Stuff White People Like... where's the line?

From this week's edition of Campus Progress:

Earlier this year, Lander, a red-headed Canadian who lives and works in Los Angeles, became somewhat of an Internet celebrity when he started publishing his blog, Stuff White People Like. The site—a pseudo-anthropological study cum satire—documents what a certain type of upper-middle class, educated white person likes (dinner parties) and doesn’t like (typos on menus). Because of his blog’s popularity, Lander is now considered one of the web’s iconic embodiments of white identity.

Not everyone likes Lander’s shtick and, at the reading, he was quick to acknowledge that. But he was also quick to respond, “So let me get this straight, you’re getting angry about someone making broad generalizations about your race? Hm, I think we know some people who can probably relate.”

It was his best point of the night. Lander seemed to understand that his jokes straddle a thin line between satire and barbarity, and that, when poking fun at an entire race, context and self-awareness really matter. As Lander asserted, he skewers a privileged racial group in a “non-hateful way.” And even if some people are offended by his jokes, he said that wasn’t his intent.

...

One of the women, a teacher, admitted that the blog makes her challenge her own sense of identity, but not necessarily in a good way. Many of the things Landers says white people like are things she also enjoys. Which leads her to wonder: Does her love of coffee and sweaters make her less black?

One of the other black women noted that by identifying what is “white,” Lander is also defining what is "not white." That, she argued, can reinforce classist and racist attitudes. By claiming something elitist is by default “white,” Lander implies that such elitist affinities do not belong to other racial groups. For example, Lander claims perfect grammar as evidence of “whiteness.” If that’s true, is poor grammar a black thing? And by arguing that going to graduate school is white, isn’t Lander reinforcing assumptions about the kind of people that fill the ranks of academia?

Certainly, white people should be able to talk about “whiteness” without having to parse every aspect of their conversations. How else can we expect white people to deal with the issues that surround race relations in modern America? The problem with the folks at the book signing was that they seemed to be laughing about stereotypes without acknowledging a key component that allows racism to continue: the inability of a person in an advantageous position (like a white person) to recognize privilege.

This strikes at the problem of Stuff White People Like. Lander and company seem aware of the complications of their elitist attitudes but don’t care about changing them. It’s okay to laugh at Lander’s satire, of course, but white readers need to be self-aware and self-critical about why they are laughing, too.

As I walked out of the bookstore discussing this with the three black audience members, the young teacher said, “I’d like to see Lander give a book reading to a room full of non-white people. Somehow I think the reactions would be much different.”

First off, I should say that I'm a big fan of Stuff White People Like, and of its brother-, sister- and cousin-sites Stuff Asian People Like, Stuff Black Greeks Like, Stuff Black People Love, Stuff Desis/Brown People Like, Stuff Educated Black People Love, Stuff God Hates, Stuff Korean Moms Love, Stuff Nobody Likes, and even the very bizarre Stuff Stick Figure People Like. If there are any others out there that I'm missing - and I hope there are - please send them to me and I'll be sure to link.

Saxon Baird makes a good point that "It’s okay to laugh at Lander’s satire, of course, but white readers need to be self-aware and self-critical about why they are laughing, too." But isn't that true of most humor? Isn't it only ok to laugh at Jon Stewart and especially Stephen Colbert if you understand WHY it's funny?

Guess I hit a nerve... or was that the Potomac?

When I blogged about some of the factors that lead 20-somethings to choose living in the District or in NOVA, I thought I was just adding an interculturalist perspective to a pretty well-established fact - that people do all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons, including deciding where to live based on what kind of environment feels "right." In turn, those feelings can be based on cultural preferences formed in childhood that can be difficult to break. I've lived in apartments for most of my life, and to this day I intensely dislike being alone in a single-family home, especially at night, and even more so if there's a thunderstorm. I also know lots of people who cannot bring themselves to think of an apartment or condo as a real home, because a real home to them is a single-family home with a yard and a driveway. There's nothing wrong with either perspective, in fact it adds to the richness of life.
So why are so many people commenting on that, and primarily arguing for why their residential choice is the best, more rational one? I'm sure the mention on DCBlogs had something to do with it, but I doubt that's the whole story. It's a very concrete topic, for one. Additionally, intercultural studies as an academic discipline tends to make a lot of people uncomfortable. Political correctness is all about what unites us, whereas interculturalism by necessity looks at the less-obvious things that divide us. For that reason it's tempting to sweep it all under the rug - if you ignore it long enough, maybe it will go away! But talking about differences is the only way to reach across them. So keep on commenting and challenging us to refine our arguments, just keep it polite. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.