Stuff White People like is a blog made in January 2008 by a white Canadian; Christian Lander, a Los Angeles marketing specialist who experienced childhood in Toronto and who accredited from McGill University in Montreal. Lander’s web journal got famous rapidly, enrolling more than 300,000 day by day hits and more than 40 million aggregate hits before the end of September 200.1 For many who viewed the blog experienced it as insulting and bigot. Instead it is not about the interest of every white person, but instead a pattern of upper class consisting of corporate white North American who normally hold a degree in liberal arts.2 As we have learned in this course Lander is more of a humorist rather than an anthropologist, he jokes about the other subcultures of white people more like the wrong type of white individuals including black, Hispanic etc., who try fitting in into the main culture.
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In this essay I will explain how stuff white people like is not implicating racist jokes but more of making someone realize that the white culture is more of an illusion rather than a reality that individuals have created and also is a way of communication used by individuals not necessarily speaking to each other but the habit of living their everyday life. In reality there are several different types of cultures that any individual can be part of but in landers blog it’s more like an illusion as we learned in lecture three it only works to the advantage of groups who define it as reality3, I call it the mainstream culture. …show more content…
The mainstream culture is created of many subcultures not necessarily consisting of white individuals. A great example would be the coffee as mentioned in the blog article by Lander “white people love Starbucks although they will profess to hate how the chain is now a multinational corporation”4 meaning that coffee itself wasn’t made, harvested, shipped, and so on by a white person, it consist of many subcultures. Coffee itself is originally Columbian so does that mean white people are trying to be Columbian by drinking coffee and not tea cause they should tea is often associated with white people. Second point mentioned by Lander “paying the extra 2 dollars means they are making a difference while their peers are drinking liquid oppression”5 as we learned in lecture three white people always try to create a “win-win situation”6, for them showing off their status by spending more money on coffee where it can be bought from somewhere else for a cheaper price example Tim Hortons makes them not part of the mainstream and if an individual can’t spend money he or she is considered fitting into a subcultural type which creates an illusion that the culture is faulty and deficient. Second argument is what we learned in lecture three is regarding cultural critique which is seeing that our reality is produced by ourselves7 meaning that we created the mentality if an individual doesn’t fit in he or she is directly alienated from the mainstream culture and is left out to be alone. An example from the blog is “yoga has been so thoroughly embraced by white people it requires large amounts of time and money, two things white people have a lot”8 this creates tense and an individual would have to change in order to fit in something that he or she might find not necessary, but the pressure from society leads to such thing. As we have learned in lecture three “not everything in culture is beneficial, a way of life can be harmful to those who practice it9” this adds to the point changing yourself in order to fit in isn’t necessary its part of the illusion created that you need to do so and so to fit in or else you are deficient. Last argument supporting this idea is it’s a way of communication between individuals more of their daily habits and what they do is what classifies them into whether they are part of the main culture the “white culture” or they are alienated. An example is from one of the comments on the blog “I’m a black women who took the checklist after reading the book, and found I had a lot in common with other white people10” this comment is by a black person
In this essay I will explain how stuff white people like is not implicating racist jokes but more of making someone realize that the white culture is more of an illusion rather than a reality that individuals have created and also is a way of communication used by individuals not necessarily speaking to each other but the habit of living their everyday life. In reality there are several different types of cultures that any individual can be part of but in landers blog it’s more like an illusion as we learned in lecture three it only works to the advantage of groups who define it as reality3, I call it the mainstream culture. …show more content…
The mainstream culture is created of many subcultures not necessarily consisting of white individuals. A great example would be the coffee as mentioned in the blog article by Lander “white people love Starbucks although they will profess to hate how the chain is now a multinational corporation”4 meaning that coffee itself wasn’t made, harvested, shipped, and so on by a white person, it consist of many subcultures. Coffee itself is originally Columbian so does that mean white people are trying to be Columbian by drinking coffee and not tea cause they should tea is often associated with white people. Second point mentioned by Lander “paying the extra 2 dollars means they are making a difference while their peers are drinking liquid oppression”5 as we learned in lecture three white people always try to create a “win-win situation”6, for them showing off their status by spending more money on coffee where it can be bought from somewhere else for a cheaper price example Tim Hortons makes them not part of the mainstream and if an individual can’t spend money he or she is considered fitting into a subcultural type which creates an illusion that the culture is faulty and deficient. Second argument is what we learned in lecture three is regarding cultural critique which is seeing that our reality is produced by ourselves7 meaning that we created the mentality if an individual doesn’t fit in he or she is directly alienated from the mainstream culture and is left out to be alone. An example from the blog is “yoga has been so thoroughly embraced by white people it requires large amounts of time and money, two things white people have a lot”8 this creates tense and an individual would have to change in order to fit in something that he or she might find not necessary, but the pressure from society leads to such thing. As we have learned in lecture three “not everything in culture is beneficial, a way of life can be harmful to those who practice it9” this adds to the point changing yourself in order to fit in isn’t necessary its part of the illusion created that you need to do so and so to fit in or else you are deficient. Last argument supporting this idea is it’s a way of communication between individuals more of their daily habits and what they do is what classifies them into whether they are part of the main culture the “white culture” or they are alienated. An example is from one of the comments on the blog “I’m a black women who took the checklist after reading the book, and found I had a lot in common with other white people10” this comment is by a black person