In the present social climate, whites and whites alone are not allowed to think of ourselves as white unless we are mocking ourselves.
I saw Christian Lander in San Francisco on Tuesday, December 2nd, speaking to a tiny sweater-clad audience at a small independent bookstore in the Marina District. Lander told the story of the amazing success of his blog Stuff White People Like (http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/), which in about six months grew from a private joke to a New York Times bestselling book (with a reported $300,000 advance). (See Christopher Donovan’s review of the Stuff White People Like book.)
In his talk, Lander made it very clear that he is not talking about all white people, but just “the right kind of white people,” as opposed to “the wrong kind of white people.”
The right kind of white people are urban, college-educated, and from upper-middle and upper-class backgrounds. And, most importantly, they are liberal.
Lander also adds that the right kind of white people are “rich”: they live in expensive cities, go to expensive colleges, travel widely, and can afford to take a year off from time to time. They know how to trade their hip, grungy attire for expensive suits and ties, and their ironic detachment for “attaboy” attitude, when opportunities for advancement in the system present themselves (courtesy of people from their parents’ generation and social circles).
And they know how to hold onto what’s theirs. They can be cheap and multicultural at the same time simply by replacing white workers with Guatemalans.