Warning: This is a parody. Do not try this at home!
As part of White History Month, get to know a European American! The secret is to put them at ease by talking to them the way they talk to you.
Some tips:
- Their English: As a courtesy, speak slowly and loudly until you know how good their English is. If their English is good, be sure compliment them:
- “Wow, your English is perfect!”
- “You are so articulate!”
- European American names: Mispronounce them! Or better yet, change them to something easier for you to say. Or just call them “dude” or “girl”. Who can remember their names and tell them apart?
- Ask where they are from. If they do not give a place in Europe, ask where their family is from. If they still do not tell you some place in Europe, ask where their family is really from.
- Show an appreciation for their rich ethnic culture: “I like…”
- NPR,
- Starbucks,
- McDonald’s,
- The History Channel,
- The New York Times,
- “Jersey Shore”,
- John Grisham,
- Miley Cyrus,
- NASCAR,
- “Eat, Pray, Love”,
- Honey Boo Boo.
- Tip: All European Americans know each other!
- Handy words and phrases:
- “cracka” – a term of endearment.
- “European American” – overuse it!
- “My European American professor said…”
- “exotic” – any White person or thing that you like. It is a compliment!
- “trailer trash” – any White person or thing that you do not like.
- “That’s so trailer-trash.”
- “What kind of trailer-trash name is that?”
- “I don’t hate all White people, just trailer trash.”
- “cultural background” – why Whites are so trailer-trash.
- “I’m not racist, but…” – then say something completely racist. No one will mind.
- “Jennifer Aniston” – what every White woman looks like. She is like the Lucy Liu of White women.
- Handy expressions:
- “I don’t care if you’re black, white, brown, yellow, green or purple …”
- “You’re not like those other White people. In fact, I don’t see you as White at all.”
- “The Holocaust was a hundred years ago. Get over it!”
- Tip: Do not put yourself in their shoes!
- How to compliment a White woman:
- “Is that your real hair? Can I touch it?”
- “I’ve never been with a White woman before. You’ll be my first.”
- “Wow, you are very attractive for a White woman.”
- “You’re so pretty. You don’t even look White!”
- “Hey, you’re pretty! You look just like Jennifer Aniston.”
- Show concern for the White community by talking down to them about:
- White divorced fathers,
- White suicide rate,
- White anorexia,
- White child molesters,
- White serial killers,
- White school shootings,
- White trailer parks.
- Bring up Hitler, the Klan, Bill O’Reilly, Don Imus, Bernie Madoff, their Neanderthal genes.
- Tell a racist joke about White people. They love racist jokes!
- Tip: All European Americans think alike.
- If they are offended by any of this and call you a racist, just say:
- “You’re being oversensitive.”
- “You’re playing the race card.”
- “You’re racist for saying I’m racist.”
- “But my White friend wasn’t offended.”
- “You just don’t want to hear the truth.”
- “My best friend is White.”
See also:
LOL!
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LOL!
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“I don’t hate all White people, just trailer trash.”
I actually have said this before.
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Classic! :D. Don’t forget shows like Girls (on HBO) and Duck Dynasty- true to life character studies of the ways of white folk. LOL
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This should be turned into a movie! Hahaha.
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Show an appreciation for their rich ethnic culture:
Ask them if they’ll teach you how to wear shorts and sandals in the winter, Square Dance, spit long distances…and how to kiss their pets on their mouths.
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“Neanderthal genes” isn’t that a secret?If Blacks had Neanderthal genes it certainly would be proof of inferiority,you would hear about it everyday.
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This: post has several particularly useful lines and concepts that will be helpful in showing the “but I’M not racist” type people I know just how racist they actually are. Not that they’ll listen or take it to heart, but it’s worth a shot. My favorite is the insistent “where are you from?” “Where is your family from?” “Where is your family REALLY from?” The Jennifer Aniston part is good too…
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@Matari: you forgot the plural-marriage-sister-wives-marry-off-your-9-year-old-daughter-to-the50-
something-cult-leader nut balls. And the Duggars with their “Quivverful” movement. They are so exotic!
😉
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“you forgot the plural-marriage-sister-wives-marry-off-your-9-year-old-daughter-to-the50-”
*********
Melanie S,
Shades of Warren Jeffs, the Texas cult religious commune leader in Texas(?) that was convicted precisely of that sort of hanky-panky!
Actually, I didn’t forget …. I was trying to keep it relatively nice and clean…
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Interesting tit for tat…I love it when black people, flip the script on white people. ^_^
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@Matari: LOL! Brother, you are brutal. HA! HA!
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@Mary
Who.me?? : )
At least I didn’t go into white people remind me of, “We are THE BORG. Resistance is FUTILE! We WILL assimilate …” thing. lol
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Funny — and thought-provoking
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Lol! If we treat white people the way they treat us. Can you imagine a white person’s face if you call them “exotic” or “ethnic”?
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I actually made blog articles with the following titles:
“I Don’t Hate White People, but…”
“White Women Annoy Me.”
I’ve written them during my Blaque Ink days.
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bwhahwa u are too funny abagond.
1. when u greet them say howdy because that is how they talk to each other in the movies, but greet other races with respect and just say hello.
2. tell them they are the (insert other race) est white person you know when they speak properly.
3. crack jokes about their skin tone and their hair in front of them
4. call them c#cka, ho4ky or b1ch because that is the way they talk to each other in the movies and videos so they must all embrace that language.
5. call them an uppity cr2ka or ungrateful when they speak against injustice and tell them to go back to Europe if they don’t like it.
6. make fun of their murdered youth and dress up as them for Halloween.
7. appropriate their culture and when they complain tell them it doesn’t belong to them
8. objectify white women and reduce their womanhood to how big their body part is
9. tell white men how ugly and undesirable white women are while saying how beautiful the other women are
10. make jokes about the food they eat
11. say out loud how much u feel like a minority whenever a lot of whites are around, but don’t say that when it’s a lot of other races around.
12. ask them a question about another white person or ask them what they think about about white entertainers, avoid deep conversations.
13, say that u are not racist because u have a white friend and that u ate dinner with them once
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“Hey, you’re pretty! You look just like Jennifer Aniston.”
lol even the ones that don’t look like Jennifer aniston and they have a completely different eye color and hair color tell them they look like Jennifer because that is the only attractive white woman you see on tv, who has time to know or acknowledge the other women that are different shades, hair colors, eye colors no just pick one and measure them all to that one woman.
oh and then tell them halle berry is an attractive white woman.
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Hey whats wrong with NPR…?
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I never really understand or appreciate your parody pieces. This piece falls flat with me, we don’t have a shared sense of humour, I guess.
I do think Stuff White People Like is funny/amusing.
—————————————————————-
Re: #4
Where do you get all that stuff as being funny or a parody of a stereotyped white person? The list has too many class elements to be generalist of mocking whites as a whole.
• Yoga Class instead of eat pray love
• Talk radio instead of NPR
• Shouldn’t baseball or NFL (football) come before any mention of NASCAR
• The internet!
• Not reading anything not on the internet!
• Getting angry when brown people dance better than them. (this happened to me)
• Going to a venue with lots of dancing happening, but insisting on standing and not dancing, done against a wall, where you can stare everyone down.
• Voting for Obama! (you know, as a favour to black people.)
————————-
and how to kiss their pets on their mouths.
^ I can’t out do that one, ugh, how they love doing that. I once questioned the practice to a person in high school. He got pretty angry and told me dogs have less bacteria in their mouths than a human does. Okay pal, *forehead slap*.
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“The Holocaust was a hundred years ago. Get over it!”
It doesn’t work. Jews are Jews.
(Yeah, yeah, I know there are white jews but it still doesn’t work.)
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You like doing the Jennifer Aniston thing but I don’t get that either.
A choice of stereotype would be (american) white women wishing to be one of the embodiments of the Sex and the City characters, no?
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Oh, thanks mstoogood, I think I get the intent now.
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I have actually called someone exotic. I am living in Berlin, and one of my ex boyfriend’s cousins said to me: “They stare at you, because you are so exotic to them.” I responded, that he was also exotic to me, because I had never really met any native Germans before I visiting Germany.
His response: “Oh no, I am normal.” That said it all for me.
I still find a blonde hair, blue eyed person to be very exotic. It is a recessive gene, does not occur so often in nature. Hilarious post though, I have use these.
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Yeah, that would be pointless.
I have used a few of those in the workplace, at bars, etc. Normally it does not go over very well and they don’t invite me any more.
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@ legion
yeah the Jennifer aniston thing is like the reverse of what black women hear. of how we all look like beyonce when we are considered attractive, nevermind that we are different shades or don’t have the same features as beyonce. a white guy once shouted across the mall at me and said I look like beyonce, I look nothing like her i’m darker than her and my hair is short and I do not have a body like her. and to a lot of them we all look alike anyways, how else do they continue to mistake black folks for another black person even if one black person is an actor (morgan freeman) and the other was not (nelson mandela) or they mistake a black woman(Alfre Woodard) for idris elba.
But for black women we are either compared to beyonce or any other woman that has more European features. we are never compared to say india arie, jill scott, nina simone, etc, it’s always the approved black woman that usually has straight hair, lighter skin, etc. but then again some people may not even know who those women are and don’t care to know.
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[…] "As part of White History Month, get to know a European American! The secret is to put them at ease by talking to them the way they talk to you." […]
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You forgot, you are going to have to learn about lighting farts and mooning people while drunk in a passing car
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The npr thing is lame , Im debating whether I should rip that to shreds on the DORF thread
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Abagond, this one totally works.
On a serious note, even some white people will get it. Really, this role-reversal thing makes some very effective points.
I’m going to link it around a little and see what reaction I get.
And it IS funny!
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And that pic! LMFAO. 😀
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@ buddhu
Yeah, it kind of fell flat for me. It’s not really accurate to title this, ‘How to get to know a white person” – almost every single point was a reference to American culture. I don’t know anyone who thinks Jennifer Aniston is good looking. Trailer parks don’t really exist here so that wouldn’t work either.
I thought the ‘joke’ about the Holocaust was very UNFUNNY since some people actually do say this and, in fact, a couple of people have made similar comments (e.g. get over it, it was decades ago etc) on this very blog.
The suggestion to ask the ‘Where are you ‘really’ from question’ was a good one though. My husband is asked this constantly and it is ridiculous.
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Love this! Great job Abagond. *mstoogood4yall, I love all yours too.
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[…] Reblogged from https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/get-to-know-a-white-person/ […]
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Reblogged.
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“You forgot, you are going to have to learn about lighting farts and mooning people while drunk in a passing car”
*************
Hey B.R.
Speaking of drunk, what’s up with the folks who will RIOT after watching a major sports event? They’ll riot, overturn cars and start fires if their team WINS – OR if their team LOSES.
I’ve also noticed that the men who are members of a Polar Bear Club go ocean swimming during the winter in very frigid temperatures with just a pair of ordinary swimming trunks on, are white.
White people don’t seem to have any checks about going into places where they are few in number. Are all/most white people born with a personal “Manifest Destiny” code imbedded in their DNA that causes them to trespass boundaries whether they are welcome or not?
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@ mstoogood
Thanks, I get the points you are making.
we are never compared to say india arie, jill scott, nina simone, etc, it’s always the approved black woman that usually has straight hair, lighter skin, etc.
Hmm, well none of those women would be flattery comparisons that I’d try to use either, but that’s me.
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@ mstoogood4yall
Thank you.
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haha, good points , Matari…imagine winning a champianship, getting drunk, destroying things, lighting farts and mooning people in passing cars all at once…that is scary
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@ Legion @ Wordy
Mstoogood4yall understood what I meant by Jennifer Aniston.
When I wrote the post I tried not to overthink it too much, because the whole point was to show how nuts prejudiced thinking is by flipping it onto White Americans.
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@ Wordy
I try to keep my titles short but set the scope in the first paragraph. So the title says “White” but the first paragraph talks about European Americans.
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Lmao
Man, you’ve got this down perfectly! You know which one really gets on my nerves? The “you’re racist for saying I’m racist.” The other day I came across a conversation where two women of colour were complaining about a White woman there who had used the n word, and another White woman who was there told them they were racists for perceiving the White woman who had used the n word as a racist. I couldn’t believe it.
This list, it’s kinda funny how we’re just not like that, even if we tried, it’s just not in our nature, in my experience.
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@Abagond
Mstoogood4yall understood what I meant by Jennifer Aniston.
Yes she did, I was glad for her explanation.
When I wrote the post I tried not to over think it too much, because the whole point was to show how nuts prejudiced thinking is by flipping it onto White Americans.
I hear you. A lot of prejudice is nuts, to be sure. However, a lot of prejudice still goes on. Humans don’t have time or inclination to meet everyone (six billion) and discover how wonderful each person might be. Since that’s the case it seems empathy and reason are two good personal allies to have, in order to keep from slipping too far (if at all) into prejudice. However, we are constantly getting programming from the environment and may or may not have the proper psychological filters up to morally discriminate the programming coming in. So while we may step back and make fun of our human foibles, like prejudice, there are real mental/emotional mechanisms at work all the time.
We can dismiss Tim McVeigh as a monster but he wasn’t always a monster, he somehow became that way. In some way I was trying to touch on some related aspect of this in the China thread, it fell flat, so to speak, with the other person though.
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@ William The Conqueror
NPR is a good radio station, just like the New York Times is a good newspaper, but both are, in effect, by and for upper-middle-class White Americans.
For me, the defining moment came when I saw a picture of my neighbourhood in the New York Times – taken from a police car!! That said it all.
Starbucks is like that too, as George Ryder pointed out: they only show up when your neighbourhood is being gentrified and White people start moving in.
And so is McDonald’s, despite their heavy marketing to Blacks: you know you live in a hardcore ghetto when there are no McDonald’s and yet there is, say, a Church’s Chicken.
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Re: s’bucks and mcd
Well, it’s called having a business model.
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Jennifer Aniston” – what every White woman looks like.
From what I have come to understand, when BW are told they look like someone, it is often someone who is NOT generally attractive. Apparently, this serves the purpose of:
* Reminding them that they are not perceived as being attractive
* Being able to disregard them – they are no threat.
* Sometimes to be an object of someone elses humour
For your comment to work, Jennifer Aniston would need to be widely perceived as unnatractive. I personally do not find her appealing but, I think that someone like Rosie O’Donnel (sorry, I do feel bad for putting it out there) or someone like that – someone who is not ‘known’ for their looks.
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@Abagond…”Starbucks is like that too, as George Ryder pointed out: they only show up when your neighbourhood is being gentrified and White people start moving in.”
Please don’t be offended by my question, it is an honest inquiry and not an opinion. Do you think that because of the nature of our white society, the never ending racism be it obvious or ambiguous and the inability of Blacks to trust whites that you see racism in everything and have you ever went back over your thoughts and changed your mind about something because of this?
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@ Omnipresent
From what I have come to understand, when BW are told they look like someone, it is often someone who is NOT generally attractive.
^If insult and marginalization are the objective.
If flattery is the objective, then idiotic praise about someone who is current flavour of the month (beyonce) might get used.
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@ George
I did a post on gentrification:
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@George….This is why I asked Abagond and not George, because George has the inability to look at anything and see it for what it is and not something his paranoid head case assumes…Not that I need to explain myself but i will for everyone in the room less George. My first comments were why i asked the second part. Given that racism is so prevalent and that most Blacks have had some degree of exposure to racism or quite a bit, do you think that sometimes you see something as racist that may not be racist at all? I unfortunately may have not used the right words the first time but if there is one thing that no one has to worry about when William The Conqueror asks a question is that it is LOADED! George you have doubted my sincerity before, don’t make a habit of it…..
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@Abagond…the reason i asked this question is that most of the time racism is abundantly clear to me. But every now and then I have a hard time seeing it. Obviously when someone explains it to me I can see why it may be racist but sometimes I think to myself that Blacks have been exposed to white society and racism so much that one of the side affects is perceived racism. This again is not an opinion…this is only a thought, a question, possibly a theory. I can only imagine what it may be like, because I have no way of knowing, I am white?
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Legion
If insult and marginalization are the objective.
Yes, but it seems to be more than this. It is not ‘outwardly’ presented as insult but more as a ‘matter of fact’. This so called resemblence can be as small as the same shade of skin even. Apparently, there is little or no concern as to whether a compliment is being paid or not – it is simply to say, ‘this is how I see you – deal with it and dont complain’
Not easy trying to write what is in the mind of women 🙂
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@George…thank you, I think.
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@ William The Conqueror
When it comes to racism in America, Blacks are way more on point than Whites. Whites are not its victims and have reason to play it down. This is easy to prove. For example, a Gallup poll in 1962 showed that 85% of Whites thought that Black children in their community had just as good a chance of getting a good education as White children.
If anything, the danger is not that Blacks will overestimate racism but rather that they will underestimate it because of their own internalized racism.
In my own case, I have, throughout my life, consistently underestimated how racist Whites were. Or, to put it another way, the older I get the more I see how profound racism is among them. It goes WAY beyond anything I imagined.
When people are close-minded and do not test their ideas against the facts, their views do not change. Mine have, pretty dramatically:
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@ B.R.
Rip away., Please. Just stay within the comment policy.
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@Abagond…thank you.
@George…understood, thanks.
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OK, I get it that when some white people try to be nice and complimentary it comes off as condescending. I understand why that would make some black people angry and avoid whites or places where whites congregate.
But you mean to tell me that black people don’t light their farts too?
That was funny as hell to me….
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Jennifer Aniston? She is not beautiful or even pretty. She is average looking at best. Scarlett Johannsen would have been a better choice to use as a beautiful White woman. Other than that, I agree with this post
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Jennifer Aniston looks like she could be one of those women you see on those cougar dating sites that are free to join.
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awww my ghetto’s not hardcore because we have a mcdonalds
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Kiwi,
Why would those medical professionals speak to you like that – are you institutionalized? Need to keep on those meds? I’m starting to understand your point of view now.
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@abagond.. two wrongs don’t make a right. Especially against a random person. You can say it’s parody all you want… but I felt the ring of truth from your soul. At least from your point of view. Bottom line if you don’t want people to make ASSumptions about all black people you shouldn’t do the same in reverse.
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@ Adeen
Scarlett Johannsen would have been a better choice to use as a beautiful White woman.
Johannsen?! She looks like any girl you went to high school with. She gets marketed as an object of desire but I’m not feelin it. Sometimes guys will bring her up in conversation and expect a reaction, I always look at them like I’m watching paint dry.
Sigourney Weaver, Kim Bassinger, those are two beautiful women.
http://www.play4movie.com/en/Fashion/Kim-Basinger-60-Got-a-Contract-With-The-Same-Modelling-Agency-Of-Her-Daughter-1297
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Don’t forget the non-apology apology when they get offended by any of it:
“I’m sorry IF you were offended…” instead of the more appropriate “I’m sorry for offending you” or “I’m sorry that I offended you.”
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Hey Dave, you’re a little late and your comment is falling flat.
Here’s why:
Abagond said:When I wrote the post I tried not to overthink it too much, because the whole point was to show how nuts prejudiced thinking is by flipping it onto White Americans.
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I think that it is quite normal to ask an American where he is really from, irrespectively whether he is white or black or asian. Because it is easier to relate to a person if you really know her ancestry or background, rather than to relate to a non-descript “American”, since American is just a citizenship not an ethnicity.
If a white guy tells me he is “just American” and has no other ancestry or background I would certainly respond “Wow, then you shall be a native American. but do not like one”:))
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Wow, then you shall be a native American. but do not look like one
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eh, i thought jenifer aniston was hot in ‘office space,’ after that, not so much, then again i was a lot younger when that came out
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^ Jennifer Aniston is gorgeous.
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@ Legion
Really? She has great arms and hair. Other than that, I just don’t see it.
Sigourney and Kim B are definitely beautiful though. Sigourney’s so effortlessly elegant – I’d love to have even 1/10th of her grace.
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^ You know, I nearly added in my comment that you’d think I’m nuts. 🙂
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@Abagond,
This is exactly what I saw in the metro DC area.
I never saw any starbucks east of the Anacostia River or in inner areas in PG county near the DC line. I only saw one starbucks in southern or central suburban areas in PG county (ie, south of Central avenue) which has about 400,000 people and is a basically middle class (albeit majority black). But starbucks did start popping up in former non-white neighborhoods like Adams Morgan and Capitol Hill after they became majority white.
As a young child, I used to go to one of the first McDonald’s in the metro DC area located in Anacostia. It closed down in the 1970s and I have not seen a single McD open up east of the Anacostia since. However, there are still some in suburban PG county in neighborhoods that are majority black, but not in the poorer areas bordering on Anacostia.
They do indeed have Church’s chicken, in addition to a few short order shops run by Asian-Americans.
So I guess is means:
Starbucks in neighborhood – almost certain to be a white middle class or gentrified neighborhood (if not located in a central urban commercial district).
McDonald’s in neighborhood – very unlikely to be a poor black neighborhood
I wonder what it means when they open up overseas. I do not live in the USA, but I have TWO starbucks within 2 short blocks of me.
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There are some McDonald cafes in Lithuania, one of them quite close to the place I work, but I have not heard anything about Starbucks in Lithuania.
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@ Legion
LOL 🙂
But what would I know anyway? I’m not a bloke so maybe I’m blind to her finer points.
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@ jefe
Your question about what happens when Starbucks open overseas is really interesting. I certainly don’t know what the answer is but the conversation about Starbucks reminds me of the weird “된장녀” (Doenjang/bean paste girl) stereotype in Korea.
Basically a 된장녀 is a girl who’s a bit materialistic and spends most of her money on designer labels and – wait for it – Starbucks! A cup of Starbucks coffee costs the equivalent of about 7-8 dollars in Seoul.
They’re called ‘bean paste girls’ because the joke is that so much of their money goes on labels/Starbucks etc that they only have enough left for a 5000KRW bowl of doenjang soup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doenjang_Girl).
I don’t know if there are any women at all who actually fit this stereotype. One Korean friend of mine did tell me that his ex would save a Starbucks cup and then reuse it. The aim was to walk around with what looked like an expensive cup of joe when in reality it was just instant coffee. So maybe this suggests that at least in Korea Starbucks is a symbol of gentrification of sorts.
Funnily enough Starbucks has closed nearly all of its stores in Australia because we have such a strong independent coffee culture here (http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/32188.html). It’s the first country where Starbucks has failed to make a solid entry in the market.
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@ wordynerdygirl
I saw Starbucks open up in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, etc. even Mainland China way before they opened up in Hong Kong. Taiwan (and Japan for that matter) had coffee shop culture way before Starbucks. I remember the Taiwanese coffeeshops from the 1980s, and they are still popular today, but represent an old fashioned image – where people go to read, not chitchat. But Starbucks still took off there in the 1990s, as it did in Japan too.
They didn’t open in HK until the 2000s, but they took off quickly, esp. in the business districts and tourist districts. Now on both the PRC and HK sides of border, there is a starbucks there to greet you. In HK, I think they have represent a cosmopolitan or upscale image to them, and attract a lot of overseas people (including overseas educated HK people). It is a place where you can go in and speak English freely.
I think you are wrong about Australia being the first market for Starbucks to fail to make a solid entry. I didn’t see a single Starbucks in Brazil or Argentina, and I read up about it – there was fierce opposition to it in a place that already had a deep coffee culture – they did not want to import the American variety. At least Australia did open a lot of Starbucks even though they closed many of them. They couldn’t even enter Brazil. (actually, I know they did open a few Starbucks there in Rio and SP, but not many).
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Jennifer Anniston is the quintessential white American female according to white American standards, I think Abagond called it right on that end. The kissing the pets in the mouth, i too have witnessed that. Don’t get me wrong, i love animals, but i do draw the line when kissing them in the mouth. I have been kind of grossed out by that, seeing how dogs lick their anal orifices.
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@ Wordy
Funnily enough Starbucks has closed nearly all of its stores in Australia because we have such a strong independent coffee culture here (http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/32188.html). It’s the first country where Starbucks has failed to make a solid entry in the market.
That is so awesome! Wow! That is what a free market is actually supposed to be like: plenty of choice. If it were S’bucks taking up most of the market, one’s choice is diminished. Anyway, getting away from the pointy head economics talk it’s just cool to have that kind of independent coffee house culture, the food in those coffee houses would be so much better too. At Starbucks they have these god awful pastries coloured with, what looks like, extremely vibrant dyes (egads!). And the pastries and desserts themselves are so ghastly and jejune: triple fudge this, extra icing that. They look like objects that would make fair door stoppers after you let them dry out for a couple days. Yuck!
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To me Starbucks is considered upper middle class. And it overpriced. I have to admit that i did receive gift cards for my birthday and Christmas. That was the only way i could afford to drink a beverage there. I am not that impressed with their pastries either. They are just too overpriced.
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Magic Johnson did invest in Starbucks and tried to place them in urban communities. I know it was a disaster in certain areas in my community. Where i live it’s largely Black/Mexican Americans and it just didn’t fly in this neck of the woods. I applaud Mr Johnson for trying to give blacks a place to work, but i don’t think this was good idea, placing these stores in these communities. The average working class person can’t afford Starbucks coffee and beverages, I think Starbucks is kind of overrated. To me it’s just a status symbol.
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*average working class person can’t afford Starbucks coffee and beverages*
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Starbucks is very expensive, true. But a few observations. Keep in mind I live and work within close proximity to Boston so cost of everything is pretty high here, NYC and San Francisco are among the few places in the US with higher COL index.
Anyway, Magic Johnson was probably trying to help by investing in a company that offers better-quality jobs with much higher starting pay company-wide and a selection of benefits for all employees. They also have healthier food choices, which accounts for the pricing, and they donate what doesnt sell that day to loval foodbanks/kitchens.
Even the pastries are healthier, with fewer chemicals and better ingredients than anything at Dunkin’ Donuts. And, Dunkin Donuts has a documented, long-standing, HORRIBLE reputation as a franchise in terms of employee pay and work conditions. Many franchisers own upwards of 20 locations and their employees are run ragged for absolute minimum wage. Starbucks always pays well above minimum, so, again, higher prices but also better for employees.
The regular coffees (not lattes and other “crafted” drinks) are in line with a lot of convenience store prices. $2 for a 20 ounce regular coffee. And, in this region anyway, a lot of local coffeeshops charge even more for the fancy drinks (found out the hard way in Concord, Mass, when a small caramel latte I ordered was SEVEN dollars at a café in town!), making Starbucks latte a bargain at $4. In fact, Cumberland Farms coffee or my favorite gas stations are the only places any cheaper for regular coffee and the quality is very inconsistent, so, yes, coffee snobs will prefer Starbucks.
I am admittedly one who is picky about coffee. But I am too poor not to be cheap most of the time and go to Cumberland Farms for coffee during my commute. Starbucks is a treat for me. When I travel cross-country and am in the Midwest, Caribou Coffee fits the bill, too, but after Minneapolis those places are almost non-existant until Colorado.
I used to think Starbucks was a gimmick, but find now after more investigation that in terms of fast food product and employment, they are one of the good guys. Having worked in retail for some 20 years and experienced with some awful corporate policies which exploit workers on the front lines the most, Starbucks is a much better place than many.
I will probably take a lot of grief for seeming to defend it, but I am convinced that my dollars should support companies with better practices, so I have a running list corporations that do or do not get my hard-earned dollars. McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts are on the bad-guy list, and have been for decades. I do the same for clothing, groceries, personal care, you name it. I’d rather go without for longer than give my cash to bad businesses. Maybe that’s what Magic Johnson’s intention was. Maybe he also knew Starbucks has enough appeal to wealthier people that those who can afford their prices will be helping the baristas have a better job…with higher pay AND they are allowed to keep tips, which almost no other fast food chain will ever allow. Can’t tell you how many times I helped someone bring groceries to their car in 3 inches of slush when in was a teenager and had to refuse the tips for fear of losing my job. Or couldn’t accept a small gift offered by a customer I helped out frequently when I worked at the mall for $6/hr. Every little bit helps. I’d much rather excoriate a business that deserves their bad reputation.
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@ Melanine S.: I kind of remember an expose on CBS Sunday Morning, they were interviewing the CEO of Starbucks, he appeared to be a man of integrity, and he seemed to have empathy for the working class person, and the company is said to be a good company to work for, in terms of offering good benefits to their employees.
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@Mary: yes, over the years I’ve worked with a lot of people who have been in the food service industry and, by comparison to many other companies, the overwhelming opinion seems to be that working for “the ‘bucks” is far better than other food companies. I worked for Pizzaria Uno briefly and that was pretty crappy, but it is my only corporate food service experience. Many friends of mine have worked at McDonald’s and Dunkin and all had essentially the same complaints of merciless scheduling and almost no raises no matter how many years they worked there; not to mention zero benefits and a tendancy to ignore labor laws including proper workman’s comp when they suffered burns or cuts. Not cool. I had an injury using a walk-in freezer at Uno’s–fell on the very slippery RAMP at the entrance to the door and got a severe ankle sprain that i couldn’t walk on. They made me drive myself to the doctor in my standard-transmission car…clutch pedal and ankle injury are a bad combo. So, yeah, I got the run around on them paying the bill but once it was paid I quit. Employers like that are everywhere and too many people are trapped in an industry that is constantly lowering its standards. Hence my support of the companies that try harder to do right by the people who do the hardest jobs and bring in their profits.
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Hilarious! I love this.
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I love this list! 😀
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I happen to be a dog kisser myself and many people find this gross; white and black and many people find it just another form of affection. As adult human beings I don’t think there is anyone who can say their mouths and tongues have not been in some very unsanitary places. However certain forms of affection just come with the territory. Dogs come from the canine family and canine saliva can kill most forms of bacteria due to the food sources they frequently have to eat. The bacteria that comes from the dog licking his backside easily is destroyed by the enzymes in their saliva. Is it still somewhat gross to myself, yes, but you only live once and my love for my dog or my girlfriend transcends the gross factor….
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@Legion
Kim Basinger was gorgeous in her youth and she is still beautiful to this day, I agree Scarlett Johannsen, who I find beautiful, doesn’t hold a candle to her though. I also thought Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Doris Day, and most of old Hollywood were very beautiful.
Jennifer Aniston? She looks like plain Jane with her jaw and plain features. Sorry, I don’t see the hype about her.
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While I don’t kiss my cat in / on the mouth, I am not all that concerned with the cleanliness of his mouth. Realistically, as I’ve had many dogs and cats over the course of my life, I am aware that – and as unsavory as the thought might seem – I most probably have eaten food that has been touched by a pet’s mouth. To this day, though, I have not suffered any kind of sickness which even remotely might be tied to such incidents.
Years ago, I rescued a stray cat that previously I had been feeding outdoors. She had fallen severely ill from a virus she’d contracted, and was sneezing constantly. I gather her up, brought her to a vet and then brought her home with me. After just a few days her sneezing episodes decreased dramatically, and she began to eat on her own. I have yet to come down with the illness which so badly affected her, even though I, as the one who was closely tending to her needs, was sprayed with her sneezes repeatedly.
By contrast to that I have been made ill on numerous occasions in my life by my contact with other people. It is typical that we are more likely to contrast diseases from others of our kind than we are from species which are biologically dissimilar to ours. There is, of course, an array of microbes which can and do jump the species barrier (particularly in a cases involving a severely weakened / compromised immune system) or which are not confined to one species in the first place. However, just as I did not catch my cat’s flu-like virus, neither did she, nor any of the rest of my various pets, ever contract anything from me either, and I used to get colds and the flu quite often, especially as a child. I’d be sneezing and hacking, and my pets would be just fine.
I have noticed that many people seem to carry a superstition / fear about contracting an illness of some sort from otherwise normal, healthy companion animals (note here that I am not speaking of unknown and possibly rabid animals etc) which are basically unfounded.
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I happen to be a dog kisser myself and many people find this gross; white and black and many people find it just another form of affection.
Is that before the dog has licked its’ nuts and ahole?
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i like my cat, just not that much, thanks, have a great day
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@Hernieth…If he has just cleaned himself of course i do not allow him to give me a kiss, I’m not a biological sadist. Let me clear something up, although I do not judge those that do, I do not kiss my animals on the mouth, however i do allow them to lick my face but i do not reciprocate. Of course the amount of fluid exchange is probably equal but what the hell, “Que Sera Sera”. I’m sure you all know that the human mouth has more bacteria than most domestic animals. The human mouth alone has as much as 10 million bacteria present. Some bacteria is useful but not if transferred into another person who has a sore or open laceration from canker or a bitten cheek from eating. So you are taking an equal risk when you give Papa some sugar…XOXOXO.
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According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. approximately 60% of all human pathogens could have been transmitted by an animal. And more than 100 of the 250 zoonotic diseases identified come from domesticated pets. CDC studies show that about 14% of the U.S. population is infected with roundworms. Note that the study doesn’t say 14% of the population has been infected. It says 14% are currently infected.
Anyone who would kiss an animal on the mouth or let it sleep with them is a fool. I wouldn’t even keep a pet in the house.
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Is that before the dog has licked its’ nuts and ahole?
You are so bad; I laughed for roughly a full minute.
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@DaJokah…I think it is widely believed that you either live with no carbon based life form due to your inability to attract anything that breaths or that you live in your Moms basement wearing your clothes as you stated, “Until they fall off your body”. Now as far as kissing a dog or cat, if you did, it would be the first time you kissed or were kissed by anything.
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@ Adeen
Jennifer Aniston? She looks like plain Jane with her jaw and plain features.
Oh yes, she is quite plain in her way. That’s just it, I love that plain look. Pretty face and not much make up, it’s a winner every time. Of course the face has to have something to it to save it from just becoming boring. Her face is faaar from boring.
Old Hollywood:
Have a look at a woman named Frances Farmer during the 30’s when she was starting out. She was very beautiful (which lasted until her death in my opinion). Very, very tragic and isolated* life though, her story is very sad, she went through a lot.
————————————–
* lengthy stays in mental institutions
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Here is the first paragraph in the article from the CDC……”Although cats can carry diseases and pass them to people, you are not likely to get sick from touching or owning a cat. By following simple health tips, you can be even safe-against cat-related diseases.”…http://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/animals/cats.htm.
The article goes on to say who are more susceptible to cats and how to avoid getting infected. It then goes on to list the benefits of owning animals and how they outweigh the small chance of being infected. I have owned and let my pets lick my face for my entire life and I have never had a disease, except for the infectious pathogen that causes SEXINESS…
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I think dogs are wonderful and would let them lick my face but my mouth – gasp – never!
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Just for the record:
1. Jennifer Aniston: I think Jennifer Aniston is plain looking, almost ugly, but I understand that many disagree (mostly the whitewashed, it seems).
2. Starbucks: I have been to Starbucks maybe five times ever. It is too expensive as a regular place to go. What most struck me about them was their uniformity: I went to one in Los Angeles and then, a few weeks later, one in New York. It gave you no idea that you were on the other side of the country.
3. Dog kissing: I do not kiss dogs and do not like it when they try to lick my face.
4. I did think about putting dog kissing, wearing shorts in winter and stuff like that in the post, but they have little to do with racism and could be read as me stereotyping Whites, maybe rightly so. Not a battle I wanted to fight.
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@ Kiwi
I noticed that too: when Latinos ask me for directions in Spanish, they do not act like that.
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@ Jefe
Thanks. Now I know I am not just “imagining” it.
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@ Ebonymonroe
I noticed that too. Not that blacks NEVER do any of these things, but certainly not on the scale of whites.
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I understand that many disagree (mostly the whitewashed, it seems).
Just for the record:
I’m very comfortable with whom I find attractive in my real life and the observing of celebrities. Saying anything more is unnecessary.
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I think dogs are wonderful and would let them lick my face but my mouth – gasp – never!
Men have their preferences I see.
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@Kiwi:
I’ve updated my troll roll to include Riverside’s name:
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I know it will come across as a back peddle but it doesn’t matter how it seems it matters how it is: in practice I’ve actually only let dogs lick my hands, probably best to stick to that, if I had a dog.
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Men have their preferences I see.
Indeed they do. Girls who sing me jazz standards are just fine.
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Reblogged this on replace white supremacy with justice and commented:
Get to know a White person!
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[…] Get to know a White person! | Abagond. […]
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@abagond
“Starbucks…they only show up when your neighbourhood is being gentrified and White people start moving in”
I get that, but I’ve seen Starbucks in several communities that are predominantly black but not whitening.
@ Da jokah
The American media still sells laying with animals. TV characters are often kissing dogs in the mouth and lying in bed with them….and I recently saw a clip from a show called Dallas, where a couple was making love in a barnyard….horses and all in the background. Disgusting.
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“Hey, you’re pretty! You look just like Jennifer Aniston.”
I don’t even think Jen is that pretty.
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LOL more. Must have more. Please. That was great. But seriously, Jennifer Anniston? I suppose you had to pick somebody but she ain’t that pretty (maybe the point?)
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What in the motherfuck is going on!??
(http://youtu.be/YhT6d5fMhzI)
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OMG,
This video looks it was just MADE for this post
“If Asians Said The Stuff White People Say”
(http://youtu.be/PMJI1Dw83Hc)
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