the chemistry of milk and tear gas and silence

June 1, 2020

At the start of COVID-19 - the “silver lining” conversation continually annoyed me. I too had leisure time, and worked on my Spanish, and thought about what I was grateful for every morning, and had some Zoom moments with my family (and then didn’t).

Couldn’t put my finger on it.

However, it remains - the inequity of it all. There were people wiping down COVID ERs, delivering, not having a job before and during, not homeschooling because they were too tired or didn’t have a school community that plugged them in.

I did nothing or said nothing about those inequities.

That burned out Target and Aldi's in South MN, the CVS and Dollar General we keep seeing. The mayor begging not to incinerate because they are essential businesses in that neighborhood in particular. Filled a food desert hole. But making sure people can spend their last dollar there or don & dof a red Target employee shirt isn’t the answer.

Just like the U Corridor in DC, and Fort Greene, St. Louis, Overtown ---- those burned-out buildings will remain burned out until just before it’s an “up and coming neighborhood” and the cool kids buy those blackened holes of property up.

The kids that live there? Those are the 40% of the kids that watch the lifeless body under a boot over and over,who learned the chemistry of milk and tear gas and didn’t log on to school for the last seven weeks. Just like the population with AIDS are in those very communities still (Larry Kramer Rest In Peace), are in those ERs, side by side with the intubated dying members of the same community.

And I will wonder if chipmunks live in my grill, if someone else liked my post on FB or IG, and when the guy is coming to mow the lawn, and how’s my Spanish. My bourgeoisie makes me worry about my meditation and reflection and quiet.

Maybe I’ll say something about the inequities. But if I’m honest, I rely on those inequities as well.

When you are exposed to tear gas, a lot of things start happening at the same time. Your eyes sting, your vision blurs, and the tear ducts go crazy, so you start to cry and blink uncontrollably. It gets worse the longer you’re in the gas and doesn't take very long for you to temporarily lose your vision.

In 2014, protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, washed their faces and eyes with milk.

In 2011, at the Arab Spring demonstrations, Egyptian protesters used Coca-Cola.

Palestinians have relied on onions and vinegar to reverse the effects of tear gas.

The Hong Kong protesters carry around spray bottles with a baking soda and water solution (three teaspoons of powder for every 8.5 ounces of liquid), which they use to neutralize the effects of tear gas particles. This is the best recipe, according to Popular Science writer Sandra Gutierrez.

Once you've been exposed to tear gas, walk (don't run - it will exacerbate any difficulties the CS powder creates for breathing) away from the gas cloud. When you get home or where you are staying, take off all your clothes and your shoes and leave them out of your main living area. As soon as you can, take a shower and hang your clothes in a place that gets air if you can for 48 hours before washing them - otherwise they can contaminate other clothes.

Deidre Cuffee-Gray is a college and career counselor who works to dismantle the connection between race and class and students’ future-planning; she also uses restorative justice practices in schools to build community and resolve problems. She has a BA from St. Lawrence University in economics and African studies, a master’s degree in English literature from Middlebury’s Bread Loaf School of English and a master’s in education from the University of Massachusetts, with a focus on school counseling. An avid runner, rower, and community-builder, Cuffee-Gray lives with her wife in Northampton, MA.

For our statement, please see our Food for Thought “Silence isn’t an option”