Black & Mild: A Tutorial, After the CDC
Health Promotion Practice (2022)
Abstract
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that smoking causes ~480,000 U.S. deaths annually. Many of these deaths are ultimately coded within “heart disease” and “cancer” deaths—the United States’ top two causes of death. These deaths represent aggregations of dozens of distinct International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision (ICD-10) codes. COVID-19 has also killed ~480,000 Americans annually. Yet its codes are much more limited/specific—such that COVID-19 might well be the singular leading cause of death in the United States. And yet here we are: 2+ years of pandemic and the CDC not only acting like it can’t do math, but actively clearing paths for continued disease/death. This poem, crafted as counternarrative to the superficially apolitical (re/in)actions of the CDC, enacts the public health critical race praxis principle of “disciplinary self-critique” to suggest that the CDC has indeed aligned itself with neoliberal racial capitalism in an unapologetic endorsement/enactment of necropolitics. It draws from a rich archive of Black music that thematically engages smoking as ritual, resistance, and practice of community, as well as metaphor for/of transcendence and self-love in the face of structural violence and thinly-veiled necropolitical sacrifice at the altar of neoliberal public health—an altar long-built from the blood and bones of the “sick and tired.” Or, if you prefer, the lungs and breath of the “mild.” In the face of all the resources—financial and regulatory—governmental public health uses to keep us from smoking, vaping, and getting high, apparently, it’s the CDC that is high—so high it is no longer able/willing to see the foundations of social justice that anchor our field. To view the original version of this poem, see the supplemental material section of this article online.
Excerpt
Step 5: enjoy responsibly
[Alexa, play "Come Smoke My Herb" by Meshell Ndegeocello]
There must be 100 new laws to prevent us
from voting, but please, approve another
$100 million to test interventions to prevent
us from smoking. Publish the findings with
titles like, "Black and mildly encouraged:
cessation associated with reduced covid symptoms
among adults with 9 fingers ages 43 to 61
in an urban community with 2 bodegas,
6 highway interchanges, 5 trees, 0 pharmacies
and a 1BR (theoretically) available for $3200"
Tell us shit we already know, but do it like
every adult with 10 fingers has a PhD.
Say shit like "marginally significant" with
a straight face. Use asterisks and 8pt font.
Tell us "more research is needed" because
your university needs more F&A and you
need something to tweet about. Don't tell us
your race – we know mild, remember?
Since Fannie at least.
Step 6: dispose of properly
[Alexa, play "Ascension" by Maxwell]
“and if you don’t know then I’ll say it
so don’t ever wonder...
you literally don’t want this smoke”
Listen to a reading of “Black & Mild” on the Health Promotion Practice Podcast, hosted by Arden Castle.
