Stuff White People Like (17 page)

It’s a pretty good idea, because when you have jokes that aren’t that great and music that isn’t that great, you can just mix them together to create something that will entertain white people.

So how can you use this knowledge to your advantage? If you find yourself at a corporate retreat where you have to put on a skit for the other employees in your office, it’s always a good idea to suggest doing a funny song. The rest of your group will get very excited and start work immediately on some clever lyrics. Do not worry about the music part. If you have more than two white males on your team, it is certain that one of them can play the guitar.

78 Multilingual Children

All white people want their children to speak another language. There are no exceptions. They dream about the children drifting between French and English as they bustle about the kitchen while they, as parents, read
The New York Times
and listen to jazz.

As white people age, they start to feel more and more angry with their parents for raising them in a monolingual home. At some point in their lives most white people attempt to learn a second language and are generally unable to get past ordering in a restaurant or overpronouncing a few key words. This failure is not attributed to their lack of effort, of course, but rather their parents, who didn’t teach them a new language during their formative years.

White people believe that if they had been given French language instruction when they were younger, their lives would have turned out very differently. Instead of living in the United States, they would be living and working abroad for the United Nations or some other organization with headquarters in Switzerland or The Hague.

Generally, white people prefer their children to speak French. Advanced white people will actually spend outrageous amounts of money to send their children to a Lycée or Ecole Française. But the vast majority will abandon their dreams when they realize that they will someday need a second mortgage so their child can one day have a better study-abroad experience in France.

Languages such as German, Spanish, Swedish, or Italian are also acceptable, but are considered to be poor substitutes, especially Spanish. At the time of writing, it is considered expert-level white-person behavior to have the children speaking Asian or African languages.

There is only one way to use this information to your advantage: speaking another language means that white people are more likely to want to have children with you. It is seen as a cheaper alternative to language schools.

79 Modern Furniture

When white people envision their dream home, a key part of the fantasy involves at least one piece of furniture designed by a famous architect from the ’30s.

Architects like Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier designed iconic modern furniture that has inspired virtually everything made by IKEA and Design Within Reach, both of which are key suppliers of furniture to white people. As with all things, white people will do whatever it takes to secure authenticity, including paying thousands of dollars for a small piece of furniture. If they are able to acquire this prized furniture, they will forever refer to it only by the designer’s name. “I spend hours in the van der Rohe, just looking through these beautiful books of his work.”

Referring to a white person’s expensive chair as a “chair” is considered poor form and will likely result in a loss of trust and/or respect. The best strategy for avoiding this faux pas is to look for the most uncomfortable chair in a white person’s home and ask, “Who designed that?” If they say “IKEA” or “Design Within Reach,” you can call it a chair; otherwise refer to it only by the name they give you.

It should also be noted that many white people are unable to acquire this furniture, but that does not mean you cannot use this information to your advantage. In situations where you need to improve your connection with a white person, just mention how you hope to be successful enough to one day afford an original piece of furniture by (insert obscurely named architect). If they have heard of the designer they will nod in agreement; if they have not, they will also nod in agreement and make a note to look it up later.

In either case, your status will rise.

80 The Idea of Soccer

Many white people will tell you that they are very into soccer. But be careful. It’s a trap.

If you then attempt to engage them about your favorite soccer team or talk about famous moments in soccer history, you are likely to be met with blank stares. This is because white people don’t actually enjoy watching soccer. They just like telling their friends that they are into it.

In fact, the main reason white people like soccer is so they can buy a new scarf. As you may or may not know, many soccer teams issue special scarves, and white people cannot get enough of them!

Most white people choose a favorite soccer team based on either a study-abroad experience or a particularly long vacation to Europe or South America. When they return, they like to tell their friends about how great “football” is and that they are committed to “getting more into it” now that they have returned home. Some white people take this charade so far as to actually play in adult soccer leagues or attend local professional matches.

The best method for exploiting this tendency is to ask a white person who their favorite football team is and how they came to be a fan. This will allow them to tell you about their time abroad and feel as though they have impressed you with their knowledge. Once they have finished talking, it is acceptable to ask for favors.

Note: European white people actually are into soccer and are exempt from this entry. However, they are free to use it to their advantage when in North America.

81 Graduate School

Being white means to engage in a day-in, day-out struggle to prove that you are smarter than other white people. By the time they reach college, most white people are confronted with the fact that they may not be as smart as they imagined.

In coffeeshops, bars, and classes white people will engage in conversations about authors and theorists that go nowhere as both parties start rattling off progressively more obscure people until eventually one side recognizes one and claims a victory. By the time they graduate (or a year or two afterward), white people realize that they will need an edge to succeed in the cutthroat world of modern white society.

That edge is graduate school.

Though professional graduate subjects like Law and Medicine are desirable, the true ivory tower of academia is most coveted, as it imparts true, useless knowledge. The best subjects are English, History, Art History, Film, Gender Studies, [insert nationality] Studies, Classics, Philosophy, Political Science, [insert European nationality] Literature, and the ultimate: Comp. Lit. MFAs are also acceptable.

Returning to school is an opportunity to join an elite group of people who have a passion for learning that is so great they are willing to forgo low-five-figure publishing and media jobs to follow their dreams of academic glory.

Being in graduate school satisfies many white requirements for happiness. They can believe they are helping the world, complain that the government/university doesn’t support them enough, claim they are poor, feel as though they are getting smarter, act superior to other people, enjoy perpetual three-day weekends, and sleep in every day of the week!

After acquiring a master’s degree that will not increase their salary or hiring desirability, many white people will move on to a PhD program, where they will attempt to realize their dream of becoming a professor. However, by their second year they usually wake up with a hangover and realize: “I’m going to spend six years in graduate school to make $35,000 a year and live in the middle of nowhere?”

After this crisis, a white person will follow one of two paths. The first involves dropping out and moving to New York, San Francisco, or their original hometown, where they can resume the job that they left to attend graduate school. At this point, they can feel superior to everyone still in graduate school and say things like “A PhD is a testament to perseverance, not intelligence.” They can also impress their friends at parties by referencing Jacques Lacan or Slavoj Zizek in a conversation about
American Idol.

The second path involves becoming a professor, moving to a small town, and telling the local residents how they are awful and uncultured.

It is important to understand that a graduate degree does not make someone smart, so do not feel intimidated. They may have read more, but in no way does that make them smarter, more competent, or more likable than you. The best thing you can do is to act impressed when a white person talks about critical theorists. This helps them reaffirm that what they learned in graduate school was important and that they are smarter than you. This makes white people easier to deal with when you get promoted ahead of them.

82 Hating Corporations

One of the more popular white-person activities of the past fifteen years has been attempting to educate others on the evils of multinational corporations. White people love nothing more than explaining to you how Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Microsoft, or Halliburton is destroying the Earth’s cultures and resources.

While the growth of multinational corporations can be attributed to a number of complex social, economic, and political factors, many white people prefer to take the word of two trusted sources:
No Logo
and
AdBusters.