Whiteness

Rhonda enjoyed the "stuffwhitepeoplelike" link (below) so much that she took to reading it to me as we were finishing dinner last night. She looked at me with Rhonda-serious face and said, "You KNOW we are those white people, right?"

And we are.

The stuffwhitepeoplelike blog is really, I think, about what young, white, urban, liberals like. My parents, for instance, definitely don't know, let alone like, Mos Def, and I am pretty sure they don't really like being the only white people around. But for me, so much of this is true. The first entry I read when I first read the site proclaimed: white people love being the only white person around. especially in an "ethnic" restaurant. So true. It is a sign of authenticity. Conversely, seeing lots of white people in, say, a Chinese restaurant is a disappointment (especially in Seattle) meaning that it is americanized Chinese food. According to this logic, if a lot of white people like it, the food isn't good. Which brings me to a new contribution:

White people like thinking they are better than, more sophisticated than, other white people. (I am hugely guilty of this -- read the rest of this post for further proof.)

This week in my 102 classes I am showing a film by Saul Williams called Slam! It is a movie about a young black man in D.C. who struggles to find his way through poverty and violence while writing. He is a poet and a writer who uses these skills to survive.

I have used this film in teaching before. But, I have never showed it to a room of entirely white students. The only exception of whiteness in my classes these days are my international students from Asia. And when preparing to watch this film, one of my international students openly balked: Y, from Russia, said " Professor. I have hard time understanding Black people talking."

Y is not alone. Her American counterparts also had a hard time understanding the movie. And they are confused by and afraid of Black people. They don't know any. The community here is reported to be 98% white. Some of my students are a small part Native (as we are in what was the center of the Menominee nation). Nonetheless, these students still identify as white. The one student who seemed to really like the movie, came up to me after class and said: "I, like, totally got it... 'cause, my boyfriend is Black."

But, back to the point. The white liberal in me is definitely uncomfortable being surrounded by all white people, living in a mostly-white town, and being completely immersed in white culture. I feel lame, I feel like a sellout. I do feel REALLY white.