Madame Thursday

Jun. 5, 2012 at 5:30pm with 28 notes

Hey. I know you’re not the person who used the term “drink the kool aid” in the last ask, but I was wondering what your thoughts were on the phrase.

I’m not a fan of it as it makes light of the Jonestown incident - and most accounts relate that the imbibing of cyanide laced drinks there was done under duress and under the direction of armed guards. I find it further problematic that The People’s Temple was a clear cut case of a sociopathic white man trying to gain power by adopting the style of traditionally black churches and then manipulating a following with a large number of PoCs into giving up their property and eventually their lives under false promises of escaping the divisive racism of capitalist America in the 1970s.

It’s a loaded event that has a very sad history, and I’m somewhat rattled that it’s most commonly remembered in a way that frames it as “stupid dogmatic people doing as their told,” placing the blame on the victimized followers and not on Jones himself. I certainly felt a little awkward hearing it used to describe the promotion of a video gaming console.

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I think the reason the phrase is used so much and so flippantly is you have a lot of people who either don’t know where it comes from or they don’t know the whole story. A total of 918 people died. That number includes over 200 children. I just don’t think people realize how major of an event that was. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you just don’t hear about it. I saw a documentary or two about it on tv before, but that’s about it.

When most people hear the name “Jim Jones,” they think about the rapper and not the man who led his followers to Guyana only to control them and ultimately kill them. I would love for people to be more mindful of what they’re actually saying when they throw around the phrase “drink the kool-aid.”

[If you would like to know more about the Jonestown event, you can read about it here. There are some graphic photos at the link.]

THANK YOU! This is something that has really bothered me for a long time and I’ve not been sure how to say it. When I see people using the term, I really want to tell them to think twice about it. Especially since I’ve never seen anyone use it particularly well or accurately. “Following the party line” is not the same as being coerced and tricked into committing suicide and also killing your own children.

I also want to point out that those children who were poisoned were murder victims. They did not choose to be in Jonestown, they did not choose to end their own lives. They were murdered. An infant doesn’t commit suicide, okay? An infant drinks what they are given by the person feeding them.

Just remember that. Remember that some of the people who were given that kool-aid were infants, young children, helpless young people who had no choice and were ultimately poisoned by the adults who should have taken care of them, adults who were abused or mislead and brainwashed themselves.

So remember that when you make light of this, you make light of 200 children who had their lives taken by their parents/caretakers. I don’t know about you, but I think something like that should turn your stomach. I think it should be something awful enough that when you want to describe people buying into an idea you find silly or misguided you don’t use THIS incident.