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 of Jewish people and members of a few other ethnicities by telling "Aryans" that they were being oppressed by worldwide Jewish conspiracy. And our oh-so-precious right wingers today like to tell straight, white, Christian guys that they're being oppressed by women, gays, black people, immigrants, non-Christians, or anyone else they're hoping to further marginalise.

Why is this so popular? Because most white guys are oppressed -- by richer white guys. The oppression is real. The deception comes in when the agent is identified. This way, the oppressed will kick the even more oppressed, a process which serves as an escape valve for aggression that might otherwise be directed at those on top. By telling people that those less privileged than them are their oppressors, the fact of oppression is (deceptively) acknowledged, but without any fear of undermining the existing hierarchy.

I think SWPL is hilarious. I'm canadian, and when I first read it I thought "its about Americans but it sounds Canadian." Sure enough; the author is a former canuck.

That may explain the waspy, liberal pc bias in his definition of "whiteness."

I think its a very well-done piece of satire. I come from an immigrant family so I'm like, dark white, lol, hovering on the border of working class and middle class... and so I can relate to the site's sense of being inside and outside the dominant culture at the same time. For example; I love Wes Anderson movies ($3.99 at video store) but I have never been snowboarding (very expensive).

"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. "

Wow, this comes dangerously close to describing me. (I grew up in a rural, midwestern, impovershed conservative religious community, that is very, very white).

Except, I don't know if I would even say "middle-class" whites, I feel like with the talk of private schools and all the site describes upper-middle class liberal whites on the east coast and the west coast, better than it describes most true "middle-class" whites.

The real reason I haven't liked the site from what I read so far though, is the sexism. Like when he's talking about the Asian fetishes some guys have -well, I totally get that the fetishism of Asian females by white males is real, but the language this guy uses is just very nasty to a lot of different women (especially white women). I don't remember what he wrote exactly, but I know it included stuff about how white women get uglier as they age than Asian women do. Anyway, it just struck me as really misogynistic.

Frankly, as someone who grew up in the conservative bible belt, I think white coastal liberals /are/ relatively multicultural and enlightened. They certainly have more knowledge and tolerance of other cultures than the vast majority of people in this world do.

Anyway *shrug* I'm not knocking the concept of a site that makes fun of white people, but I think it could have been much, much better executed.

I have one thing to say: qualifiers. I specifically phrased that sentence the way I did on purpose.

But apparently I am ignorant of white people even though I am one and grew up with very few people of color around me. Yes, that makes tons of sense.

"Frankly, as someone who grew up in the conservative bible belt, I think white coastal liberals /are/ relatively multicultural and enlightened. They certainly have more knowledge and tolerance of other cultures than the vast majority of people in this world do." (quoting myself here)

And I to carry this further, I'm not saying anyone is beyond criticism, especially for widespread problems like class privilige and white privilige. But I've noticed how much urban liberals like to point out hypocricy in hipsterdom and urban liberalism and stuff... (maybe this should be on the "stuff white people like" list)

And well, yeah there's still room for improvement in white yuppie/hipster liberal culture.

But urban liberals who spend all their time criticizing urban liberal lifestyles with little awareness of how white people live in other communities around the country... generally don't know how good they have it, IMO.

If they want to see a whole lot more ethnocentrism, racism, sexism, etc. they should go check out the region I grew up in, and places where a lot more people in this country live, and places where a lot more people live worldwide.

So to me, I guess, criticizing white privilige in urban liberal culture, is a bit of a display of privilige in itself... kind of a catch-22 I know -but really, there are other sections of society that could use a lot more improvement IMO...

Um, after posting, I realized I may have read what you said wrong, cheekykitten. Were you taking issue with what I said, or with the idea that black people and Mexicans are always poor?

I was definitely taking issue with what you said. I think to say that most white people think all blacks or "Mexicans" are poor is a ridiculous generalization. I'm not sure why you'd even say that. And I'm not sure why you singled out Mexicans. Did you mean Latinos in general? Do most white people not think all people of Guatamalan, Nicaraguan and Honduran descent are all poor? I'm not trying to bait you, I'm just trying to understand your comment.

Well, I said Mexicans because many white people don't distinguish between Latin Americans - they just assume anyone who speaks Spanish and has dark skin is Mexican.

And I don't think it's an inaccurate generalization. I'm willing to listen to why it might be (that's why I was so careful about my wording) but in my experience, it's true: most white people do think black people and Mexicans are all poor. Maybe this is more a characteristic of the region I grew up in, where Asians are the largest/most visible minority group, or the relative ruralness of some of the areas that I've lived, but it seems to hold true no matter where I go.

Also, I didn't think you were trying to bait me. It just surprised me that you didn't explain why you thought that generalization wasn't accurate.

Because Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, and Eddie Murphy didn't make any money at *all* for making fun of white people.

Give me a break, a lot of people think the guy's funny, he got a book deal, and you're whining because a white guy got a book deal for making fun of white people? This is your case for racism? You're reaching, and not just a little bit.

The site is a spoof about white American liberals, rather than about white American people in general or white people in general. I think adding that adjective "American" is useful in this context.

the value that i see in that blog is to point out to white people that they have a culture. it is a HUGE problem in this country that most white people see their culture as the default culture, and therefore don’t think of it as a culture, but they see other non-white cultures as cultures because they are “ethnic.� this is the same way that whiteness works in general. white people don’t like hearing told that they are white. they see themselves as the default, the norm, as non-racial, as just “regular.� the value of this blog is to point out to people that just like black people, just like mexican people, they are subject to cultural sillyness that they have never questioned, that they see as the norm, as the default. this blog forces people within that privileged society that there are people outside of it who are able to analyze it, who are able to see that their culture is in fact a culture, it is not just the way people are born, and it is not somehow better than others. it is subject to analysis just like the “ethinic� cultures that privileged whites like to analyze. (a thought: documented cultural analysis probably exists mostly in the academic arena, dominated by privileged whites.)

putting big shiny rims and too many speakers on a cadillac is just as stupid as buying a 5,000 bike that you are only going to use for fun, not for transportation.it is a culturally influenced decision, it is a silly societal habit that people have to impress others, to impress themselves, to feel validated. too many white people think that they don’t do this....�why do poor black people spend their money on such useless shit?� without realizing that remodeling your kitchen is just as useless. this blog forces white people to see themselves externally, to show them that not everybody is like them and not everybody should be like them, to show them that they are, indeed, subject to culture and that they do fall for the same sillyness that others do.

and if you think that this blog is racist, you have no idea what racism in the US means. the fact that i’m brown ruins my life EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY, i am not sorry that you felt a little embarrassed by a joke article on a joke website.

also, to those who are saying that this website is generalizing and that not all white people are like that, you are missing the point of the blog. the point of the blog is not to talk about all white people.

i concede that the following may be a bit cynical, but im saying it anyways: it is very likely that the amount of racial “generalizing� that white people subconsciously do on an everyday basis overwhelmingly trumps any amount of generalizing you might think that blog does.

www.soda.can.com

There are some things that make me think hey, that does apply to me or that does apply to some white people who want to get ahead of everyone else. But others I identify with more as a liberal person and then I think are non-white people less likely to have liberal ideals and want free health care for example? It kind of makes me want to hear more about non-white culture.

"Except, I don't know if I would even say "middle-class" whites, I feel like with the talk of private schools and all the site describes upper-middle class liberal whites on the east coast and the west coast, better than it describes most true "middle-class" whites."

Word. I grew up working class and went to Wesleyan. Never in my life did I meet people, white or not, who liked so many things on that site until I got to college. Wes is pretty much ground zero for upper middle class (or even wealthier), white, liberal hipsters who generally don't see themselves as privileged.

From the interviews I've read around the web, the writer of stuff white people like is a 20-something Canadian white dude that now lives in LA. He's the guy you see in many pictures on the site. While it could seem conservative on first glance, the writer is liberal - the site is him making fun of himself.

I personally thought the site was an attempt to make fun of white American hipsters that imagine themselves as being "beyond race" or "color blind," when much of hipster culture is cultural appropriation, and who try to make every aspect of their lives into a competition on obscurity or an exercise in moral/political superiority.

I too am a person that has grown up and still lives in the rural bible belt (Southern Kentucky). And I'm a white, male, liberal hipster. I for one enjoy seeing urban coastal American hipsters picked apart and ridiculed because in my experience they are some of the most arrogant, condescending jerks I've ever met. Portland, San Fran, and NYC may be great places, but a good number of the people I've known from those places think they're better than you simply because they live where they do... but that's another subject entirely.

And another thing FEMINISTING: Be careful about picking on social satire. Its one of the most important tools we have in deconstructing our "neutral" hegemony. Sure it'll misfire sometimes; but satire is not meant to be politically correct.

The post on Asian women; for instance; is brilliant. Amongst an urban hipster clique I used to know; there was a bit of yellow fever going on and it made me uncomfortable but I could never really pinpoint why or how. An asian hipster girl acquaintance of mine pointed it out. Before, I thought she was "dating", but she felt very cynically that she was being treated as a trophy or an object. Things like this need to be called out by someone. Its offensive because it IS offensive.

I think, and I said this on the phone, is that the value of humor is all too often understated. I agree there's this weird sense that if something is called out on the blog, that automatically means it's notcool, but I blame the audience for that more than the blogger. He's actually refreshingly free of judgement calls on whiteness or not whiteness. It's not that things are good or bad or cool or not. They are just there. Like goofy T-shirts. Bad? Good? How about---and this pains the blogs so greatly---neutral. One of the underlying issues that perpetuates racism is this notion that if two things differ from each other, we must compare them and declare one better. But that doesn't have to be so.

Amanda, I totally agree with you. Humor is powerful and it is entertaining. It multi-tasks, LOL.

But I also think we have all learned that despite his being judgment free, the intention of the author in blogs has only little to do with how it is received.

"The post on Asian women; for instance; is brilliant. Amongst an urban hipster clique I used to know; there was a bit of yellow fever going on and it made me uncomfortable but I could never really pinpoint why or how. An asian hipster girl acquaintance of mine pointed it out. Before, I thought she was "dating", but she felt very cynically that she was being treated as a trophy or an object. Things like this need to be called out by someone. Its offensive because it IS offensive."

If you read my post, you will see that I was /not/ being critical of him for pointing out the existence of yellow fever. Rather, I was being critical of him because I thought he was being genuinly hateful towards white women, and just generally misogynistic.

To quote the post:

"White men love asian women so much that they will go to extremes such as stating that Sandra Oh is sexy"

"Another factor that draws white guys to asian women is that white women are jealous of them.

Take for instance the fact that asian women well into their 30s and 40s retain teen / college girl looks without the help of botox, yoga or a trendy diet (future posts). Asian women also avoid key white women characteristics such as having a mid life crisis, divorce, and hobbies that don’t involve taking care of the children (also future posts)"

How is that at all "clever"? It's not at all clear how much of this the writer feels to be true, and how much is just attempting a spoof of what some white men think...
And even still, why the dig at Sandra Oh? Why the dig at how women age? It just seems unnecessary to me...

"Take for instance the fact that asian women well into their 30s and 40s retain teen / college girl looks without the help of botox, yoga or a trendy diet (future posts). Asian women also avoid key white women characteristics such as having a mid life crisis, divorce, and hobbies that don’t involve taking care of the children (also future posts)"

To me this seems an obvious spoof of stereotypes because its so obviously UNTRUE. Of course asian women divorce, have hobbies, and age. As for Sandra Oh? She's a first rate actress. Calling her "sexy" misses the point.

I've unfortunately overheard male acquaintances talk about their exploits while working in asia and i found THAT offensive. I think the blogger also heard similar stories which is why this post comes off vitriolic.

Why can't people just appreciate that some things aren't for them? This is a guy essentially making fun of himself, and it is enjoyed by a lot of people. I'm guessing more than a fair number of them, like me, can recognize how it applies to themselves. If you don't, or can't appreciate what he's doing, just don't read it. It's pretty ridiculous to read some of these hysterical overreactions, as if he is upsetting race relations or unfairly demeaning ol' whitey.

Hysterical? I don't see any hysteria in this thread. I see people talking about an issue that they feel is relevant.

And by your logic, why are you even posting here? Can't you just appreciate that this thread isn't for you? If you don't, or can't appreciate what Samhita wrote, just don't read it.

Easily the funniest post on that blog:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/03/04/81-graduate-school/

"Being in graduate school satisfies many white requirements for happiness. They can believe they are helping the world, complain that the government/university doesn’t support them enough, claim they are poor, feel as though are getting smarter, act superior to other people, enjoy perpetual three day weekends, and sleep in every day of the week!

After acquiring a Masters Degree that will not increase their salary or hiring desirability, many white people will move on to a PhD program where they will go after their dream of becoming a professor."

I love when the humanities graduate students complain about their work load.

I really love Stuff White People Like, even though I share some of your unease about it. But what does any of this have to do with women or feminism?

Pretty sure the blog should be renamed to "Stuff some white american people like". None of that stuff really relates to Australia :S

One of the things I like about STWPL is that it does to white people what is often done to people of color: reduces them to a single, stereotypical demographic. The comments here make it clear that this treatment pisses off white people too! It also introduces this whole line of thinking about well, am I white enough? Or am I too white? These inane questions are only possible with a reductionist stereotype to compare yourself to.

I find myself unable to assess the site's overriding merits/lack thereof (i.e., its status as a piece of political, social, or racial commentary) because it's so poorly written. The "Stuff" on the list may be clever, but what do I care if the accompanying text isn't even funny or intelligent? I personally think the guy is a mediocre writer and satirist who is making money he hasn't earned on any merit of his own.

I think that the SWPL blog is less a critique of whiteness and more an assertion of whiteness. For better or for worse, it has been elevated to the level of critique because self-aware pop-cultural assertions of whiteness seem few and far between. Whiteness seems to be frequently asserted either as the default cultural standard or in terms of overt white supremecy. The fact that this site is an assertion of whiteness that doesn't seem to intend to do either of those things contributes to its popularity.

My perception of SWPL as an assertion of whiteness, by white people and for white people comes from a recent reading of a book titled Building Diaspora (http://books.google.com/books?id=R-I52mGEZ6UC&printsec=frontcover&dq=building+diaspora&sig=NQv8IRj65w7VqSpywkOacO7j7sc) which is about people navigating their ethnic and national identity (in particular , Filipinoness) over the Internet. The book mentioned multiple instances of the importance of “You might be Filipino if …� type posts on the newsgroup and their popularity. The author said that the posts were not taken to rigidly define Filipino culture or identity, but instead contained enough references that would be understood by people with connections to aspects of Filipino culture or identity that it helped satisfy part of people’s need to have some more concrete definition to Filipinoness and their own identity and for a definition of a broader Filipino community. Yesterday, I interviewed my friend as the first of a series of interviews about being multiracial. He said that for him, joking with other Asian people about Asian stereotypes or racist remarks was really important to him. So for him, humor gave him an opportunity to explore his racial identity in terms of how it was framed in his life, not in terms of Filipino delicacies, facial communication, or the practice of carry gift laden cardboard boxes through international airports as it was in the newsgroup posts studied in Building Diaspora, but in terms of his experience with racism as a perceivably non-white person growing up in a small town in Indiana. So, people coming from a lot of different cultural identities use humor to play with or think about their notion of whatever they are. This is the context in which Stuff White People Like seems to make the most sense to me. It is not a critique of whiteness or racism but a way for white people to think about one possible whiteness. In this case, unlike Samhita, I’m not surprised at all that the Stuff White People Like blogger is white. Clearly there is a need for people in general, even white people, to examine their cultural identity using humor.

Still, while SWPL fills a clear need, I completely agree that it doesn't do much to transform the cultural dialog about race or to push to end racial injustice in U.S. culture. The perception of SWPL as critique without actually making people question or change anything of substance adds to its popularity. I would guess that most of SWPL's readers don't see the "likes" on the blog as exclusively white or see much value in rallying around or abandoning the "likes" based on their whiteness. Beyond these things, where can the reader go, critically, from SWPL?

Finally, I want to mention how I see the blog as being representative of privilege. I think middle to upper class white people are able to poke fun at aspects of their culture without concern that the stereotypes will be tied to underlying prejudices about the inherent inequality of people of different races or with different economic mobilities. SWPL, like all stereotypes, is reductive, but I strongly doubt that a white person has ever been turned down for a job because their potential employer is concerned that their expensive sandwich purchasing, segway riding, or water in bottles drinking will affect their job performance. Comedians such as Dave Chapelle, Margaret Cho, or even Jeff Foxworthy who poke fun at the racial and cultural groups with which they identify have to navigate a much more difficult course as their humor simultaneously provides definition and community for cultural minorities (as I mentioned above) and can be perceived by people outside those groups as reinforcing white supremicist or classist stereotypes.