Stuff White People Like (13 page)

Be aware that an invitation to see a documentary film will often involve watching the film, suffering through a question-and-answer period, and potentially ending up with the filmmaker sleeping on your couch.

58 Japan

Though there is full white consensus on a number of white things, there is perhaps nothing that draws more universal white acclaim than the island nation of Japan. It should be noted that some white people harbor
some
ill will toward Japan because of whaling, killing dolphins, or the Rape of Nanking, but those are generally considered isolated incidents that do not indict the entire nation.

White people love Japan for a number of reasons. Sushi is pretty much the biggest one, since white people have spent so much time in sushi restaurants enjoying the food, learning how to eat it, and most important, how to be snobby about it. This natural curiosity fills them with a need to pay a visit to Tsukiji and taste the freshest sushi possible.

But it goes beyond food. All white people either have taught/will teach/ wished they had taught English in Japan. It is a dream for them to go overseas and actually live in Japan. This helps them not only because it fills their need to travel, but it also enables them to gain important leverage over other white people at sushi restaurants when they can say, “This place is pretty good, but living in Japan really spoiled me. I’ve had such a hard time finding a really authentic place.”

White people also love Japan because of its tradition, futuristic cities, films, kawaii stuff, music, and writers. Many white nerds are into anime, so being too into this can be seen as a negative by white people. It’s best to have a passing familiarity with things like Hayao Miyazaki, who is universally accepted by white people. If they don’t know who he is, they will look him up and they won’t find weird violent or sexual cartoons.

If you find yourself in the midst of an awkward silence when talking to white people, just mention that you want to go to Japan. They will immediately begin talking about their trip to Japan, or their favorite stuff from Japan, but it will be entirely about them. This is useful as you no longer have to talk, and they will like you for letting them talk about themselves.

As with anime, you have to be careful about how much you like Japan. If you know how to speak Japanese you kind of ruin it for everyone else.

59 Natural Medicine

One thing all white people believe is that natural medicine can cure everything. If you want to test this theory, think about which stores supply the bulk of natural/herbal remedies. That’s right! Whole Foods and organic co-ops!

Because of its rather shady history, white people do not trust the pharmaceutical industry. Using pretty sound logic, they believe that the drug companies have no motivation to find real cures for things like AIDS, since the real profits are in drugs like Viagra and Xanax. With their powers of deduction, white people have determined that herbal remedies are unilaterally better than anything produced by a drug company.

Since white people can’t really blame any race for their problems, they need to blame corporations. In this case, the reason that they are sick or fat or without energy is because the drug companies are in a conspiracy to keep them addicted to placebos. This helps them shed accountability and lets them feel like they are helping the environment by rejecting the polluting, greedy, awful drug companies and taking natural, organic medicine from the Earth.

But perhaps it goes deeper. Hundreds of years ago, another group of people believed firmly in natural medicine and its ability to cure disease. Then white people gave them blankets with smallpox, and they all died. So perhaps turning to natural medicine also helps white people feel better about killing natives.

How can you use this for gain? It’s easy! When white people you work with are feeling sick or say they have no energy, ask them to tell you more about their problems. After pretending to listen for a little while, tell them that in your culture/home country, “We cured that using a special herbal powder from [insert made-up tree] root.”

Then the next day take them a small bag of basil or oregano and tell them to boil it in a tea (white people love to believe in magic teas) and see how they feel in the morning. One of two things will happen. They will either wake up feeling great because they want to feel great and they’ll thank you profusely, or they will wake up feeling like crap, and when you confront them at work, they will lie and say they feel good.

Either way, you did them a favor, so now they owe you a favor.

Note: It’s weird that there are some white people who won’t take aspirin but will take Ecstasy, cocaine, Xanax, and Vicodin.

60 Toyota Prius

Over the years, white people have gone through a number of official cars. In the ’80s it was the Saab and the Volvo. By the ’90s it was a Volkswagen Jetta or a Subaru 4WD station wagon. But these days there is only one car for white people; one car that defines all that they love: the Toyota Prius.

The Prius might be the most perfect white product ever. It’s expensive, gives the idea that you are helping the environment, and requires no commitment or life changes other than having slightly less money.

The Toyota Prius gets 45 miles per gallon. That’s right, you can drive 45 miles and burn only one gallon of gasoline. So somehow, through marketing or perception, the Prius lets people think that driving their car is
good
for the environment. It’s a pretty sweet deal for white people. You can buy a car, continue to drive to work and to Barack Obama rallies, and still feel like you are helping the environment!

Some white people pull the ultimate move: Prius, Apple sticker on the back, iPod rocking, and Democratic candidate bumper sticker. Unstoppable!

There are a few ways you can use this to your advantage. If you are carpooling to an event or party you can always say, “Can we take your Prius? My car doesn’t get good mileage and I feel guilty driving it.” And bam! Free ride!

Also, if you see a white person in a Prius you can say, “Wow, it’s great to see that you’re doing something for the Earth.” The white person will feel very good about themself and offer to drive you home or to IKEA, or to drop you off at ’80s night.

61 Bicycles

A good place to find white people on a Saturday is at a bike shop. Bike shops are almost entirely staffed and patronized by white people!

But not all white people love bicycles in the same way. There is much diversity. First up, we have the younger urban white folks who absolutely love their fixed-gear bicycles. These are seen all over college towns, Silverlake in L.A., Williamsburg in Brooklyn, Queen West in Toronto, and Victoria, British Columbia. Fixed-gear bicycles meet a lot of requirements for white-person acceptance. They can be made from older (i.e., vintage) bicycles, thus allowing the rider to have a unique bike that is unlikely to be ridden by anyone else in town. They are also easily customizable with expensive things: Aerospoke rims, Phil Wood hubs, and Nitto parts. The combination of rare bicycles and expensive parts makes it easy for white people to judge other white people on the quality and originality of their bicycles. This is important in determining if someone is or isn’t cooler than you.

Some white people also like mountain bikes because they let them be in nature. It really isn’t any more complicated than that.

And finally, many white people love expensive road bikes and the accompanying Spandex uniforms. These enable them to ride long distances and to wear really tight clothes without any social stigma. This type of rider will spend upward of $5,000 on a bicycle and up to $400 on accessories but will not ride to work—perhaps because they cannot wear the Spandex there. It is important that you never question why someone needs a $5,000 bicycle, since the answer is always “performance.”

For the most part, these rules are unisex. But there is a special category of bicycle that appeals far more to white women: the European city bike (pictured). White women have a lot of fantasies about idealized lives, and one of them is living in Europe and riding around an old city on one of these bikes. They dream about waking up and riding to a little café, visiting bakeries and cheese shops, and finally riding home to prepare a fancy meal for their friends, who will all eat under a canopy decorated with white Christmas lights. This information can be used to help gain the trust/admiration of a white woman, especially if you can pull off a lie about how your mother used to do all these things when she was younger.

And of course, it goes without saying that white people who ride bikes like to talk about how they are saving the Earth. If you know a person who rides to work, you should take them aside and say, “Hey, thanks. Sincerely, the Earth.” Then give a thumbs-up. That white person will ride home on a cloud.

62 Knowing What’s Best for Poor People

White people spend a lot of time worrying about poor people. It takes up a pretty significant portion of their day. They feel guilty and sad that poor people shop at Wal-Mart instead of Whole Foods, that they vote Republican instead of Democratic, that they go to community college or get a job instead of studying art at college.

It is a poorly kept secret that, deep down, white people believe that if given money and education, all poor people would be
exactly
like them. In fact, the only reason that poor people make the choices they do is because they have not been given the means to make the right choices and care about the right things.