Stuff White People Like (26 page)

News sources are ranked on a strict hierarchy, and your choice in the matter can be the difference between respect and mockery. Generally speaking, foreign news sources cannot be topped in terms of quality and status. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the gold standard since it’s foreign, available on PBS, and focused strictly on international news (always the best). If a white person starts talking about a “piece they saw on the BBC about Sumatra,” it can be almost impossible to trump them. However, there is an ace in the hole that should only be used in emergencies—when respect and status lie in the critical balance.

If you can properly cite a foreign news source in a foreign language you will be viewed in the highest regard. “Oh, that piece on the BBC was good, but I saw this amazing story on TV5/RTL/RAI/NHK that really opened my eyes on the subject. I have to pay an extra fifteen dollars a month for the channel, but it really is worth it. It’s one of the few ways I can keep up my French/German/Italian/Japanese in this country.”

A white person might respond by saying they do not own a TV, but that is essentially a last-ditch effort to save face.

A final note: If you do need to cite an American news source, CNN and MSNBC are acceptable, though not encouraged. Major networks such as ABC, NBC, and CBS are fairly neutral, although mentioning local news will speak poorly of your intelligence. Most important, if you even mention Fox News you will have lost respect and credibility to such a high degree that you might have to move.

In fact, it is a good idea to tell white people that you have called your cable company and asked it to remove Fox News from your programming package, and that it was done at a considerable cost.

116 Subtitles

We already know that film is very important to the cultural development of white people. So when you are talking to them about films, it’s essential to understand a few rules.

The simplest rule to follow is that every foreign film is good. Amazingly, in the history of cinema, the only truly awful films ever produced have been in English. Any film that features subtitles is regarded as excellent since it is produced outside of the “Hollywood system,” and therefore is more free to delve into real issues of modern life and unbridled artistic expression. There are no exceptions.

Be aware that if white people know your nation of ancestry, they will expect you to be familiar with the films of that nation. This has created a heavy burden on Asian people, especially the Chinese and Japanese. If you are able to recommend a film or director that is particularly obscure, a white person will immediately count you among their closest friends—but be prepared for when they get the director’s entire catalog from Netflix and want to talk to you about it.

The best way to use this knowledge to your advantage is if you are trying to create a romantic relationship with a white person. Scan the paper for the foreign films playing at your local art-house theater, and suggest it as a possible date. The white person will be unable to turn you down, as rejecting you would be rejecting foreign film, and if you were to say, “Oh, you don’t like foreign films? I’m sorry, I really misjudged you. Have fun at
Harry Potter,
” their shame might be enough to propel the date into a full-scale relationship.

117 Premium Juice

If you live in an area with a lot of white people and are looking for a way to make money, there are few sounder plans than to sell them premium juice. Yoga studios, organic co-ops, and breakfast places will all make money, but in terms of national franchising and profit margins, nothing can beat premium juice.

The white person’s obsession with expensive juice has helped launch a number of prominent orange juice companies as well as breakfast places offering up $6 glasses of “fresh-squeezed” orange juice. However, this has become so commonplace that there is no status associated with merely drinking juice from an orange.

The ideal white-person juice costs between $3 and $6, contains a blend of organic fruit, and is infused with some sort of vitamin or medicinal herb (echinacea is best). There are some instances where the juice is simply that of a single fruit, but in those cases it must be a fruit that seems difficult to juice—pomegranate, for example.

Traditional white medicine holds that drinking juice can cure and prevent colds. The potency of the juice is determined by its rarity and organicness, as well as the ecological commitment of the juice manufacturer. If you do not have time to investigate how each company produces its product, just buy the most expensive.

Aside from using this information to start a new business, it can be very useful in the office. If you are picking up lunch for a white person and they ask you to get them something to drink, bringing back an Odwalla or Naked Juice will be met with joy and awe. It will create the impression that you care about their health and do not spare any expense when it comes to workplace health. Also, the gift economy of the office dictates that this person must then get you a juice of equal or higher value when they purchase lunch. If they fail to do this within a week, you can point it out to other workers and slowly climb over them on the corporate ladder.

118 The ACLU

Though white people are a fiercely independent group, there are certain organizations they depend upon to help protect their rights and freedoms: Greenpeace,
MoveOn.org
, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and, most important, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Perhaps one of the most universal things on this list is white people’s love of the ACLU and its actions. And why not? It incorporates so many things that white people love: lawyers, religions their parents don’t belong to, knowing what’s best for poor people, nonprofit organizations, and expensive sandwiches. (The last point is not confirmed, but it’s a pretty safe bet to say that there is nothing ACLU lawyers like more than removing the Ten Commandments from public places and then digging into a nice panino.)

Though the stated goal of the ACLU is “to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States,” in recent years their top priority has been to protect white people from having to look at things they don’t like. At the top of this list is anything that has to do with Christianity: Ten Commandments tablets, public signs that mention God or Jesus, nativity scenes, any sort of Christian statue. Though some would say this is because white people hate Christianity, that is not true. White people simply do not enjoy the aesthetics of Christian artifacts. They much prefer Hindu or Buddhist furniture and imagery, and generally consider Christianity to be a little trashy.

The ACLU also helps to defend the parts of the Bill of Rights that white people like (everything but the right to bear arms).

WARNING: When talking about the ACLU with white people, it is best not to point out any contradictions in their support of the organization, as this will anger and upset white people on a level you have never experienced.

119 Plaid

Unlike many of the things on this list, white people have not agreed to love plaid flannel blindly and in perpetuity. In fact, the past fifty years have seen the popularity of plaid ebb and flow like the tides at virtually the same level of predictability.

Much in the same way that the tides are tied to the moon, plaid is tied very strongly to music. During periods when more folk-like or Country-Western music is popular, the torsos of white people will be decked out in some variety of plaid. The modern birth of flannel-based plaid occurred during the ’70s when bands like the Byrds, the Grateful Dead, and the Eagles brought a Country-Western aesthetic to rock music. The current iteration has been closely tied to the growth of a folksier blend of indie music.

However, the “grunge” era seems to poke a hole in this theory, as white people were wearing plaid and listening to music that was closer to punk than to folk music. There are two schools of thought on this issue. The first is that grunge served a folk-like function by providing a voice to a marginalized generation in the same way that Woody Guthrie did during the Depression. The other school of thought is “Who cares about grunge? I thought Kurt Cobain wore sweaters and stuff.” This era also featured a significant number of rappers and gang members wearing plaid, again adding to its status as an anomaly.

It is important to understand the role of plaid in white culture, because a lack of awareness could result in a major social mistake. You see, the wrong kind of white people have seen no ebb and/or flow in their love for plaid clothing. So depending on the position in the cycle, if you were to run into a Caucasian person in an airport wearing a plaid shirt, big belt buckle, raw denim, and some faded shoes, your first instinct might be “Oh, a white person. I’ll tell him how much I like Brooklyn and Yeasayer so I can trade seats with him.”

But be careful! You might be looking at the wrong kind of white person, who will probably be quite offended if you imply he’s from San Francisco. The lesson here is that if you are not in a white enclave, it’s best to assume that people dressed like farmers are farmers. This is not only to prevent offending the wrong kind of white person, but also, if you mistake a regular white person for a farmer, they will feel pretty good that they look authentic. You can’t lose.

120 Platonic Friendships

When you see a white woman and a white man eating dinner together, watching a movie, or drinking at a bar you probably think they are a couple. Not so fast! White people often engage in something called a “platonic friendship.” These arrangements feature a white male who is in love with a white female who needs companionship or access to someone with a car.

The relationship is symbiotic for a long time as the white male believes he is making “progress” in his efforts to sleep with the white woman. The white female is in turn rewarded with companionship, someone to help her move, and an excellent “backup” plan in case she is unable to date the male of her choice. (Note: There are instances where the male and female roles are reversed, but these are far rarer.)