This website has a better antecedent, which is blackpeopleloveus.com; it more directly confronts our/my lameness in race relations.

However, the website author's range of options was limited by Jeff Foxworthy's previous foray into stuff white people like, but only if they were rednecks. That explains the 20something hipster focus on rugby(!).

As for whether the site is uplifting... well, no, but c'est la internet.

Stuff White People like is such a brilliant idea because it appeals to people on different sides of the political spectrum in totally different ways; it's basically a conservative site even though it nominally pokes fun of white people. And when it's on (the writing can be pretty uneven) it mocks white hipster liberal cliches in a way that's actually funny, unlike most conservative attempts at that kind of humor.

I wasn't a big fan of Black People Love Us; the authors were less tongue-in-cheek and more "I'm so much more aware and sophisticated than those OTHER white people."

I really don't care for 'stuff white people like' because, as a white person who grew up in some of the whitest small towns in the Midwest, it has nothing to do with the culture I come from at all--it's really more like "stuff yuppies of a variety of colors, but especially white ones" like. If I were going to make a "stuff white people like" blog based on the the culture i come from, it would feature hilarious riffs on such things as: Casseroles (hot dishes for you Minnesotans), jello salad, RVs, high school athletics (especially girls' softball), community theater, pageants (both Christmas and beauty), and owning a boat.

I thought Stuff White People Like was funny for a while, but the last few entries have been pretty weak. I get the feeling that the kid who writes it is a privileged little shit and assumes all white people have trust funds and drive a Prius.

His last entry on health care was awful, mostly because I think it's a serious issue that shouldn't be highlighted with this flippant, dismissive tone. And also, reading the comments there makes me want to die.

I think one of the reasons its so popular is that people like to read about themselves.

Samhita,this is a great critique... sums up the conversations my friends and " have been having quite eloquently. if you want an amusing parody, check out http://www.stuffnobodylikes.com/

I hadn't heard of this website, but I only got as far as reading the entry on "free healthcare," before realizing that this isn't just a conservative site--it's a particularly insidious form of conservatism that tries to cast policies based on caring for one's fellow human beings as misguided trends soon to be deserted by the very fools who now support them. After reading Paul Krugman's not surprising but still powerful piece on healthcare in the NYT, I wanted to throw up reading this. It may be mocking cliches, but it's pretty cliche itself: we've heard all this before from every stand-up comedian since the 70s. And like the lesser of those comedians, this seems less about pointing out that white culture is a culture than assuming that pretty much everything that hasn't been coded as belonging to another culture (by, say, an association with poverty) is white culture.

I'm not a fan of SWPL, for a couple reasons. First, as other commenters have said, it's really stuff that hipsters like - so as a (white) middle-class East Coast liberal, yeah it relates to me, but it would relate to most people in my socio-economic class regardless of ethnicity. Second, I agree that the implicit message is, white people are totally lame, let's mock them for all their crazy liberal elitist ideals; but people of color know what's cool, yo. Am I supposed to feel bad about myself because I genuinely like this stuff?

This isn't doing anything constructive for racial relations, because it's just perpetuating a myth that "white culture" is lame and elitist. Even the stuff that talks about race (like how white people like Mos Def) doesn't actually prompt genuine conversations about WHY we embrace him and not other black musicians/actors.

You know, a lot of my friend like that site, but the most it's ever gotten out of me is a weak half-smile. I agree completely with sara because the majority of the shit in that blog has nothing to do my experience as a white person...and I'm pretty white. That is effin' ridic that the author scored a book deal out of this because I don't find it any more enlightening than a black comedian on stage talking about how much black people love fried chicken. I think we are all aware of stereotypes by now but our dialogue about race needs to move beyond that.

Something doesn't always have to open up a dialog. Sometimes it can just be funny. You and too many people are looking too deeply into a blog that talks about middle-class, white culture.

I'm disappointed to hear that it is a white man doing the writing - I sort of assumed that the point was "How do we like it when we stereotype you, even if it is done sort of gently." I thought it was meant to give us both the uncomfortable feeling of - 'hey, that's not true!' when the assumptions didn't fit, and the more uncomfortable feeling of 'yes, I AM that stereotype' when they did. I thought it was revenge for the 'good at dancing and sports' racism.

Now that I know it's a white guy, I don't understand if it is written by a self-mocking liberal, or by a conservative who just knows us East Coast Hipster Yuppies really, really well.

Let's keep in mind before deconstructing the site too far that it's a joke. It's satire. And the best kind of satire makes the satirist the butt of the joke along with everyone else, so I don't think he's a trust fund baby. That's kind of missing the point of the site. To me, that site points at the pretension of a lot of us white folks who fancy ourselves cultured and worldly--we think we're deeply immersed in these cultures, but really we're just tourists in them. I can eat all the sushi I want, but it's never going to make me Japanese or make me truly understand Japanese culture. Yet saying I like sushi gets me entry into a certain well-dressed, teeth-whitened segment of society. And at the end of the day, it has nothing whatever to do with sushi. I think that's what the site is poking fun of.

As for the race issue, I think it speaks to a kind of genericised American culture that may have something to do with the whole "melting pot" metaphor. I don't know, all the wonderful cultures that blended together to form the country in its early days have now bled together so much that we feel kind of beige. So we go to sometimes ridiculous extremes to feel "unique." Except that we're all doing it, and we're all reaching out for the same things, so our beigeness is even more obvious. That's my reading of the site, anyway.

I just got around to looking through Stuff White People Like. I'll admit, I was really hesitant. I'm white; I did not grow up middle class -- not even close -- so most of that stuff doesn't relate to me. (Except maybe the free healthcare, as one of the many people in this country who doesn't have any.)

I'm definitely a fan of SWPL, and I'm glad you are too, Samhita. That said, sure, he got a $300,000 book deal, but not because he's a white man. He got a book deal because the site is popular and is the kind of material that the site's demographic would love to have on their coffee table to discuss over cocktails at a dinner party. I know I would love to have it sitting around if I were trying to impress a white person.

Also, doesn't Dave Chappelle get paid to make fun of white people? He makes fun of everybody, but he still gets paid to do it!

all i know is that i am white most of the time.

Wow, I need to tell a bunch of my friends that this guy got a book deal for that crap; my friends and I all joke about stuff like this but we're a lot funnier and a lot more diverse as whites as well.

Which I guess is my huge problem with that website, the same as everyone else has said: it only talks about a very specific socioeconomic group. It also acts like white people don't have ties to their ancestry (compared to people of color, who are automatically assumed to) but I have very strong ties to some of my ancestry.

All in all, I would agree that there is some small redeeming quality in that it did make me feel (for about 2 seconds) what it is like to be so stereotyped based on skin color, but I think there are probably far more effective ways to accomplish the same end.

The Simpsons did it first!

Black Comedian: Yo, check this out... black guys drive a car like this [leans back, as though his elbow were on the windowsill] Do, do, Do-be-do, do-be-do-be-do. Yeah, but white guys, see, they drive a car like this [hunches forward, talks nasally] Dee-da-dee, a-dee-da-dee da-dee-da-dee [audience howls with laughter].

Homer: Ah ha ha, it's true, it's true! We're so lame!

Just maybe unfeminist? Well, there's no equivocating for me when the site's got goodies like this one on the post on Asian women:

Please note that this is one area where white women are exempt from, but they should be exempt from other things such as voting and participation in Division 1 sports.

Awesome.

I haven't read any further into the site than that page and don't think I care to. Shit isn't funny.

There is a great article that was recently written for Time magazine on this blog. It's called "Liking What White People Like" and is all about people of color and mixed race finding themselves liking a lot of the topics posted on the blog and wondering if it's really all about what "white people like" or if it's a reflection of classism in the United States, as well as the idea of people admitting to "white culture". You can find it at the link i've added.

What sealed the deal for me was when I heard the author got a $300,000 dollar book deal. That is fucking crazy. If he had been a person of color he would have never gotten so much attention or such a hefty book deal. People would have said, omg, that is racist! They wouldn't have given it so much cred.

I don't know about that. Dave Chapelle kind of made fun of white people. I think good humor is just good humor, and people can recognize it when they see it.

Granted, I really didn't find Stuff White People Like as very funny. Slightly interesting at times, but not very funny.

i hear people's arguments re: SWPL representing a fairly middle class 'bougie' take on whiteness, but on one level, that's what i find pleasing about it... i guess i feel like satirizing whiteness often comes down to redneck or white trash comments, where people rely on easy jokes about poverty and ruralness. i know it might be kind of flippant to say, but on one level, i'm pleased to see the author taking the piss out of certain ethics (making vague claims of celebrating diversity) or objects/environments (whole foods, or the sunday new york times), rather than casseroles and trailer parks.

it's not that the humour here is much different than jokes that focus on whiteness and poverty, it's just less expected.

If he had been a person of color he would have never gotten so much attention or such a hefty book deal. People would have said, omg, that is racist
Like others, I immediately thought of Dave Chappelle, but not because he makes fun of white people. That's not analogous. It's because he makes fun of black people. It's taking a swipe at your own, and both the author of SWPL and Chapelle got paid a lot of money to do it.

I take that back. The bit about gifted children was HILARIOUS.

Also, I feel like a lot of the rich eccentric POC I know act like this too.

I think it's way more of a class issue than a color thing.

Like...

Stuff Rich Bohemian People Like

In addition, every issue of the Onion is about 5-6 lampoonings of white people and their likes/foibles. And they don't have 596843 comments per article.

"Stuff White People Like" is the fart joke of socio/ethnic satire.

Your post Samhita, is borderline racist and sexist.

Yes, a white male got a book deal. Heavens forfend! Yes, you think it's good that white people are made uncomfortable by the site.

So, if it had been a woman (as some commenters) thought, would that have been okay?

If it had been a woman of color, would that have been okay?

If the white male didn't get 300,000 for his time, but only got say, 100,000 would that have been okay?

Are sites that make people of color uncomfortable for their assumptions okay?

It's weird how the SWPL blog keeps me oscillating so much, but I think this article sums it up rather well...

http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=49eb53ed-afbc-4aae-bf17-6ffc44f40a48

Now that I've thought about it a little bit more, I actually see more parallels between the stuff that Stuff White People Like talks about and stereotypes of people of color. The economic class aspect is actually very similar, in that respect.

Most white people seem to assume that all black and Mexican people are poor. It reminds me of a story that a girl in one of my classes told about her mom being questioned extensively by her neighbors on whether or not she - a black single mother - could really afford the house when she moved into a middle class (white) neighborhood. And I think race actually overrides class in situations like that, that no matter how middle class a family of color looks, it will be assumed that they are poor until they adequately prove otherwise.

Oh, and J Pierpont Flathead, you have totally missed the point. Women, and especially women of color, don't get special privileges because of those traits like men and men of color do. If women/women of color could use these simple identity traits to be treated better than non-women/non-women of color, then yes, it would be okay to make them uncomfortable for their assumptions. But most women/women of color can't, so what you are positing as parallel situations are in fact radically different.

It's "Stuff White People Like". Except that it's not, it's "Stuff Upper-Middle-Class White People Like". It's a great skewering of the still-mostly-white comfortable English major set.

The site's contribution is to point and laugh at people who think that

having gifted kids,
listening to obscure mp3's,
recycling,
having a book deal,
etc.,

sets them out from and above the common mass of humanity.

The underlying joke, in my view, is that in America there are certain traits that you can adopt to fit in with the "in" group of liberals, as long as you resemble white heteronormativity at first glance. Pity for those of us who aren't well read white heteronormy dinner party fans, though.

It also makes the assumption that not liking this stuff means you are not white. As a first generation American, I realize many "white folks" really do not consider me "white" the same way they are. Too many, Italians, Slav's, etc. are NOT really "white". It has been in the last 60 or so years that the Irish became "white". Many European Jews are still "non-white".

Therre are "castes" within "white society" -- as a result, I visited that site, found it very divisive, disgusting, and an attempt to make the differences in our society even more noticeable.

Not that long ago, Pizza was an exotic Italian dish. As our society has embraced more diversity, as we see more and more "mixed race" persons become successful in their fields (Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter, Mariah Carey, Barack Obama, etc., etc., etc.) we see attempts to define "White Culture" -- a culture that changes with each new influx of immigrants.

"Satire" sites like this have no positive value.

http://www.theroot.com/id/45371

Tina: Look, I think I'm helping by sparing other races and cultures from Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

If a person of color authored this site, it probably would be racist. Just like any white person telling pretty much any Dave Chappelle joke would be racist. He makes fun of black folk, and himself, out of a sense of love and respect. A white person telling a joke about black babies wandering around the ghetto at 3 am cannot be done out of love and respect and is therefore racist.

"Flathead", another person standing up for the poor white male -- the folks who are still the ruling class in our great nation.

It's a shame so many white guys are so dumb they don't get it.

I suspect too many white guys have bought into the propaganda and believe themselves to be discriminated against.

You are members of the ruling class -- and don't know it.

Perhaps it's more accurate to say SOME white guys ARE the ruling class.

For the rest of you, the enemy is not women , black and brown folks, Asians -- but the other white guys who threw you under the bus.

You have your "brothers" to thank for your current state. You buy into the concept of "the elite", destroy those pesky unions, then discover you are not of "the elite", and no longer have the protection those nasty unions afforded.

As a result, you blame those you are now competing against for a portion of the pie our leaders say is enough for you.

Perhaps it is all about fear of the future. Maybe the "most discriminated person in this United States" -- the downtrodden white guy -- is frightened by both the numbers, and success of brown and black folks.

Guess what, white guys are going to be a minority -- deal with it.

"The site's contribution is to point and laugh at people who think that

having gifted kids,
listening to obscure mp3's,
recycling,
having a book deal,
etc.,

sets them out from and above the common mass of humanity."

I'm sure if you had a book deal, you would think yourself "above the common mass of society". Given the total lack of awareness by so many folks -- I'd bet you ALREADY think yourself "above the common etc., etc., etc."

By the way, do you think we should reward stupidity, or strive to better ourselves and everyone else?

It's that "everyone else" that we've lost in our lives of extreme "individualism". Unless we bring all society along -- many of your individual gains will be fleeting.

cheekykitten, i agree with you and to me the site's real value, other than being funny, is that it exposes the hollowness of bourgeois culture--that sushi signifies some kind of deep, cultural enlightenment. it's absurd.

i'm not going to lie, i think a lot of that site is pretty funny, but a majority of the entries really fall under "stuff yuppies like" or "stuff hipsters like" (or sometimes both), regardless of race.

the entry on recycling and his whole recurring theme that we like to help the planet by not actually doing much of anything is golden.

waxghost, exactly. Not only are many POC assumed to fit stereotypes about their culture until they prove otherwise, the ones who don't fit the stereotypical mold are then defined as... not of that race. I find that happens to me a lot. People say things like, "Oh, I don't even remember that you're brown most of the time." Yeah, well... I still am brown. Should I wear traditional clothes and speak another language so it's easier to 'other' me?

In much the same way, all white people are getting painted with the same brush by the website, and I think it's pretty obvious how much people hate it. It's really the same principle, and it's ok. We all know it doesn't *actually* apply to all white people. Some of us POC also grew up in the Midwest , or its Canadian equivalent.

I am all about poking fun at the dominant culture, but if you are a person of color that is reading this blog and you can relate to a lot of the stuff white people like, does that make you white?

Samhita, I don't think so. Did you read the entry about tea? It was amusing enough, but I completely discounted it because tea was an East Indian thing LONG before the British took it back to the UK, and there's nothing upper-class about it on the subcontinent.

Lastly, the guy is from Toronto. I think that explains some of the clueless conservatism. I can't really explain why right now, because my brain is tired and I could be wrong. Hopefully someone smarter will read the thread and understand what I mean.

I was with you until you said people of color are never rewarded for making fun of white people. Basically every rich black comedian does this. What Dave Chappelle and SWPL have in common is that they use humor to air issues of race. If a person of color had a serious blog trashing white people and "culture", well then yes, they are going to get called racist. Of course there are obvious issues with that (a person of color can only make a complaint by dressing it as white-approved entertainment?) but it's all about the delivery for both races.

What SWPL really points out is how race and class are conflated, bc clearly it is only describing upper/middle class American whites that lean to the left. It is supposed to be written about the generic 'white life' that nonwhites imagine all white people having -- shopping at Target all day and have dinner parties every night. But those who identify as "white trash" or conservative or super-religious or anarchist or ditsy or drugged out and criminal are just as white.

It might be written by a white man, but the humor (and the accompanying discomfort) is in hearing the imagined voice of the 'Other' narrating everything absurd, shallow, and predictable about the group that usually controls the narration. That, I think, is its value, and if it didn't make some people defensive it wouldn't be as funny or useful.

I had the exact same response when I first encountered SWPL - LMAO ("OMG! I *do* have a fridge full of aluminum water bottles! So embarrassing!"), but also a nagging 'this isn't right' feeling.

The bottom line is that the site isn't about race - it's about class. And mislabeling class issues as race issues is the root of many cultural AND economic problems in this country (and others). So reinforcing that destructive practice in a popular blog whose audience is primary affluent seems like a bad idea. Moreover, just because a wealthy east coast yuppie thinks it's funny to be racially profiled (so novel! So accurate!), doesn't make racial profiling okay generally. Reifying these kinds of stereotypes, even in the name of humor, ultimately serves no one very well.

All that said. I live in Brooklyn, and my landlords, who live in the building, are (fairly wealthy) African Americans who are very invested in racial issues. I was having a conversation with one of them via email about Vanity Fair's recent racist cover (http://home.comcast.net/~krkaufman/du/lebron_as_brute2.jpg), and I joked that at least white people can be racially profiled too, and linked to SWPL. Her response? "I've seen that! Have you seen this? http://stuffebplike.com/"

I thought the existence of "Stuff Educated Black People Like" really illuminated the fact that ultimately, these websites and their popularity, isn't about race, but economics.

I really enjoyed reading this post and the ensuing discussion. I think the site is funny, though I agree with the person who called it wildly uneven and I also agree with Samhita that it serves to make visible the assumed invisibility of white culture. One thing I don’t get is the criticisms about the site applying or not applying to everyone. The site is relatively light hearted satire, and even if it wasn’t, I can’t see how it (or anything) would apply to every white person who existed ever. Some people seem to treat the site as though it were a “How white are you?” quiz like you would see in a magazine, and I don’t think that’s the point. I’m black, I like a lot of things on there, and I haven’t suffered some existential crisis (yet ). Even if the site were stuffbougie20-somethingliberalurbandwellingpeoplelike.com, I’m sure someone, somewhere would object. A lot of people mentioned Dave Chapelle, and I like that comparison. There was this amazing game show skit called “I know black people!” where the contestants are quizzed on things typically associated with black culture. Very little of it applied to me personally, but I thought it was hilarious, because I could see some of (if only a little) of myself in it, and because, like the site, I don’t think it crossed the line into offensive stereotyping. Of course, that raises the question of what “the line” actually is, but I’ve rambled on for long enough…

Have the genuis of the site is that it takes the characteristic of a particular subset of white people, and extrapolates them onto the whole of white culture.

This is exactly what minorities face every day. Just ask a middle class black professional who listens to country or someone like myself, an asian writer and activist.

Obviously it's about liberal hipsters, that's part of the fun. There are too many jokes about hillbillies and rednecks anyways. I think this post is quite a stretch; as a minority I find this one of the most refreshing and hilarious takes on white privilege out there.

tinagrrl, don't visit casinos ("I'd bet you ALREADY think yourself..."). Please don't put words in my mouth. I thought it was obvious from my post that I'm not living the SWPL kind of privileged life.

By the way, do you think we should ask rhetorical non sequitur questions of other feministing commenters? (/ultrasnark)

On other topics...

What prairielily possibly means in part about Toronto is that this town is advertised as a multicultural paradise. Still, remember that Bay Street and Rosedale and the Bridle Path have the reputation of being white, whereas the poor and economically segregated neighbourhoods have the reputation of being black.

Don't forget the "ghetto dude" mess, too (links bookend the matter).

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/238413
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/238744

Lots of Toronto could be on SWPL, but Toronto is increasingly more brown than white. As that process occurs, the white face of privilege becomes ever more noticeable. In this town it's the SWPL cultural elite hipster white too. Very amusing in a sort of "oh no wait oh god he didn't walk away from the crash now I'm ashamed of laughing" manner. Funny until you think about it.

I am surprised by how quickly SWPL spread through the internet and I wonder what kinds of connections the guy, Christian, who runs it has. I was sent an email about it from my white liberal yuppie friend who just got her masters in advertising. She said "I instantly knew you'd love this!"

I definitely laughed at how accurate it is, and I can relate to being the minority from a lower class and trying to fit in with the white kids and having to know all this shit about music, etc, but I was really suspicious of it, white people liked it too much and they weren't threatened by it. So I checked out the guy's Flickr and was weirded out to see pictures of all these white people eating noodles and sushi with black glasses and ironic thrift t shirts. There was also a HELL of a lot of food photography and pictures of cupcakes.

So I emailed him, suggesting that he add Cupcakes to the list of things white people like (which they do). Sadly, he never responded.

So I emailed him, suggesting that he add Cupcakes to the list of things white people like (which they do).

My wife has been pestering me for weeks about getting this "vegan cupcake" cookbook. I married a hipster, and I love her dearly.

"Whiteness" isn't the correct proxy here, obviously. This isn't stuff white people like. It's stuff that hipsters like. And hipsters just happen to be really white, on average. I know we've all been trained to sneer at averages, but there just aren't a lot of black people at Rilo Kiley shows.

I went to a Ben Gibbard concert in downtown Detroit a few years back. There wasn't a single black person in the entire crowd. He gave a shout out for "Anybody here actually from Detroit?" and not one person clapped or cheered.

This isn't stuff white people like. It's stuff that hipsters like. And hipsters just happen to be really white, on average.

I think this is the point -- that all white people are being described and judged based on one stereotype, much like black people are judged based on one stereotype (say, hip hop culture).

Oh, God, the cupcake craze. I don't live anywhere it's hit and I'm still sick of it.

To me, that site points at the pretension of a lot of us white folks who fancy ourselves cultured and worldly--we think we're deeply immersed in these cultures, but really we're just tourists in them. I can eat all the sushi I want, but it's never going to make me Japanese or make me truly understand Japanese culture. Yet saying I like sushi gets me entry into a certain well-dressed, teeth-whitened segment of society. And at the end of the day, it has nothing whatever to do with sushi. I think that's what the site is poking fun of.

I think that's what I enjoy about it-- it's some of my worst tendencies on display.

Sara, we should team up! You can do the Jello salads post, I'll do something about thank-you notes.

I like SWPL. It's pretty funny, however, I never thought of it as conservative. To me, he is mocking conservative lines...also, despite being AA, I identify with alot of that list, but it's still funny. Definitely more class oriented than white.

ahaha cupcakes is a good addition. also, in LA at least, asian yogurt (e.g., pinkberry).

I don't really get the hype. The "stuff" he speaks about is usually younger generation liberal hipster stuff that anyone could like which he conflates with whiteness. On some posts I feel he is trying to get a message about--I believe there's one like "knowing more about your culture than you" but other than that it doesn't feel like there's much if any commentary about whiteness itself or race in general. I'm just not sure what it is that he's offering that's so new and innovative and I'm curious as to what could possibly be offered in a Stuff White People like book.

But why are hipsters mostly white?

(Sometimes it's the obvious questions, hah.)

"The bottom line is that the site isn't about race - it's about class."

Except that it isn't quite about class either. It's a site about a particular affluent market niche or subcultural affinity that is heavily skewed white. To say "it's about class" misses the nuances of how class is expressed and perceived differently based on race.

For example: wine is an middle-class to affluent white folks thing. Middle-class to affluent black people just upgrade our liquor (from Georgi to Belevedere or Crown to Hennessy).

As an avid black wino, let me say, I am at odds with most black folks at the bar. (And Lawd, if a dude thinks he's showing me something by taking me to a wine bar...Sorry...Bad date flashback.)

That said, I think SWPL is insightful about the ways in which we try to show how cool, different, and adventurous we are while being none of the above.

SWPL isn't necessarily transformative. But that's what the meta discussion is for ;-).

SWPL was just bought by Target! And I quote "The brand new product line promises to deliver top quality organic vegetables, fruit, meat, organic cereal, chocolate, bread, and pasta to every Target store throughout the United States.

“We feel as though our customers would be better served if we offered a full organic grocery option in all of our locations,” says Blentic. “We can’t think of a better way to promote than through this amazing viral blog. We are also hoping to add user generated content where people can send stories, videos, and art about how they use Target organic foods in their daily lives.”"

Excuse me while I vomit up my vegan cupcake.

Fuck. Nevermind. April Fool's joke. *sigh*

"Most white people seem to assume that all black and Mexican people are poor."

Are you kidding? That's one of the most ignorant generalizations I've seen in quite a while.

One thing that surprised me was the number of commentators on the SWPL blog that were getting pissed and calling the blog racist against white people. They apparently have no idea about that little thing called white privilege (or maybe that doesn't surprise me on second thought). Thing is, there's no such thing as "reverse racism" because racism also involves institutional and economic power (whites are hardly oppressed economically/institutionally).
So, to respond to Peirpont Flathead's comment, a blog making fun of people of color would be racist, a blog making fun of white people would not. Anyway, I just found it interesting that some people were getting so angry about the blog, yet these same people probably never took a single second to examine the effects of their own white privilege. While the blog is hardly the most intelligent piece on race, I don't think it's at all racist.

Though I agree with others here that the blog seems to be more about "hipsters" than white people in general.

the reaction: "How Dare you generalize all white people based on one small, highly visible group of people that is only mostly white anyway!"

Did you stop after your initial reaction to *examine* your reaction and say "hey, wow, this feels like shit. maybe this is how people feel when they are discriminated against based on race"?

I'm sure none of the enlightened people here would ever discriminate based on race, but hey, maybe now you'll be a better ally. Cuz some people DO think that when they look at you and your starbucks/Fido/takeout sushi/shorts/whatever. Just like some people think stereotypical things when looking at black people or east asians or latinos.

I'm easily guilty of:
5, 6, 9, 13, 15, 18, 19, 23, 24, 35, 40, 42, 48, 51, 58, 72, 75, 82, 88, 89, 90, and 93.

Wow. All I can say is wow. Sorry, but it has never taken being uncomfortable for me to have decent dialogue wth people of other races on the subject of race. But this:

"And I see how uncomfortable it makes white people, which I also think is good."

is complete tripe. The only thing that has ever made me uncomfortable around my friends of other races is this kind of thinking, which makes me wonder if they all don't just secretly despise me and devalue me because I'm white.

I read this site everyday, but I am done. Just absolutely done. But pat yourself on the back, because you scared Whitey away!

QuinacridoneRose: If you've never felt uncomfortable in your thoughts/conversations around race, that is unfortunate.

Honest introspection and self-examination is essential for all of us around these issues, especially when we're on the privileged side of the equation. If that self-examination is never uncomfortable, then we're not doing it right.

"I read this site everyday, but I am done. Just absolutely done. But pat yourself on the back, because you scared Whitey away!"

Gee, this is all it takes to scare folks away? Damn. We do have a disconnect in this country.

"I read this site everyday, but I am done. Just absolutely done. But pat yourself on the back, because you scared Whitey away!"

It's not like anybody called you cracker or chanted "Kill Whitey"

QuinacridoneRose: "I read this site everyday, but I am done. Just absolutely done. But pat yourself on the back, because you scared Whitey away!"

You need to be able to look at and understand your own privilege in order to have a dialog on race. Like jsmooth, said, this is uncomfortable and not always easy to admit, but it must be done. The fact that one group of people have an unequal amount of privilege is part of the problem. No one is saying that you are a racist or an oppressor or anything, but understanding where you fit into the power structure that allows for oppression to occur is necessary in order to change it.

I suspect too many white guys have bought into the propaganda and believe themselves to be discriminated against.

Well, justifying oppression by recasting the target of the oppression as the agent of oppression isn't an old standard for nothing. The Declaration of Independence contains a lament that the colonial aristocrats who wrote it were being oppressed by the "Indian savages". Hitler managed to get the population to acquiesce in the oppression and attempted extermination