Yeah, this is absolutely brilliant. Thank you for this article.

This is a great piece! My guy and I have been discussing that blog quite a bit lately.

He keeps going back to the fact that he feels uncomfortable with the idea that once again there is a division being made between stuff white people like and stuff other people like (even if they like the same stuff).

I acknowledge that as well, but I do find it quite funny, especially when I like the stuff too. So I don't think I should stop reading it if it gives my brain a break from time to time.

I liked it too. As a person who fits pretty neatly into the Stuff White People Like category, I think you encapsulated a lot of the feelings of ambiguity I have towards the blog. I like that it's pointing out privilege, but in the end, as you point out, it's the White Guy getting the six-figure book deal for something many people have already observed.

Wow, I am impressed. It made me think, maybe for the first time critically, about the influence of our socio-economic backgrounds and how people mentally exclude people of color from and always include white people in the privileged ones. Yikes!

Then I become overwhelmed with how far we have to go.... It's like all of the horrible -isms that have infested our world have mated and their offspring possess invisibliity cloaks.

Regarding bangs: I'm one of the "cooler white people" (albeit semi-white, which is probably why I'm cooler). I used to really love the Betty bangs, even a nice Chelsea Fringe, then the world became inundated with them.

It's like Harley bikes or mohawks (two things I once sported) once orthodontists started riding them and Frankine Munez started wearing them they became un-cool.

congrats on your first piece, samhita!

i have to say that i'm extremely uncomfortable with SWPL, precisely because of its silence on matters of wealth and class. most of what it calls "stuff white people like" is in fact stuff rich people (can afford to) like. of course there's a deep connection b/w race and class in America, but is that something SWPL explores or disguises?

i can hear the hipsters now: "i'm not a member of a privileged elite...i'm just a white girl. whew!"

@supersarah - I, too, am ambivalent about the site. Not only does the prose get tedious, but any argument that includes an a built-in defense against those who disagree smacks of speciousness. Any white person (especially one with bangs!) who argues against the concept of the site is automatically the type of person they're making fun of, so of course she doesn't like it.

I actually think SWPL works against any sort of self-awareness about racial and class privileges. The racial angle makes its white, privileged readers feel like they are edgy and transgressive for reading it, and the fact that they are reading mockery of themselves makes them feel that they're being self-aware about class and race privilege, without actually engaging in any self-interrogation or reflection about their relationship to race. They think they're taking their "racial awareness" medicine with the candy-coating of humor, but the medicine isn't actually there.

Am I just pissed because the site pretty much says that only idiots with too much money eat organic, want their kids to be bilingual, or drink good coffee? Hey, whenever I rent a car, I rent a Prius, because as it turns out, I save money on gas. And I live very frugally and paycheck-to-paycheck, but organic food is healthier for our bodies and the planet than conventional corporate agriculture. A lot of people can't afford to eat local and organic but I believe that those of us who can are obligated to do so.

But there I am, being an idiot white person who actually has beliefs and talks about them. She'd probably argue that the site writer should have donated some of his massive book advance to a nonprofit organization that works toward racial harmony, but you know how those overprivileged white folks love their nonprofit organizations...

You see? Once you dissent, the joke is on you.

Congrats on the publication! It's an excellent piece, and I thought your observations were spot-on. Thanks for "shamelessly self-promoting"! ;)

Oh thank you, thank you! This piece got at EXACTLY what drives me nuts about SWPL at, "...it hinges on the belief that wealthy, white, male, heterosexuality is the central and dominant category," because IMHO, class and wealth are a major part of that. Being white doesn't automatically mean one can afford organic food, espresso makers, a Prius, or Montessori school. I have to make due with what I've got, which, like many white AND non-white people, isn't much. SWPL keeps me and people like me at an arms length because I might be able to force a little chuckle at 22 or 48, but that doesn't mean I can identify with it. I can't even afford the Wal-Mart TP half the time. End of Rant. And thanks for writing that fabulous article.

I agree with your description of the dominant culture ("wealthy, white, male, heterosexuality is the central and dominant category, and everyone else is compared to that ...") but I would add a few more modifiers to your list. How about Christian, meat-eating and able-bodied? Those are all assumptions of the dominant culture in America.

I'm sure there are other characteristics that I've missed but those are the ones that I'd add.

One of my problems with the discussion of race is the language used to try to put people into discrete categories. For example, I love that in America the term "Asian" (or worse, "Asian/Pacific Islander") is used to describe a single "race." So, who came up with this dumb idea? "Hey, let's take the largest continent on the planet, maybe even add the largest ocean, and decide that everybody from there is a single category! Never mind that there is a huge variation in language, customs, religion, etc." Weird.

I don't have an answer about how to improve the language but I do know that it gets in the way of the discussion at times. Our language shapes how we think about an issue.

Excellent article, Samhita. I've glanced briefly at SWPL, and found that it raised more questions than it answered -- and not in an intentional way, either. Plus sometimes it's just plain wrong (White people like universal health care because they have it in Europe? What?)

I hate that website (and am still kinda lost on your piece...I got the "he makes a site satirizing whitey...and gets away with it/gets a book deal b/c he's white?" because it's not that funny (yeah, now, I'm an easy target and just the type of person the site satirizes?), because it's irritating/STUPID, and because kind of inaccurate.

According to the site people should be satirized b/c they "like" things like--1) "dogs" (yeah, ideally, people should treat the pets they acquire like furniture or something); 2) divorce (that's pretty damn funny, b/c non-whites seem to have rates of divorce at least as high...ugh, if not higher...or else, lower marriage rates); 3) giving a shit about the environment...

Here's another thing some "liberals" (and I'd call myself a Democrat) don't like hearing--money buys the "exposure" to issues like the environment or animal welfare and occasionally it actually enables good behavior. Somehow if people use it for good...well, they're simply bad/self-righteous then, simply b/c they have money. and might even encourage other groups to follow them (within means) based on science or policy. Or they're bad if they EVER hold outside groups for their behavior, even if said people are poor and/or non-white.

Some of the stuff satirized is...laudable. Period. Even if it's aided and abetted by having "money" (i.e. supporting organic food co-ops). Some of it does seem "yuppie" (I hate that damn word) and pious for its own sake(i.e. bragging about not owning a TV...although if you can't afford it financially or in terms of time, hey, good for you for avoiding temptation!).

White people are bad for being materialistic; white people are bad for trying NOT to be materialistic (spoiled assholes!); white people (it's only white people benefiting/abetting from "gentrification", eh?) are bad for all-but shoving initial residents of lower-cost neighborhoods out of their homes; fuck them, they should just stay in unaffordable neighborhoods...must be pure malevolence at work.

I still think it's kind of shitty to simply group a number of people--liberal, white, young, whatever-under one satire-worthy umbrella of a "culture" and identify them as being part of it b/c of their skin color (or even their income group) without other context...then make a buck off of mocking it. It's just as it's shitty to put a group of non-whites into "black culture" or "Hispanic culture" (wtf does would that mean anyway? Could you imagine some of the unsavory judgments people would be tempted to make...some of which wouldn't be so far off)?

Maybe this was YOUR point, Samhita, and I simply missed it in the piece in American Prospect--people adopt a "culture" based on what they're exposed to by friends and family, their neighborhood, and what income allows. White people get to make fun of themselves AND are rewarded for it...b/c they're the "dominant" culture (what portion of this country is "white people"--2/3? How many of those fit under the description Christian Landers created?)

Oh well. I guess I'm worthy of SWPL derision now...even though I didn't fit a majority of the things (or at least, hobbies) listed (I swear!), despite being a slightly fatalistic, "world-weary" Democrat/college-educated and a reader of the NY Times who deeply loves Stewart/Colbert and Arrested Development...and pets. And is pissed about the lack of alternative energy policy...

Oh, never mind.

P.S. Was equally pissed and turned-off by the counterpart, "Stuff Black People" (or "Educated Black People Love.")

Offend me, but be accurate, and be original/funny! I'm in the whiny camp that just finds Landers' site as grating as the self-satisfied yuppie caricatures he tries to draw (and shit on).

Congratulations Samhita! I really enjoyed reading your piece and thought it was spot-on. The paragraph on young, white people saying "I don't have a culture" is perfect and so much more eloquent than the open-mouthed goggling I do toward those who say that.

Hi Samhita,

I strongly recommend the book, "Bobo's in Paradise"
by David Brooks.

It came out about 4 or 5 years ago.