The Invisible Whiteness of the Olympic Beer Riot

By Tim Wise, AlterNet. Posted February 25, 2002.

So what's the deal with white folks and beer? I mean, I love a good Nut Brown Ale, and have been known to sample at least a couple of the local brews in each town I visit. But really now, is maintaining a buzz so central to one's existence that being denied the opportunity should result in violence?

Case in point: Salt Lake City, where in the waning hours of the Winter Olympics, white folks who were turned away from a local "beer garden" decided to take out their frustrations on cars, cops and each other.

That the coverage of the Olympic "beer riot" was decidedly different than that for any riot ever led by people of color goes without saying. News reports of the events in the land of Mormon discussed the violence in a whimsical, bemused fashion, on a sort of "gee, don't they have anything better to do" kind of tip -- as opposed to the preachy and scared shitless tone reserved for black and brown folks who act up in such a fashion. And of course the mere labeling of the phenomenon as a "beer riot" in the first place is instructive. With apologies to the National Rifle Association, beer doesn't riot, people riot. Specifically, people who are desperate for beer riot -- white people, to be precise.

Naturally, the racial identity of the Salt Lake rioters passed without mention in the press, and probably without notice by most Americans, in a way it most assuredly would not have -- in fact never does -- when the shoe is on a darker foot. When "they" tear things up and attack police we call them thugs and animals. But when we do it, we're just "hooligans," or perhaps "out of control youth," caught up in the moment. But lest one think otherwise, it should be noted that this latest incident is but another in the never-ending string of riots by my pale-skinned brethren, upset by our inability to procure cheap highs when we want, where we want.

Since the mid-'90s, white riots have occurred on more than twenty college campuses, mostly as the result of crackdowns on underage drinking or earlier closing times for local bars. Whites also have taken to rioting as the result of college football or basketball games. Unlike people of color, who at least choose important issues to raise hell over -- like police brutality, poverty and racism -- we whites lose our minds over the twin oppressions of cover charges and midnight last-calls. And you think blacks have it rough?

Funny thing is, white folks have been rioting over beer for a long time; indeed, this is pathology with a pedigree.

In 1715, two warring political factions in England brawled in the streets, during what became known as the Mug-House Riots, named for the Taverns at which loyalists to the House of Hanover -- the opposition to King James II -- would gather to drink. When the King's minions made the mistake of congregating at the same pub, all hell broke loose.

In Germany, frequent riots occurred between 1844 and 1910, in response to attempts by the brewmeisters to fix prices for their potions. The worst of these occurred in Munich in 1848, and the Bavarian riots of 1844 were so renowned that Freidrich Engels -- Marx's esteemed colleague -- made them the subject of an article he penned as a correspondent for The Northern Star.

In Chicago, the election of reactionary Mayor Levi Boone in 1855 led to the biggest beer riots in the U.S. during that period. Boone was rabidly anti-German and anti-Irish, viewing both as foreign parasites, and drunken ones at that, in the body politic. His decision to raise liquor license fees by 600 percent and to ban drinking on Sundays touched off protests and then all out street-warfare. A similar "Lager Riot" that year took place in Indianapolis.

More recently, there were the Cleveland beer riots of 1974, as well as the multiple campus beer riots at places like Colorado, the University of Oregon, Washington State University, Southern Illinois University, and Penn State among others in the last few years. While people of color have been keeping things relatively calm, with flare-ups only in a few cities like Cincinnati, St. Petersburg, or Los Angeles, whites are rioting somewhere in America every three to four months. But of course no one notices, as we become conveniently color-blind in the face of dysfunctional behavior by members of the dominant group.

Or more to the point, we are quick to downplay its significance or even excuse it. In the wake of riots at Michigan State and Colorado University, neighbors in the riot zone and local police sought to "reach out," to attempt to "understand their frustrations," referring to the students who had just trashed their streets.

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