This week I face up to my whiteness
I’m so white it hurts. I’m achingly white, not in the alabaster sense. But in the beige sense.
Being white means I’m not the “other”. If you’re black or Asian, I’m what you are not. Whean they cast for home loan or Milk Arrowroot commercials, my type is assumed in the lineup, then they choose a smattering of “other” ethnic groups to make up the balance. (I speak from cringe-worthy experience here – in my teens I played the whitebread-girl-next-door-with-a-Labrador-and-husband in a number of lowbrow ads. I got the gigs because I was “typical”.)
My differences and my behaviours are not analysed or typecast. Because I’m the norm. That’s what it means to be white.
What also makes me white is that I’m blown away by the internet phenomenon Stuff White People Like. White people always are. I first came across the Canadian-based website in early 2008, shortly after it launched as a list of cultural quirks white folk are partial to, like going out for breakfast (#, 36), yoga, Moleskin notebooks, Banksy artwork, following religions their parents don’t belong to (#2), sea salt, listening to black music black people don’t listen to anymore (#116) and issuing apologies. I wrote about it back then (another thing White People like: claiming they were ahead of the curve). Since, the site has morphed into a New York Times bestseller and the site has clocked more than 72 million hits.