Thesis One
Revolutionary psychiatrist and pan-
Africanist Frantz Fanon, in
his famous book Black Skin, White Masks, asked this profound
question: “What does the black man want?” It is useful to have this
seemingly simple question in mind when we consider the substance of the
popular blog Stuff White People Like. We can, it appears, never ask the
question “What do white people want?” That question was answered a
long, long time ago: White people want lots of stuff. Indeed, we do not
need to even ask the question “What kind of stuff do white people
like?” The answer to that question has long, long been established. In
our day, all that is left is to show or see the stuff that white people
like.
Thesis Two
If there were a blog called Stuff Black People Like, what would be
on the blog? Nothing. Why? Black people do not like stuff; they want
stuff. They want a house, a car that works, neighbors who do not smoke
crack, police officers who do not stop them for no reason (“I’m not
robbing this house; this is my house”), supermarkets instead of corner
stores that sell baggy T-shirts with images of Scarface and other
mythical criminals. The blog for black folks would have to be called
Stuff Black People Want.
Thesis Three
The difference between the word “want” and “like” is this: The
former word has in it the hole of hunger; the latter has no such hole.
The latter is about what happens after fulfillment, what happens after
there is no distance between desire and the object of desire. When you
are no longer oppressed by want, only then can you like this stuff and
dislike that stuff.
Thesis Four
It is often pointed out that the blog Stuff White People Like is
really about a type and class of white people, and not really about all
white people. The class of white people that is represented by the blog
is urban, educated, and liberal. So, for the purpose of accuracy,
should the blogger Christian Lander change his blog’s name to Stuff
Liberal and Educated White People in the Big Cities Like? No, he should
not. Here is why: All white people want to become urban, educated, and
liberal. Even if they do not know it, and even if they resist it, they
must eventually become this type/class of whiteness. This type/class
represents the terminal point for the varieties of whites in the lower
depths. To become urban, educated, and liberal is the goal for someone
who is, say, rural, uneducated, and generally stupid. And because most
white Americans are rural, uneducated, and generally stupid does not
mean being white is being like them. Being white is, instead, being the
opposite of them. Why? Because the movement, socially speaking, is not
from urban, educated, and liberal down to rural, uneducated, and
generally stupid. The movement is the other way around—a white
person goes up, rises to the condition of someone who recycles, shops
at farmers markets, drinks good coffee, listens to Mos Def, and so on
and so forth. Stuff White People Like is about what all white people,
no matter where they are in the lower depths, will eventually become:
urban, educated, and liberal.
Thesis Five
Six months after starting the blog Stuff White People Like, Lander
published a book called Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide
to the Unique Taste of Millions. The book, like the blog, was a
huge success. It became a best seller. Thousands upon thousands of
people bought the book version of a blog that receives thousands upon
thousands of hits (Wikipedia claims the blog had 40 million hits within
nine months of its inauguration). Because black people do not read this
blog or care for the book, we can assume that it is white people who
are reading about white people liking this and that particular thing or
practice. So the ultimate is reached: What is one of the things white
people like? Stuff White People Like.
Wow, I usually hate the pretentious poo that Charles writes, but this is great!
Just admit admit you are racist and get on with it….
This is brilliant!
when it’s not pointless it’s inaccurate.
Mudede’s stuff is so pointless and pretentious it makes me wish i was racist. that’s how bad it is.
I’m a racist and I enjoyed this article
I would have gone elsewhere with this. As a white person I can say that what white people like is also what they want, but it may very well be a qualitatively different type of wanting. In fact, I guess you basically said that towards the end, kind of negating the distinction between wanting and liking? Was that on purpose or something?
I did wonder if you’ve read “Finite and Infinite Games” by Carse as it seems mildly similar in style. Just a recommendation.
I often hear from many of the prominent African American leaders that the white population cannot pass judgement on the Black Community because white people lack the understanding of what that is. They were not raised in it, were not exposed to the subjugation and social norms inherent to the average black man and womans’ life. Even when living directly within a largely black community or watching television/movies targeted at black people, white people simply don’t understand since they are on the outside looking in.
I can completely understand and sympathize with this point of view. As such, though, I would like to point out how equally unintelligent it sounds coming in the other direction. You are making a lot of broad, wide-sweeping statements, hypothesis, and overall generalizations in order to insult a popular website. And while I’m sure this site deserves a bit of ridicule- I’m almost entirely certain you did it all wrong.
Right fucking on, Mr. Doo-da-day. Rock the identity politics. Brilliant. But black people do so ‘like’ stuff: for example, white people like Mayo, black people like Miracle Whip, right? And I’d bet you like Marlon Riggs’ Black is…Black ain’t, no? Only disappointing part is the indignant responses to your dissing the white people party, which is funny in a Christopher Guest kind of way, but I was hoping for something more argumentative. In Fanon’s oppression thesis don’t hurt people hurt people? Stay on the job, keep up the good work. What you do will not be enough but it matters that you do it, G!
Do any of the other employees at The Stranger ever get tired of having to read this kind of mental diarrhea written by an obvious Seattle white-guilt/Affirmative Action hire?
stuff black people don’t like dot blogspot dot com
He really is the ultimate Seattle white-guilt/Affirmative Action hire. From “Zimbabwe”, blathers on about Marxism and Foucault and scantily-clad white women, straight. How more “Seattle Affirmative Action Hire” can you get. Only if he was disabled and a transgendered lesbian jew.
Blacks make up only abut 8% of Seattle but commit over half of all murders there.
http://tinyurl.com/no5knk
From the article “List of 2008 homicides in Seattle” from the Seattle PI
selected from the list of the 28 Seattle homicides in 2008….
Allen Joplin, Jan. 4 — black killed by black
De’Che Morrison, Jan. 10 — black killed by black
Maurice “Moe” Allen Jr., Jan. 26 — black killed by black
Degene Barecha, Jan. 30 — black killed by black
Perry Henderson, Feb. 6 — black killed by black
Stephan Dwaine Stewart, April 2 — black killed by black
Eldora Earlycutt, July 4 — black killed by black
James Paroline, July 10 — white killed by black
Troy Peters, July 22 — black killed by black
Pierre Lapoint, Aug. 5 — black killed by black
Jane Kariuki, Oct. 16 — woman of unknown race killed by black man named Christel D. Murphy
Quincy S. Coleman, Oct. 31 — black killed by black
Edward McMichael, the “Tuba Man”, Nov. 3 — white killed by multiple blacks
Nathaniel Lee Thomas, Nov. 23 — black killed by black
So by my count blacks (8% of Seattle) were the killers in at least half (that’s at least 50%) of the murders in the Seattle area in 2008. At least five of the other murderers were latinos.
The numbers are actually worse for 2009 and do approach the 85% mark. Up to June there have been at least 5 murders in Seattle and in at least three of them the murder was black.
Just look at all the attention that Slog has given those two white lesbians who were raped and stabbed (one killed) by that black guy that your loony white-guilt courts let go!!!
Actually the only reason you even paid any attention to it was because they were lesbians, even going so far as shrieking about how it was an anti-gay hate crime, totally ignoring the more obvious possibility that if it was any kind of hate crime at all, it was a black-on-white hate crime.
@13. Listen, asshole, you’re missing the point. While I disagree with Charles’s point that all white people want to be the upwardly liberal elite (if they did, the backwards bigotry of both rural and urban whites would not persist so strongly into the 21st century), his bottom line- the upward white elite are privileged enough to be particular about ridiculous things like $5 organic local cupcakes where the majority of black people cannot because being black more often than not means being economically situated far below a white majority.
Did you ever stop to consider that your statistics say something about the centuries-old white hate crime that is acted out everyday? Killing is an act of desperation. Nobody kills casually. Did you ever consider that there were more black victims of murder than white victims of murder on that list of yours? All your list points to is the reality of black life in urban America- black people are living in poorer, less safe areas, with less access to basic necessities, and more access to weapons. The police are not exactly rushing to protect these areas, which leads to the prevalence of gangs, and thus, more violence.
You’re proving Charles’s point. Black people want the right to life, food, water, a neighborhood where you don’t have to worry about getting shot, their kids joining gangs to “stay safe,” or dealing drugs to make money, or doing drugs to forget about the fact that they live in these shitty areas under a shitty system that does not allow for their success. White people have very rarely allowed black people succeed in the system they created, and then they act shocked when black people have to subvert the law. They call it a “hate crime,” they feel threatened, but at the end of the day, the white, the rich, will continue to be white and rich, and black people will end up hurting themselves in an attempt to “get out” of their circumstances.
Oh well, whatever. Let them eat cupcakes. But only if they’re organic.
You know, #14, you could have saved yourself a lot of time by just typing:
“Listen asshole, this is all whitey’s fault!”
Which does absolutely nothing to explain Africa and its thousands of years of absolute fucked-up savagery and primitiveness and war and slavery, which went on long before whites ever went there, and all of which is still happening now in Africa this very second. Yes, whites FORCED all those black teens to kill. It all beesz YT’s fault.
Honestly, in the face of such indisputable facts, if the only thing you can do is shriek insults like “asshole” and “racist”, then it truly means you have lost the debate.
I’ll even throw you a bone: Of course I am a racist. Why shouldn’t I be one???
——————-
“The police are not exactly rushing to protect these areas,”
— Simply because the blacks shriek “racist” the very second that police try. No Snitchin’, Yo!
————
“White people have very rarely allowed black people succeed in the system they created”
— Because blacks were not qualified to enter our “system”. It was our “system”. We created it. They were in Africa living in mud huts, killing and eating each other, raping babies for magic powers, without having ever invented the wheel. The certainly weren’t qualified a couple of hundreds of years ago and most still are not. Only very recently have a few of them attained such qualifications, but not without tons of white help, of course. You’re welcome!
Personally I can’t stand white hipsters OR most blacks simply due to their behaviours so in the context of this article I think everything is even.
“What does the black man want?”
A white woman, no matter how fat.
i must admit at 15, you made me laugh big time. you are some comic.
but, to be honest, one of the sad, sad things about americans, and this goes with african americans as well white americans, is they really have no idea of the size of africa and its racial composition or mixture. no idea whatsoever. and another thing about americans, white and black, is they have no idea of european history, which is so rich and complex.
i would one day love to teach a course on european history, particularly around the area of scholasticism, to white supremacists. that would be fun indeed.
actually, forget it, i do not want to do a class with white supremacists. why? because i can never forget world war one. that kind of savagery, carnage has no equal in african history. indeed, africans did not develop a war machine that could facilitate large scale violence until very late. in southern africa it was with the zulus. so sudden, so powerful, so exceptional was the organized zulu war machine that there is even a name for the violence they unleashed: mfecane–a time of trouble.
Mr. Mudede wrote:
“All white people want to become urban, educated, and liberal.”
This assertion is big-time, comically false. To give our esteemed Professor of European History more comic opportunities, he could start with the obvious, like explaining to us 8 years of rule by G.W. Bush…
“because most white Americans are rural, uneducated, and generally stupid does not mean being white is being like them.”
As white rural cracka Forrest Gump succinctly stated, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
Even if they do not know it, and even if they resist it, the generally stupid have a very limited capacity for education, their capacity being inversely correlated with their stupidity.
As any educated detective on the Police Beat might say:
“because most black Americans are urban, uneducated, and generally stupid does not mean being black is being like them.”
why are there so many racist comments here it´s really disturbing just because you dont like charle´s mudedes article/s doesnt give anyone the right to say he´s an ¨afirmative action hire¨ keep your racism to yourself and stick to criticising the article this is 2009 in seattle and people are still so ignorant
“why are there so many racist comments”
Because Charles is the ultimate white-guilt Seattle liberal Affirmative-Action hire. Do you honestly think he would even be employed at the Stranger if he wasn’t from “Zimbabwe” and a Marxist??? Give me a fucking break and wake up to reality.
Im just shocked Charles wasnt rambling about HIMSELF, HIS FAMILY or AFRICA for once!
He IS however talking about race AGAIN so that kills the aforementioned shock.
This article is a complete waste of space. STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE is a comedic website and really not much else. How the hell you were able to ramble on for so long about it is beyond me. Besides, WHY WOULD YOU TAKE IT SERIOUSLY? Its OBVIOUSLY a humor site!
If white people wanna stereotype themselves as they do everyone else, how is that a bad thing?
Its a HUMOR WEBSITE. Get over it, and get over yourself.
Quit using SLOG as your personal blog. Im betting the other readers really dont care about your personal life, family and Africa so much that they need to hear about it constantly.
ITS JUST NOT RELEVANT TO ANYONE BUT YOU.
Once again, save it for your personal blog.
Love the over-simplification of lumping all black people together.
“Black people do not like stuff; they want stuff. They want a house, a car that works, neighbors who do not smoke crack…”
Way to marginalize black people who DO have houses, working cars, and neighbors who don’t smoke crack.
It’s disingenuous, as well as insulting to the hard working (or perhaps even lucky) black people who do have “nice things”, to imply that the only type of black people are downtrodden ghetto dwellers living in drug zones and wearing Scarface t-shirts because that’s all their stores sell.
Thanks for missing the obvious, astute author, and ignoring the intended irony that, just as all black people are not the same, all white people aren’t the same either. It’s obvious that those responsible for “Stuff White People Like” are intending to use that irony humorously just by looking at the subtitle of the book: “A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions”.
But hey, it seems pretty obvious to me that this whole article is intended to rile people up. So carry on…
As an expert of White People, I present Theses #6: Dammit I had this idea years ago! I should have gotten off my ass to write this blog!
Isn’t this article doing what the original blog did? More stereotyping, but including black people this time… It’s less funny because it’s no longer just white hipsters making fun of themselves… To me, the list of Stuff That White People Like illuminated a very similar point to the one that Charles makes here. Just more subtly and easily taken, from one white person to another. But we can’t let black people into this discussion, can we, no, then it’s real. Not humorous.
I do think that Charles Mudede is smart enough to realize that his race will be noticed no matter what he writes – we do live in the Pacific Northwest – so why try to hide? Why not just write about race and inflame the passions explicitly? It sure makes things more interesting.
stuff white people like is just that.. no more no less, it does not mean we are biggots or raceist. it’s just stuff white people like. what if it was stuff men like or kids like or indians or irish or asian people?? quite reading into everything so much.
“And because most white Americans are rural, uneducated, and generally stupid does not mean being white is being like them.”
Americans have 99 problems but taking statements like this seriously isn’t one…
As of mid-2005, 81 percent of the population of the United States lived in cities and suburbs. And 74 percent of the population was white.
I found that data on wikipedia in the “Demographics of the United States” entry. It may have been submitted by somebody rural, uneducated and generally stupid. Or Charles Mudede is most definitely not coming correctly…
As a journalist he probably know where to look to get more authentic data. Maybe next time, he’ll do it before he writes something just because it fits nicely between his last sentence and his next thought.
May he never be an instructor of European history at any college I attend…
“And because most white Americans are rural, uneducated, and generally stupid does not mean being white is being like them.”
Americans have 99 problems but taking statements like this seriously isn’t one…
As of mid-2005, 81 percent of the population of the United States lived in cities and suburbs. And 74 percent of the population was white.
I found that data on wikipedia in the “Demographics of the United States” entry. It may have been submitted by somebody rural, uneducated and generally stupid. Or Charles Mudede is most definitely not coming correctly…
As a journalist he probably know where to look to get more authentic data. Maybe next time, he’ll do it before he writes something just because it fits nicely between his last sentence and his next thought.
May he never be an instructor of European history at any college I attend…
While I don’t always agree with some of Charles’ perspectives, I have to say the one thing that I now understand from reading the Slog comments is that people in Seattle – especially of the melanin deprived variety – are much more racist than I ever realized. When I first moved here back in 2005 this seemed like such a step up from Iowa. I mean, c’mon… Iowa is about as white as a state can get without glowing in the dark and their typically conservative politics were to be expected. But it seems like over the years the aversion most blacks who are native to Seattle have for the whites here is probably for the best.
If all of you are so filled with hate and really think the things you say, why you don’t have the guts to say to Charles or any other black person) in person what you all seem bold enough to say here? I’d love to see you make the kinds of assertions you make here with glee here in front of any person of color if only so that I could laugh at you as the paramedics take you and your latte & micro brew sipping, listening to lame suburban hip-hop to the ER. I guess you’re only tough and self righteous when hiding behind the tubes of the internets.
So much for Seattle being the bastion of educated, Left leaning types. I think after I finish my degree I’ll take my creative capital to a more enlightened place that actually has real public transit and pick their political leaders on criteria other than whether they will save endangered species of cockroaches or work for failing cell phone companies.