A while ago I had written for the American Prospect about the blog Stuff White People Like and discussed some of the trends in race in America it so accurately highlights both intentionally and unintentionally. At the time there were several blogs that were spin-offs, but I guess I missed this most important one, Stuff Desi People Like. It is as though my analysis can come full circle.
My immediate feeling, stumbling upon such a blog was relief and humor. Even the first entry, #36 Fair Skinned Kids, is one of those dirty secrets that I keep close to my chest about my mother's preference for lighter skin, that I find to be frustrating and often fight with her about the racism embedded in such beliefs.
Check out the blog, I think it is pretty funny actually. But I always feel when mocking ethnic minorities it is different than mocking the dominant culture. At the end of the day, we are still not the dominant culture and there is still a sense of voyeurism and curiosity that turns into judgments and racist assumptions about ones culture. As a person of color, the culture I come from is but one part of who I am and does not limit me from understanding the diversity of this country. The onslaught of cultural productions about South Asians/Desis has excited me while leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Since I spent most of my life with people not knowing anything about India or Indian culture (outside of food and yoga), it is frustrating when people are in the "we think we understand your experience now" space. But it is also exciting.
So I guess in looking at SDPL, I suggest we laugh, but don't laugh too hard, because there are so many things that are just not able to be translated effectively given the racist assumptions we all hold about different cultures.
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I admit that I read a bit of the "stuff white people like" last year. I didn't laugh, especially when I received the link from a black woman who sent it with a note saying, "See, I'm white" she was joking, but, there was a point there. She was not raised "bourgie", yet, a bunch of stuff white people apparently like, are things she is known for liking too.
I felt uncomfortable reading it as it reinforced my prejudice against white people, in particular white men. I don't want to reinforce stereotypes at a time when I am working on becoming more open and more compassionate and yes, making peace with the dominant culture as we shift the paradigm.
We are all individuals. The sooner we get past identifying a persons likes or dislikes by the shade of their skin, the better.
I am not saying pretend cultural differences don't exist- I'd like the healthy traditions in a culture to be celebrated and shared. A lil from here n a lil from there and viola- JAZZ!
p.s. white, black, light skinned, jewish, italian, greek, asian
like Jazz.
(goodness I miss NOLA)
As far as I can tell, Stuff X People Like is the modern day horoscope. The Forer effect for people too clever to read about their star sign.
If you take a selection from several of these sites and remove the key group ("white people", etc) would they be distinguishable?
Honestly, I'd have a hard time picking out any traits from those lists that don't apply to me or my friends.
I was a never a big fan, but I think it was funnier earlier. A lot more of it was "Stuff Some White People Like That They Don't Realize is Offensive/Racist/Sexist/Massively Stupid". It seems a lot more nitpicky and there is a lot more jumping to conclusions about why innocuous things should be wrong now, which makes me a lot more uncomfortable.
Plus, I absolutely hate the incredibly anti-intellectualism the blog has.
But I thought EVERYBODY loved cricket. Everywhere I go in East Austin I see vaqueros with humorously oversized shinpads and cricket bats.
"But I always feel when mocking ethnic minorities it is different than mocking the dominant culture."
Really? How so? How is one kind of hate different from the other? Not everyone in the so-called dominant culture is homogenous. And neither is everyone in the "non-dominant." I don't think "stuff white people like" is funny at all. I completely agree with i_muse that "the sooner we get past identifying a persons likes or dislikes by the shade of their skin, the better."
"But I always feel when mocking ethnic minorities it is different than mocking the dominant culture."
Oh bah humbug. There is nothing in this world that should be immune from mockery and satire. If you make something taboo, then jokes that violate that taboo just become funnier. If you take yourself and your position as a minority so seriously that you can't stand to be made fun of, then you are just broadcasting your own insecurity.
Ok first of all, noone even said the word hate. All Samhita is saying is that there is a different kind of power levied when it's against a group that does face discrimination or negative stereotypes that actively affect things like being treated equally than when it's against the group that is in power.
This is certainly true, but I think that it's also the crux of the difference in the way different cultures have been accepted into American society in different ways. I'm going to get blasted, so instead of making myself clear I'm going to give an analogy and let you try to decide what I'm talking about.
When you have an established group, and you want to introduce new members who want to benefit from the structure that's already been established, the people involved feel like the new ones are just getting something for free, and they resent it. This is where hazing comes in. The new people have to go through a little trial period where things are harder for them. But they do it, they don't complain, and at the end they are more respected by the group, and now they're perfectly even, because no one can say that they had it easier.
If someone complains about the hazing, or tries to avoid it, no one is going to like that. If the group in charge can reject them, they will, if they can't, they'll still resent the people not going through what they think of as necessary. If other people do accept their hazing, and become equal status, they'll also just resent the people who didn't go through it, because why the hell shouldn't they.
I'm betting there is a pretty unfavorable opinion of hazing in this community, but there are undeniable benefits when it's done right.
If I interpreted your analogy correctly that is one of the most ignorant things I have seen on this blog. Are you saying that new groups to ammerica need to shut up and take the hazing (except in real life hazing can involve physical violence and economical peril) so that the dominate culture will respect them. Fuck that shit.
If I interpreted your analogy correctly that is one of the most ignorant things I have seen on this blog. Are you saying that new groups to ammerica need to shut up and take the hazing (except in real life hazing can involve physical violence and economical peril) so that the dominate culture will respect them. Fuck that shit.
MZBitca,
I'm glad your comment posted twice.
Read it twice, doubleb.
I notice you use "shields" in many of your posts: preemptive disclaimers like "I know I'm going to be blasted for this" and "my opinion isn't going to be popular."
You use them because you know what you're saying is irreparably flawed but you take joy in the perceived provocativeness of it. So you say it anyway. And sit back and wait for the reactions to roll your way.
It bothers me that I continue to respond to these meager filips, and perhaps in the future I won't.
But suffice it to say:
The only benefits to hazing are those ones, imagined or real, that come from having survived trauma and having forced oneself into compliance with the abusive norms of one's tormentors.
I reject such "benefits."
And argue that we should be working to change the system that enacts, expects and rewards such trauma, not helping to maintain and prolong it.
Right. Hazing. Like in the Russian army, when new conscripts get beaten and raped, and then later they can beat and rape the new conscripts, cuz they're really part of the group now. Because that is what hazing is, it's about demonstrating power to those weaker than you are.
Speaking of racial construction check out this awesome take down by angry Asian chicks regarding the ways in which they are turned it docile bodies. These constructions are never innocent. They exist to perpetuate racial hierarchy in which some bodies are necessarily privileged and others are silenced.
Yeah, I dunno--SDPL reproduces that exact smug class privilege BS that SWPL does. In this respect, SDPL also mirrors the great majority of the desi blogosphere. It all makes me want to cry and scream, rather than laugh. But maybe I'm just a downer that way...
I find this a little problematic but I'm not sure how to explain it. Basically, "Stuff X People Like" is going to be based on culture. The thing is, these cultures were developed by races. Associating Indian culture with people of Indian decent just makes sense. After all, it was Indians that developed it. That's not to say that you can assume a particular person of Indian decent falls into any of the particular facets of that culture, but what these blogs seem to do is offer quick explanations of various aspects of different cultures which were in fact developed by the races in question.
I guess what I'm not sure about is really what's going on with blogs like these. Are they trying to be satirical? If they are, do they recognize that they only work because of the basic truth of what they're peddling? Or are they trying to suggest that stereotyping in the way that they are doesn't really work? Because I think the reality is, it does work, for the reason mentioned above.
I guess I don't see these things as mocking. They're probably moderately based in reality, or they wouldn't be funny in the first place. Maybe I'm just missing the joke.
Well, when someone claims that "being busy", "getting on well with parents", "sharing" or "taking photos of smiling people" are symptomatic of anything other than "being human", I believe laughing in their face is the only reasonable response.
Can you find any examples that you think are not merely symptomatic of the human condition? If so, I'm talking about those.
If not, in what sense could any of these blogs resonate with anyone, since they're apparently based on nothing?
Can you find any examples that you think are not merely symptomatic of the human condition? If so, I'm talking about those.
Very few: generally less than one per "page" of entries.
If not, in what sense could any of these blogs resonate with anyone, since they're apparently based on nothing?
See my earlier response on the Forer effect.
These sites are set up to target a particular group (like horoscopes, personality tests, etc). They then proceed to list a large number of generic personality traits, doped with the occasional group-relevant "fact" and plenty of feel-good inside lingo.
It doesn't matter how many of the blog's points are relevant (or even contradictory: a couple on the front page of the Desi blog contradict each other) because the reader's own mind cuts out the irrelevant stuff and reinforces the stuff that applies.
Try it yourself. Go through two or three pages of any of these blogs (there are about a dozen of them, including a Stuff Nobody Likes) and tally up the ones that do and don't apply. Do the same for a few more of these blogs. (It would be really useful if you got someone to remove the group references first, to at least make an attempt at blinding).
I think you'll be quite surprised how many are not relevant to the general population.
Although they are available on the internet for everyone's consumption, I think that the MOST important part of these blogs (assuming they're meant to be cutting cultural satires) is that they're meant for the group in the title--white people are supposed to read "Stuff White People Like" and laugh at themselves, just like Indian/Indian-Americans can read "Stuff Desi People Like" and laugh at themselves in turn. We can still laugh at them because they aren't meant to be the instrument of some greater racist program, they're silly blogs. . .meant to kill time at work/school. . .that allow us (us being black, white, "desi") to realize the stupidity-or sometimes just the incongruity-of our own actions even as we continue to engage in them.
some people seem to be taking samhita's comment about making fun of the dominant culture vs. minority culture the wrong way. i don't think she's saying it's okay to make fun of white people and not others. white people have institutional power in america, so no matter how much fun you make of them, you're not going to take down the CEOs of companies or senators, etc. when you make fun of a minority, it's like kicking an injured dog. another way to think about it is how men are portrayed as dumbasses on tv and ads, but the institutional power rests with them, so many men don't take such jokes seriously. that doesn't mean a white person can't get offended by the SWPL blog - it's open to interpretation.
i think the key to be humorous about cultural stereotypes is to make fun of only the superficial stuff. it also helps to be self deprecating (e.g. axis of evil comedy tour or russell peters). there's a fine line between these comedians and carlos mencia whom i absolutely deplore because he often makes fun of actual inequalities, especially sexism.
what i like about the stuff X people like blogs is that they seem to be mostly written by members of that community, which is why they have insider information like how desis like the "successive use of a word," and because they make fun of superficial stuff - expensive sandwiches and soccer scarves anyone? to me these blogs suggest cultural distinction and humor rather than racism.
"some people seem to be taking samhita's comment about making fun of the dominant culture vs. minority culture the wrong way. i don't think she's saying it's okay to make fun of white people and not others."
Yeah, I don't think so either.
"white people have institutional power in america, so no matter how much fun you make of them, you're not going to take down the CEOs of companies or senators, etc. when you make fun of a minority, it's like kicking an injured dog."
...or kicking someone when she or he is down (to use a human instead of animal analogy).
It's not at all like kicking anything. Actual violent acts are like kicking someone while they're down, and comparing making fun of people to physical abuse diminishes the violence that has happened and continues to happen to people.
I don't remember if it was here that I read it, but I recently read a report about violence against school girls in some middle eastern nation in which a girl who had acid thrown on her said that she'd rather die than stop going to school. After that display or resiliency, I've lost a great deal of sympathy to the idea that being made fun of over the Internet constitutes victimization.
I think stuff Jewish young adults like is pretty funny. But, as mentioned above the success of these sites I think depends on being insidery, and being careful not to be cruel. Like, you'll notice that "money" isn't on that list, which would have been an easy laugh, but entirely the wrong sort of humor.
http://stuffjewishyoungadultslike.wordpress.com/
I find stuffjewishyoungadultslike funny, too, just taking a cursory look...especially "Taking Forever to Say Goodbye", because man, it's so true >_
I have mixed feeling about this sort of blogging, but on the other hand, insider knockdowns have existed for years - look at any standup comic or, hell, person of minority status, and you can find it. The way Jewish jokes are funny when Jews tell them, etc etc, this kind of blogging IS funny...but it's as problematic as it is funny.
Stuff White People Like is just the same kind of thing, with a little more tongue-in-cheek awareness of the unmarked status of white people. It is true that it doesn't take into consideration much class difference: not all White People are WASPS or middle-class.
...There's a hilarious and sadly pretty true book I found at Borders the other day that was something like "You Know You're From The Midwest When" (Kentucky? Apparently at least as midwestern as southern ;D) that's probably like a lowerclass version of Stuff White People Like.
I don't know, I think it's funny to a limited degree, but I think people have to watch out as well. No one can be PC all the time, we do have the right to make fun of our own cultures. When doing that of course the generalizations don't include everyone. But one has to be AWARE of that, too.
I read the book version of SWPL and its title actually bothered me a bit because it's really more of a "stuff middle-class white people like." There's a tendency to generalize that I think is unfortunate. The monolith of whiteness can detract from concern over the white working-class.
I have very mixed feelings about "insider" minority mocking. On the one hand, I despise stereotypes of all peoples. I'm not remotely "White" (like "Black," a completely flawed concept), but I hate being told that "White People Can't Dance"--uh, really? Something inherent to all Europeans' (all those culturally and ethnically identical Brits, Danes, Finns, Spaniards, Greeks, Poles, Sicilians, and Basque) actual DNA makes all of them, no matter their upbringing, no matter the type of music their folks played around the house when they were kids, bad at dancing?
And somehow, I'm supposed to be a great dancer, by virtue of this magical DNA that throbs in my veins like the rythms of a conga? Oh, and my ethnic identity also means I'm naturally saucy and loud, and prefer yellow gold to silver? Because that's "stuff people like me like."
Right.
On the other hand, poking fun at the foibles of our own particular cultural background (note the CULTURE element, without faulty ties to ethnicity) can be somewhat cathartic. Witness the many Desi and Arab jokes about preference for fair skin; Puerto Rican jokes about preference for straight/wavy hair; Desi, Arab, African, and Native American jokes about running on "____ time;" Iranian, Desi, Arab jokes about pushy matchmakers; East Asian-American jokes about overbearing parents; lower-income American jokes about "redneck" culture and Wal-Mart; etc.
The trouble is, like Samhita points out, the outside world is looking in, too. And I feel very uncomfortable when anyone outside my immediate, exact ethnic group tries to get in on the joke. I've had other minorities try to crack jokes to me about the perceived and real foibles and biases of my own group, only for me to recoil instinctively.
The reason is because they have not experienced the unique pains and pleasures of inhabiting my cultural background. When someone has not experienced the sting, they don't experience the release--the catharthis-- delivered by the joke amongst others of one's own background. Without this crucial element of catharsis, the joke becomes unfunny at best and off-color, appropriation-oriented, and hurtful at worst.
Yes, exactly.
I think I understand why you feel the way you feel about stereotyping jokes, and so maybe you can't be faulted for feeling offended. But I really hate the line of reasoning from which that paragraph in boldface comes. It's the politics of victimhood: the idea that because a group you identify yourself with has suffered, your opinions or arguments can't be challenged except by someone who is a member of that group.
If you keep going down that path, you end up with things like: "because you are a straight white male, you can't criticize anything women or minorities write or do." Or even worse: "because science was done by straight white males back in the day, its conclusions are suspect."
You're right; I can't "be faulted" for feeling offended. The offendor is the person at fault.
Your comment borders on an apologia for people who make stereotypical jokes about people of different ethnic groups, sizes, ages, sexualities, and lifestyles than their own.
And before you ask, no, a joke about stereotypical European-Americans has never once crossed my lips. Never. My conscious does not allow it, and I find it useless and barrier-erecting. If I want to address a problem with dominant hetero male Euro culture, I direct myself to the culture/social framework, not attack people themselves (who can no more help theit majority-membership than I can my minority-one).
"If you keep going down that path, you end up with things like..'because you are a straight white male, you can't criticize anything women or minorities write or do'."
Actually, I don't end up down that path.
I welcome you to click on my profile and peruse my past posts. You will quickly learn that I do not accept the argument that human rights violations in my parents' country cannot be problematized by thoughtful, reflective, culturally-attuned Westerners...and vice-versa, of course (many Islamic feminists and African feminists operating from within their countries ahve made wonderful and helpful criticisms of the deeply entrenched sexism in U.S. culture).
Stating that ethnic-related jokes' sole value is in their catharthis-potential, and that outsiders to a group are, by definition, incapable of sharing in that semi-redeeming cathartic value, is not the slippery slope/strawp-argument into which you're attempting to lead the discussion.
I'd like to echo the folks who called out the SWPL and its friends for anti-intellectualism and weird class views. I was kind of shocked when someone first told me about the site, because I saw it as racist, and not towards white people. By defining the stuff white people like, it suggests that POCs don't like it, was how I saw it, and that was just weird. And the site was well enough on its way that any interesting racial commentary was gone, and it was simply about what people with money and education spend the former on. Umm, ok. Why is this funny? And I just checked out the Jewish Young Adults one someone commented on, and it's really making some fascinating class assumptions. You're right--it's not saying money straight out, it's just saying "Tiffany's." Ugh.
and JAP. It's also saying JAP. Lovely.
Here's my problem with what white people like:
It should be called "WHAT RICH WHITE PEOPLE LIKE."
I'm so fucking sick of people conflating race with class I could vomit.
In several of the entries, the author makes reference to non-wealthy white people as "the wrong kind of white people," so I think it's supposed to be satiring that very issue. I don't think it completely succeeds, though. The author, IMO, isn't a good enough writer or knowledgeable enough - or both - for it to succeed.
The basic problem with these things is that they treat race and culture as interchangeable. That is the entire premise of these blogs, and that is racism pure and simple.
Some of those type of sites kind of give me pause as a minority (hispanic).They tend to foster a false familiarity. The only way to know me is to know me. And some have a snarky bigotry feel to them...I don't know.
I'm conflicted when it comes to "Stuff White people Like".
On one hand, I actually think it's funny because it mocks the sometimes ridiculous/pretentious culture of upper class white people, particularly urban upper class white people. In doing so it does reveal a kernel of truth about class difference.
The blog often mention things that one shouldn't like because the "wrong kind" of white people like them, which obviously separates white people into lowbrow and highbrow groups (which in reality are divided by class).
To be in the highbrow group you have to enjoy/have access to the expensive things the blog mentions: sushi, indie music, 100 dollar haircuts, etc. Also, you have to convey the attitude that your lifestyle is superior to that of Republican-voting, truck-driving, cheap beer-drinking Dane Cook fans. There's a disdain for mass culture in general on the part of upper class white people, yet they can borrow or reject from it what they please.
At least in my own experience, upper class white people culture is very real, and it does tend to follow the norms defined by "Stuff White People Like".
I attend a private liberal arts college although I'm a first-generation college student from a working class family. My first year of school was defined by me trying to hide my ignorance of art, "high" culture, and especially music. It was an often painful experience. I felt as tough I'd never equal up to my peers who came from cities like New York, San Fransisco, Portland, Seattle, Boston, etc. They had massive exposure to the opportunities their class and urban lifestyle had given them.
I felt isolated, and to a certain extent I still do even though I have caught up to them in knowledge. I often feel that because I am white, people at my school make the assumption that I am just as rich and come from the same background as them. Especially since I am able to keep up with them our surpass them academically, it seemed to shock people when I told them I was a first-generation college student from a Pennsylvania coal-mining town who attended a shitty high school, yet somehow got to this college filled with kids from Westchester, New york.
"Stuff White People Like" definitely deserves some critique, but for me it does offer the catharsis of knowing that other people recognize how ridiculous and exclusive upper class white culture can be. If I were a person of color, maybe I would feel differently about it, especially since it excludes the POC who enjoy the same things the blog lists as exclusive to white culture. That is a serious problem with the blog.
Also I think you have to take these things in jest rather than a basis of cultural criticism. I have a good friend who is Jamaican/Cuban and his Desi girlfriend's folks love him so you you can't make assumptions about people.