smoked.  So it is just a form of cocaine that can be smoked, rather than snorted or injected.  Thus, this makes it more accessible to most "normal" people who don't have syringes lying around, or who can't bear the thought of needles/blood, or are smokers already.  It is also, in my experience in criminal law, cheaper than powdered cocaine and therefore more accessible to "normal" people who don't want to spend top dollar for drugs, or teens and kids who don't have that much money.  All that is to say, crack is the modern, more mainstream version of cocaine. 



Back to our pop culture, we saw ScarFace and his woman incessantly snorting cocaine, with hundred dollar bills flying around all over the place.  As that would suggest, powder cocaine, or "coke" is largely viewed as a rich man's drug, and even a white man's drug.

Alternatively, crack cocaine is in much more prevalent use by low income individuals and also black individuals.

This racial dichotomy with different forms of the same illicit substance is especially interesting when you realize how legislators around the country have systematically criminalized the sale and use of crack cocaine far harsher than that of powdered cocaine.  That is, a (poor/black) man caught with crack will be imprisoned longer than a (rich/white) man caught with the same amount of coke.  All things being equal, it looks suspiciously like insidious racism enacted into so-called public policy.

 

At least pop culture taught you this much: Walter White made crack, not fictitious "crack bread," but actual crack.  And look what happened to him.  He became a murderer and did not have such a great life.  Just sayin...

So how about those brownies?  With all the connotations that come with an illicit drug like crack, which carries racial baggage and quite literally destroys lives, is that really an appropriate descriptor to tack onto your little recipe?  I submit that it is not.  Please select a more appropriate word.


Unless, of course, your recipe does the following, in the which case it may, in fact, be like crack:

Sonogram Exploitation

So we have no kids, that much you know.  And before that changes, I need to make sure I get out my baby curmudgeoness IN WRITING so I can refer to it and make sure I'm not doing something absurd if/when the opportunity presents itself.


Let me present my thesis:  I dislike the current trend of sonogram exploitation.  

That's a bit harsh, but only a bit.  More specifically, I dislike cheesy pregnancy announcements and this social media-driven expectation to do some stupid thing to announce that you are pregnant.

 

Let's be 1950's housewives and not let our husband in the kitchen while we bake an artificially colored pink or blue cake and cover it with $20 worth of buttercream so he can't see the cake's color.  Oh, and make sure you do all the dishes ASAP and don't let him help with the dishes in case he sees pink or blue crumbs.  Now he cuts it open and PINK!  Or BLUE!  YAY!  Wasn't that fun?  Meh...   

You're pregnant in the fall?  Let me guess, you're adding another pumpkin to your patch... (insert one of the million photos of pumpkins including one "baby" pumpkin...)  Yeah, we know, we know.

Or we can pop balloons and whatever and see what secret boy or girl surprise falls out.  Sounds like too much work with one's hands... something of which I'm not a particular fan. 

 
(Sorry to this^ family.  I'm sure you're very nice.  But yes, I do think you are ridiculous.)

Whatever happened to just calling people on the phone and saying, "I'm pregnant."  Is that really so difficult?  Does this exciting moment need to be dressed up with staged photographs with words superimposed by photoshop reading: "BABY ____ COMING THIS SPRING!!!!!!"  (Also, one exclamation point is sufficient, please.)


And husbands.  How do they NOT know the sex of their child when you do?  How sad it is that you got your ultrasound alone?!  Or how dumb of you to ask him to close his eyes during the ultrasound?!  Seriously?  That is his child, too!

This pregnancy/gender reveal thing seems new because of social media coercing us into acting nuts, but I recognize that it has been an artificial thing for quite a while.  I remember once I was stuffed into a leader's car on a young women's activity.  The leader was pregnant and an older young woman asked how she told her husband that she was pregnant.  Although that leader didn't know it at the time, she gave some great marriage advice in answer to that question: "I never needed to tell him, he was with me every step of the way."

Imagine that.  Having a baby together with your spouse.  


And by extension, I believe that since your child is adding to the greater context of you and your spouse's combined families, that you have a baby together with the support of your family, too.  It doesn't need to include big fanfare or a meticulously drawn, cut, and pasted craft.  It is about love.

It has taken me some time to get used to Hub's family always asking about us having kids.  White people much more tight-lipped about it, by comparison.  At first I really REALLY hated everyone asking when we are having kids.  I got angsty and sometimes replied things like, "When I'm no longer radioactive from my radiation."  Or, "When my neuro-oncologist says I can."  Those are true statements, but I admit they were said just to rub in that I had cancer and that people should leave me alone about kids for a while, since I have enough to deal with.

But those truthful statements didn't have to be angsty.  If I was more open with my in-laws about the ongoing effects of my radiation, they could support me and they would probably hold off on the kids questions.  Being open about what is going on in your lives-- including infertility-- can often turn what feels like bitter, condemning questioners, into allies and supporters.


Similarly, Hubs has NO FILTER when it comes to what I view as personal information.  People I have never met and probably never will meet know all about my medical history and my subsequent mental health trauma-- things I would never talk about!  Hubs famously got up in church and told everyone, "Yeah, I think we will start trying to have kids on X day..."  I almost DIED!  I have always kept myself to myself.  I have no problem expressing things that I want to express, there is just a lot that I DON'T want to express, and so I don't.  He is not like that.

This trait used to make me CRAZY.  But then I saw, time after time, when he spilled what I considered too much information, that people reached out in support of whatever issue I was trying to keep private.  People in his family whom I don't even know are always calling him up on that phone and checking up on me with specificity and offering their prayers and concern.  (And asking when we're having kids...)


And that is what families and childbearing is all about-- genuine love and support.  You can keep your cheesy pink and blue craft store junk, and you can keep your baby pumpkins.  I have a family who cares.