Stuffwhitepeoplelike.org

Or, http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/ depending on which site works at this point.

So- I think that the site is funny. Countless, "Oh yeah!" experiences, and "Damn! White people do love them some ____'s” right? So, that was amusing, and I could think of plenty of stories to go along with nearly every entry I read on the blog.

But, this site has an entirely different and far more sinister/convoluted/charged subtext that comes out when you read the comments. Lot’s of pointed criticism led someone to quip that white people like "being critical without being constructive", or something like that. But, there was this narrative of trying to determine the race of the blogger to determine how to react to the comments: self-loathing white person? Envious black person, enraged by their inability to access all of the privileges and advantages of whiteness? American, who is trapped by their nationalist perspective. What is the basis upon which to write off this person's observations as irrelevant, biased, or even bigoted?

So, I realized that there was a peek into the white socialization process on this blog's comments; particularly in the racist comments, that simply shifted their target as a new race was assumed of the blog's creator. (Thandeka wrote a great book about the process maybe 10 years ago, "Learning to be White: Race, God, and Money in America". There may be better newer stuff, but I stopped reading right around the time I stopped thinking several years ago.)

Rather than explicating various theories of white socialization, which I may delve into tomorrow if I' still too tired to leave the house, the piece that I got from reading the comments on the site was that several forces (guilt, class privilege, race privilege, intellectualism, guilt, popularization of and access to non-white cultures, guilt) squeeze younger white folks into spaces of trying to define and live out "acceptable" whiteness. This blog points out and makes light of the characteristics of that group of white folks. and, the backlash for doing so is racist attack; which seems so disproportionately overreactive in the context of someone saying that white people like bicycles, swimming, panini, co-ed sports, recycling, with some sprinkles of "knowing what's best for poor people".

To notice, or worse mock, the cultural sanctuary of guilt-free "acceptable" whiteness that has been carved out by younger white folks (about my age, maybe a little older- maybe a little younger) is read as an attack when its the many shades of guilt that drove folks into these spaces to begin with. And that is why noticing the sanctimony, paternalism, and benign group characteristics are met with such hostile backlash. It was confusing to me for awhile, and it smacked of more than just the ignorance of open comment forums on the net.

When I sent this out in an e-mail I got a link back from a friend, http://whitewhine.tumblr.com/
My favorite white whine is, "My chiropractor has the worst selection of magazines in his waiting room; I mean, thanks, but I already read November's issue of Golf…back in November!" It makes me giggle every time!