that thing white ppl do when they disparage 'white ppl'

mandatory

I've done it myself, but now I think it's a bit tacky. Trying too hard.

that thing ___ ppl do when they ____ '____ ppl'

Congrats on using the word "tendentious" tho

when they do this, i tend to think "finally they get it"

or, what eric h said

that thing ___ ppl do when they ____ '____ ppl'

― mdskltr (blueski), Friday, April 23, 2010 8:40 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yes.

people don't understand that when we do this, we are playing ourselves

happy st george's day motherfuckers!

http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/liverpoolecho/apr2009/2/8/image-6-for-gallery-region-celebrates-st-george-s-day-405459912.jpg

there needs to be more white ppl thinking about white ppl in totality

they shd read more fanon/ignatiev/malcolm x and less 'stuff white people like'

^^ i feel like ppl who are keen to disparage white ppl are also keen to big up malcolm x & fanon & whoever

http://agrammar.tumblr.com/post/207970845/white

What surprises me, though, is how many white speakers—including people who are relatively savvy about race and culture—seem completely unbothered by the very obvious problems involved in using a racial shorthand for them. Some will quite casually use “white” as code for a certain set of qualities—safety, cleverness, politeness, education, middle-class manner, “literary” pretensions, alleged blandness—without, so far as I can tell, much noticing the shadow of opposites that casts on everyone else. (Danger? Vulgarity? Ignorance? Poverty? Savagery?) Some will argue, in earnest, that they’re actually taking the side of some vibrant other thing over bland, upscale whiteness—all without noticing how very old and familiar that line is. (Haven’t white audiences traditionally admired black artists as a source of transgression, of danger, of dirt, of “authenticity,” of “soul,” of “primitive” thrills?)

i tend to use 'white' as shorthand for 'white', but maybe i haven't read all of that strawman with the appropriate care and attention.

xp- yep

max's quote above is massively OTM. This is always said by people who whether consciously aware of it or not are drowning in 1950s "White Negro" crap. "I'm not really white, I listen to hip-hop! I'm not really white, I live down the street from a pupuseria that's muy autentico! I'm not really white, I don't own a TV!"

Why not just bring the word "bourgeois" back? It means something! And the thing it means is something people obviously want to express! And then people can stop denoting that thing by "white" or "suburban" or "American" or whatever other evidently wrong proxy they're using now.

I'm the whitest girl in the world AND I live down the street from eleventy-six jerk joints. Okay not anymore, now I live down the street from NYU. I miss the curry.

i lump this sort of stuff in with hipster bashing et al, the white people in things white people like are simultaneously a really narrow subculture and a vaguely defined punching bag for people who consider themselves above it.

max's quote above is massively OTM.

some white bread itt

[nabisco]'s blog post touches on one of my socio-political pet peeves, the one about black people not having the privilege to possess traits commonly defined as "white." In the black majority this tendency seems reinforced by their culture, particularly youth culture and the media they consume, but I think they do it, i.e., embrace things that are interpreted as urban, dangerous, primitive, and "black," as a way of appropriating and exalting an image thrust on them, because it's something they can do well, that they can do better than anyone else, and because it gives them a confidence that maybe their situations don't. They would rather be "black" than compete with whites at being "white," who haven't historically (and continue not to) let them be.

I suspect that this tendency boomed when the US deindustrialized in the seventies & eighties and the livelihoods of many of the black majority were lost. I also think that housing projects, in that they are culturally irresponsible uses of living space that have further fragmented community and family units, have exacerbated the problem.

Though black people also identify whiteness apart from "white"-ness and apart from the bourgeois.

youre skating on thin ice there bam

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c6/Yoko_Ono_-_Waking_on_Thin_Ice_(2003).jpg
Tell me why.

Why not just bring the word "bourgeois" back? It means something!

If I could just kill this one word, my entire life would have meant something. Also, afaik, the only white people who can even say this word correctly are the French.

http://annenahm.com/anneimage/2009/11/Michael+Jackson+Jackson_popcorn.gif

I say "paper mâché."

I'm the whitest girl in the world

Can you unpack what you mean by that, though?

her skin is this color: http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=4820506

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xfxmmOzXySs/SYAsMgcOTPI/AAAAAAAAAL8/xb4-GR4X9qE/s400/unpack+adjectives.jpg

Tell me why.

For one thing, you're treating "black people" monolithically. This is one thing that Nabisco has written astutely about -- one of the problems with using "white" as shorthand for "middle-class" or "dorky" or "liberal arts grad" is that it implicitly writes out all of the non-whites who literally exist in these spaces.

In the black majority this tendency seems reinforced by their culture, particularly youth culture and the media they consume

its not that i dont see what youre saying here (and fwiw i dont think i agree, but whatever), its just a kind of problematic way of saying it, isnt it? making sort of vague generalities abt the habits of a race is not a particularly constructive way to have a conversation, even if your hearts int the right place, in other words.

xp jaymc otm

yeah i was gonna get started on a post for this thread and i then i thought, no

ppl are white btw

u stole my post

like 30 secs faster and it would be my login under that post

people of non-color

Hmm, if I've ever disparaged a 'white person' it's generally when they're exhibiting some annoying form of 'white privilege'.

making sort of vague generalities abt the habits of a race is not a particularly constructive way to have a conversation, even if your hearts int the right place

well the thing is people's hearts usually aren't in the right place and they're not trying to have a constructive conversation - it's usually always as in "lol white people". i thought you of all people were into internet lols at the expense of others~

race vs. class

if any american whites are interested in mitigating for their whiteness feel free to sign the petition to pass the dream act, has something to do with stopping illegal mexican kids from getting deported or something, i dunno

i thought you of all people were into internet lols at the expense of others~

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Friday, April 23, 2010 11:54 AM

u do know dom doesn't post here anymore rite

this just in: white people still corny

This sounds like the worst thing

Not monolithically. Generalizing is not stereotyping, and it doesn't preclude the existence of people who don't fit. And "black majority," a phrase widely used and understood, narrows the group down quite a lot, and talking about black youth narrows the group further.

My argument's not quite the same as his, but it's not too different from the way Houston Baker talks about US blacks using generalizations. He includes more examples but he's writing books, not ilx posts.

Holy Jesus and Mary Chain and Joseph.

one of the problems with using "white" as shorthand for "middle-class" or "dorky" or "liberal arts grad" is that it implicitly writes out all of the non-whites who literally exist in these spaces.

That's implicitly in my post. That's what I said I disliked.

well the thing is people's hearts usually aren't in the right place and they're not trying to have a constructive conversation - it's usually always as in "lol white people". i thought you of all people were into internet lols at the expense of others~

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Friday, April 23, 2010 11:54 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dont think we disagree? what do you think im trying to say?

"heart's in the right place" "problematic"

Just call me racist.

u r not racist
u r white ppl tho

Not monolithically. Generalizing is not stereotyping, and it doesn't preclude the existence of people who don't fit. And "black majority," a phrase widely used and understood, narrows the group down quite a lot, and talking about black youth narrows the group further.

generalizing isnt stereotyping, but it suffers from some of the same discursive problems, doesnt it? and im not sure "black majority" is quite a widely-used and understood as you think!

Like, first impressions, if I went into a space/gathering of white people and they busted out that graphic with no explanation, I would def have questions. But otoh I've seen basically the same content drawn up by Black organizers as teaching material for white ppl to stop pushing a white-privileged worldview onto everyone else and every situation.

I think that's a possible initial reading but that the creator is telling us to look deeper--the emphasis on productivity over quality of life, the contempt for those who don't want to make or take more than is needed, a collective valuing of more-ness over sufficiency...those are things that white supremacist patriarchal capitalism encourages us to value, as opposed to cultures we supplanted that valued harmony, sufficiency, collective wellness, cooperation, etc.

Would you say that the standard of living in a culture that privileges harmony, sufficiency, collective wellness, and cooperation is high or low?

I have no idea but that's not for me to define, is my point.

i'm aware that i'm playing out of bounds a little bit here re: whiteness and i hope you'll forgive me--i'm not trying to hurt anyone, but these thoughts aren't fully formed or calibrated and there are some rough edges. and i know that i stump for whiteness to a degree in my day-to-day, definitely in ways i'm not even aware of. i'm not trying to make this a post-race thing, that would be really stupid. i just think that the racial dynamic of whiteness is intimately tied with the will to dominate other people based on some biological fundamentalism--like that's the point of it--and that biological fundamenatalism can be re-stated or re-aligned in different ways, it can be realigned to a category of "laziness" that applies across racial identity groups for instance--whatever the current formation of the will to dominate others requires, although of course certain ones like blackness in america have a long and extremely brutal history.

there are shades of "i have the right to survive and thrive" and "i deserve to live a highly exploitative lifestyle just because of who i am" in everything we do to get along in the world. the difference between those two things is becoming increasingly obfuscated. i mean "wanting/enjoying a high standard of living" or "being an entrepreneur" is 1) something that sounds like what everyone should have access to in order to be their best selves but is also 2) always going to be on the backs of others to some degree? it's not a hard and fast thing, always with inflections and contexts, but somewhere on the scale of jesus christ to elon musk i think we sort of have to own how much our position in the world comes at the expense of others imo.

but in any case it strikes me that white people disparaging white-people-culture is one of the whitest things imaginable--it's showy and hypocritical, it scores you little points in the cultural capital column, and it does absolutely nothing to alleviate any real disparity that whiteness creates, in fact i think it just reinforces the effects of whiteness. i do think a lot of people mean well when they do this and they are probably working against whiteness in other, more real ways, but it always makes me feel embarrassed for them. am i working against whiteness in real, meaningful ways? i like to think so but then i'm increasingly aware of my limitations and the extremely white culture i have to be a part of every day.

yeah I think I agree with your point about the "white people making fun of white people" thing, in fact it kind of jibes with what I'm saying - there's almost a humblebrag or an implicit self-congratulation to a lot of the "lol white people" jokes that could be read to imply a superior culture with a few funny shortcomings.

I do feel "my whiteness" when I respond to "Carry On My Wayward Son" ... though it was a recurring theme song in CW tv show "Supernatural" so maybe it has become "less white"? Also, how can this white ppl playlist exist with Creedence. Carry On is a "deep cut" compared to a half dozen CCR songs ... and why the perennial "Friends in Low Places" is also absent ... I think this list was probably compiled by a younger person (I don't recognize 1/3 of the songs because I'm old), and maybe that Garth Brooks song isn't as prevalent among the youngs?

booming post, map

*exist without Creedence

though it was a recurring theme song in CW tv show "Supernatural" so maybe it has become "less white"

I've seen Supernatural. I am having difficulty imagining anything less white than Supernatural. (And Kansas had John Brown on the cover of their debut album, so their politics are...murky.)

Sorry — anything more white than Supernatural.

one thing I've learned is that whenever white people try to clown something for being very white, that thing will end up having huge non-white fanbases

see: Phil Collins

Supernatural has an insane tumblr/twitter/meme following that crosses racial barriers iirc

Yeah, that's a good example. Also Celine Dion, the Smiths, Country music (huge in Nigeria! Or used to be, anyway)...any schmaltzy 70's act you could mention is bound to have a strong following in South East Asia.

xpost

(I had a longer post to in orbit and map that I deleted because it was pompous. I will revisit it if I can make it sound less like we are the council in charge of designing a post-racist society and more like people who've known each other for years having a conversation.)

xp the transition of Journey into a Filipino-led band (albeit one whose lead singer somehow hasn't joined them in the R&R HoF) is worth including in that list

one thing I've learned is that whenever white people try to clown something for being very white, that thing will end up having huge non-white fanbases

That's often true. That doesn't make the thing itself less white, though. Something can be a product of white culture (WHICH IS A THING) and still appeal to non-white people. Amazing but true!

Supernatural has an insane tumblr/twitter/meme following that crosses racial barriers iirc

― G.A.G.S. (Gophers Against Getting Stuffed) (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, April 6, 2021 8:49 AM (four minutes ago

otm! the two friends I would nerd out about that show with when I was super into it a few years ago were both queer & POC

xxp
*Steps out from beneath an umbrella and looks up to drone camera hovering over the English countryside, speaking in unison with Noel Fielding*
"Welcome... to the new season... of The Great Post-Racist Society Planning Thread"

(I had a longer post to in orbit and map that I deleted because it was pompous. I will revisit it if I can make it sound less like we are the council in charge of designing a post-racist society and more like people who've known each other for years having a conversation.)

― Dana Jel Pey (DJP), Tuesday, April 6, 2021 4:51 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol if this is shade at me i deserve it.

Something can be a product of white culture (WHICH IS A THING) and still appeal to non-white people. Amazing but true!

I will leave it to someone else to "interrogate" that one, but ... would you say a hypothetical "product of white culture" that appeals to many non-white people is "more white" than a "product of white culture" with a predominantly white audience? Like idk The McLaughlin Group

That doesn't make the thing itself less white, though. Something can be a product of white culture (WHICH IS A THING) and still appeal to non-white people. Amazing but true!

Sure. But as discussed in this thread, attempts to paint a certain cultural product as white from ppl who are themselves white are usually done to distance themselves from said culture and carry cachet as a hip not-that-kind-of-white-person.

It was meant to be shade at myself! There's plenty of room under here though if you'd like

hehe why thank you

Sorry — anything more white than Supernatural.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, April 6, 2021 8:41 AM (seventeen minutes ago)

I mean ... you are trolling or somehow forgetting a very large quantity of things here ... esp. considering you used to post on Bagatellen

Like idk The McLaughlin Group

Don't know enough about the McLaughlin Group to know if it's whiter than cricket.

Bagatellen

Non-idiomatic improv passes through whiteness and achieves translucence.

xp - The original incarnation aired on PBS member TV stations and the PBS digital subchannel World as well as on some local commercial TV stations, including WCBS-TV in New York City. During its run, underwriters included Pfizer, the New York Stock Exchange, and GE (the longest-serving).

The first mention of the McLaughlin group made me lol irl. That show is where titanium white is manufactured

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McLaughlin_(host)

attempts to paint a certain cultural product as white from ppl who are themselves white are usually done to distance themselves from said culture and carry cachet as a hip not-that-kind-of-white-person

Absolutely. There's been some discussion along these lines in the ILM thread about the Floating Points/Pharoah Sanders album (though it's disguised as classism — calling it "dinner party music" and whatnot), and what strikes me is how thoroughly that erases Pharoah Sanders' agency, when the album was his idea.

Cricket is a phenomenal example of Daniel Rf's truthbomb

Actually I have seen the McLaughlin thing, it was on some obscure channel over here in the 2000s, an American guy I used to know whose flat I hang out in would watch it, along with other 'American things' like Jackass.

isn't cricket also popular in former British colonies?

It's only like a second religion in India.

xp - I had actually forgotten that notorious white supremacist Pat Buchanan was a regular on McLaughlin Group

I can't think about the McLaughlin Group without think of Dana Carvey's impersonation

not to be too trenchant but in response to the thread concept, the reason many white ppl do that thing where they disparage white ppl is because they know in their hearts that they are culpable for white supremacy and lack the courage to change the system by so instead they mock it in an impotent attempt at self-disenfranchisement and surface relief from the static guilt of being the oppressor class
your daily reminder that white supremacy - or indeed any form of meritless caste system - benefits no one in the long run.

you might even say it's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZrrWj_y3Mc

lol I appreciate you, DJP, and also map! Despite the fact that we've all been Very Online for 20 years and usually communicate pretty well, I feel like this is a weird way to have this particular conversation.

For the record I don't have a problem making fun of "whiteness" although it's a subtle art, maybe, and I think a couple of different things are being flattened itt. If white people don't talk to each other about white supremacy, and normalize it like we've normalized talking about...idk colonialism (maybe? I Am Not A Historian), then...what? It can't be left unspoken like we all understand it and it's beneath our dignity to address it.

The spotify playlist bit makes me think that “white people talking about whiteness” when it comes to music is usually a white person deciding that a song that was/is ubiquitous during their life that they now find corny or cliche is “white culture” regardless of who actually liked or listened to it!

haven't read this and probably won't tbh but I think it'll probably play many of the hits from above

https://www.gawker.com/culture/white-people-love-calling-other-white-people-white-people?utm_campaign=gawker&utm_content=1643983531&utm_medium=owned&utm_source=twitter

A few years ago I wrote a surly little rant in the Spectator magazine

Can't believe you wouldn't want to read an article that starts this way.

i love links that end utm_source=twitter

Here are 5 out 7 members of the cantonal government of St-Gallen, Switzerland, plus its chancellor. pic.twitter.com/qlPNNTE0KA

— alexandre afonso (@alexandreafonso) February 12, 2022

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CzQVOtJWEAghMVi.jpgp

https://i.imgur.com/WMpeV2q.jpg

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/2/24/Talosians_3.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20190309003202&path-prefix=en

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/9/9f/Talosians.png

O buggeration!