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The Corner Liquor Store: Rethinking Toxicity in the Black Metropolis

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Abstract

Liquor stores have been repeatedly shown to be disproportionately prevalent in Black neighborhoods and therefore constitute a disproportionate health risk. This paper examines the ways in which liquor stores jeopardize Black lives through social and material conditions that are broader than health risk. Embodying and perpetuating dysfunctional markets, liquor stores relegate Black consumers to an overabundance of inexpensive and potent alcoholic beverages sold from heavily securitized storefronts and provoke conflicted and oppositional relationships. Liquor stores exist in a state of antibiosis with Black communities, an antagonistic relationship in which liquor stores gain but communities are adversely affected.

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Acknowledgements

The research and writing of this manuscript was supported in part by: a Senior Fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History; a Fellowship at the Black Metropolis Research Consortium, University of Chicago; and a fellowship from EURIAS at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IMéRA), Marseille, France, Co-funded by Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, under the 7th Framework Programme.

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    Naa Oyo A. Kwate

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Kwate, N.O.A. The Corner Liquor Store: Rethinking Toxicity in the Black Metropolis. J Med Humanit 42, 307–323 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-020-09645-3

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