That's Not My America!

I stumbled upon this site through a private politics, religion and culture discussion board I frequent. Basically it's a blog where the author solely presents stereotypes of white people. Stuff White People Like presents such stereotypes as loving Barack Obama, being fans of Mos Def, liking bilingual children, and craving ethnic food and microbrews. While many of these stereotypes fit me quite nicely, they really don't apply to many of the white people I know at all. I've gone most of my life through circles in which these traits aren't of stereotypical white people but of a very small minority that are ridiculed by mainstream whites. In an effort to counter this liberal, urban, white hipster stereotype, I'm going to spend a few days sporadically presenting my version of Stuff Real White People Like. I'll even start off with a few freebies today.

And it's OK for me to generalize like this because I am, after all, mostly white.

1. White people like fried chicken and collard greens. Sure, that may sound like I forgot which ethnic group I was stereotyping, but the only time I've ever lived where there was a difference between soul food and regular food was my very short time living in Atlanta. This may not hold true up north, but that's because of the heavy influence of Eastern Europeans. If the majority of your ancestors didn't speak English as a first language (or at least live in an area where English fluency was more common than not) before they even decided to move to the colonies, then you aren't really white. This explains why Atlanta, with its large number of Yankee transplants with ancestors from locales other than the British Isles, doesn't have many places with friend chicken and collards. My wife is not white with her Greek, Hungarian and German heritage. She does not like collards. (But she does like fried chicken, but then everyone loves fried chicken. It's chicken. And it's fried. What's not to like?) My neighbors, who are white, it's even their last name, actually have a business of growing and cooking collard and mustard greens. Yum.

2. White people are as afraid of ethnic food as they are of ethnic people. It's true. Ethnic food does not taste like fried chicken and collard greens (or even barbecued pork and macaroni and cheese) and anything that is different is scary. Ethnic people do not look like fried chicken and collard greens and therefore are also scary because white people aren't sure if they're edible or not. Mexican food is OK as long as it's full of beef and chicken and smothered in cheese (and they have a light hand with the peppers.) Some white people will even dabble with the occasional Chinese food, as long as it's not something that could actually be considered truly authentic.

3. When it comes to living quarters, there are only three types of white people: Those who own a large plot of land and live in a trailer, those who live in trailer parks, and those who live in a unnecessarily giant McMansion on a plot of land so small that they could piss out of their bedroom window and give their neighbor a golden shower. Those who live on large tracts of land in small housing look down on both of the other types of white people, but don't we all?

4. White people may be good looking when they're young, but as soon as they graduate high school they get really fat and ugly. I don't know a single girl I thought was good looking in high school who isn't now fat and ugly with the exception of a couple who moved to places with high concentrations of pale-skinned but not-white people.

5. White people really like meth. In fact, all of the white adults who aren't fat are meth addicts. It's true. Just try to prove otherwise. You can't live on a diet of fried chicken, barbecued pork, macaroni and cheese, and collard greens cooked with enough pork parts to leave a greasy chin and not be fat unless you are a meth head.

6. White people inexplicably like country music, and not only in the South and West. It couldn't be the top radio format in the country if only rednecks were fans. Even my Cleveland-born father-in-law likes country. If you notice, my reader with the most unchecked hatred of the format is also descended from Italians, and therefore not white.

By the way, if you've got a few stereotypes to counter the yuppie as white stereotype presented on Things White People Life, I may even take your idea and claim it as my own with your submission of said idea.