The simplest rule to follow is that every foreign film is good. Amazingly, in the history of cinema, the only truly awful films ever produced have been in English. Any film that features subtitles is regarded as excellent since it is produced outside of the “Hollywood system,” and therefore is more free to delve into real issues of modern life and unbridled artistic expression. There are no exceptions.
Be aware that if white people know your nation of ancestry, they will expect you to be familiar with the films of that nation. This has created a heavy burden on Asian people, especially the Chinese and Japanese. If you are able to recommend a film or director that is particularly obscure, a white person will immediately count you among their closest friends—but be prepared for when they get the director’s entire catalog from Netflix and want to talk to you about it.
The best way to use this knowledge to your advantage is if you are trying to create a romantic relationship with a white person. Scan the paper for the foreign films playing at your local art-house theater, and suggest it as a possible date. The white person will be unable to turn you down, as rejecting you would be rejecting foreign film, and if you were to say, “Oh, you don’t like foreign films? I’m sorry, I really misjudged you. Have fun at Harry Potter,” their shame might be enough to propel the date into a full-scale relationship.
117 Premium Juice
If you live in an area with a lot of white people and are looking for a way to make money, there are few sounder plans than to sell them premium juice. Yoga studios, organic co-ops, and breakfast places will all make money, but in terms of national franchising and profit margins, nothing can beat premium juice.
The white person’s obsession with expensive juice has helped launch a number of prominent orange juice companies as well as breakfast places offering up $6 glasses of “fresh-squeezed” orange juice. However, this has become so commonplace that there is no status associated with merely drinking juice from an orange.
The ideal white-person juice costs between $3 and $6, contains a blend of organic fruit, and is infused with some sort of vitamin or medicinal herb (echinacea is best). There are some instances where the juice is simply that of a single fruit, but in those cases it must be a fruit that seems difficult to juice—pomegranate, for example.
Traditional white medicine holds that drinking juice can cure and prevent colds. The potency of the juice is determined by its rarity and organicness, as well as the ecological commitment of the juice manufacturer. If you do not have time to investigate how each company produces its product, just buy the most expensive.
Aside from using this information to start a new business, it can be very useful in the office. If you are picking up lunch for a white person and they ask you to get them something to drink, bringing back an Odwalla or Naked Juice will be met with joy and awe. It will create the impression that you care about their health and do not spare any expense when it comes to workplace health. Also, the gift economy of the office dictates that this person must then get you a juice of equal or higher value when they purchase lunch. If they fail to do this within a week, you can point it out to other workers and slowly climb over them on the corporate ladder.
118 The ACLU
Though white people are a fiercely independent group, there are certain organizations they depend upon to help protect their rights and freedoms: Greenpeace, MoveOn.org, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and, most important, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Perhaps one of the most universal things on this list is white people’s love of the ACLU and its actions. And why not? It incorporates so many things that white people love: lawyers, religions their parents don’t belong to, knowing what’s best for poor people, nonprofit organizations, and expensive sandwiches. (The last point is not confirmed, but it’s a pretty safe bet to say that there is nothing ACLU lawyers like more than removing the Ten Commandments from public places and then digging into a nice panino.)
Though the stated goal of the ACLU is “to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States,” in recent years their top priority has been to protect white people from having to look at things they don’t like. At the top of this list is anything that has to do with Christianity: Ten Commandments tablets, public signs that mention God or Jesus, nativity scenes, any sort of Christian statue. Though some would say this is because white people hate Christianity, that is not true. White people simply do not enjoy the aesthetics of Christian artifacts. They much prefer Hindu or Buddhist furniture and imagery, and generally consider Christianity to be a little trashy.
The ACLU also helps to defend the parts of the Bill of Rights that white people like (everything but the right to bear arms).
WARNING: When talking about the ACLU with white people, it is best not to point out any contradictions in their support of the organization, as this will anger and upset white people on a level you have never experienced.
119 Plaid
Unlike many of the things on this list, white people have not agreed to love plaid flannel blindly and in perpetuity. In fact, the past fifty years have seen the popularity of plaid ebb and flow like the tides at virtually the same level of predictability.
Much in the same way that the tides are tied to the moon, plaid is tied very strongly to music. During periods when more folk-like or Country-Western music is popular, the torsos of white people will be decked out in some variety of plaid. The modern birth of flannel-based plaid occurred during the ’70s when bands like the Byrds, the Grateful Dead, and the Eagles brought a Country-Western aesthetic to rock music. The current iteration has been closely tied to the growth of a folksier blend of indie music.
However, the “grunge” era seems to poke a hole in this theory, as white people were wearing plaid and listening to music that was closer to punk than to folk music. There are two schools of thought on this issue. The first is that grunge served a folk-like function by providing a voice to a marginalized generation in the same way that Woody Guthrie did during the Depression. The other school of thought is “Who cares about grunge? I thought Kurt Cobain wore sweaters and stuff.” This era also featured a significant number of rappers and gang members wearing plaid, again adding to its status as an anomaly.
It is important to understand the role of plaid in white culture, because a lack of awareness could result in a major social mistake. You see, the wrong kind of white people have seen no ebb and/or flow in their love for plaid clothing. So depending on the position in the cycle, if you were to run into a Caucasian person in an airport wearing a plaid shirt, big belt buckle, raw denim, and some faded shoes, your first instinct might be “Oh, a white person. I’ll tell him how much I like Brooklyn and Yeasayer so I can trade seats with him.”
But be careful! You might be looking at the wrong kind of white person, who will probably be quite offended if you imply he’s from San Francisco. The lesson here is that if you are not in a white enclave, it’s best to assume that people dressed like farmers are farmers. This is not only to prevent offending the wrong kind of white person, but also, if you mistake a regular white person for a farmer, they will feel pretty good that they look authentic. You can’t lose.
120 Platonic Friendships
When you see a white woman and a white man eating dinner together, watching a movie, or drinking at a bar you probably think they are a couple. Not so fast! White people often engage in something called a “platonic friendship.” These arrangements feature a white male who is in love with a white female who needs companionship or access to someone with a car.
The relationship is symbiotic for a long time as the white male believes he is making “progress” in his efforts to sleep with the white woman. The white female is in turn rewarded with companionship, someone to help her move, and an excellent “backup” plan in case she is unable to date the male of her choice. (Note: There are instances where the male and female roles are
reversed, but these are far rarer.)
During these relationships both parties are required to pretend that the idea of them as a couple is absurd. This allows the male to complain to his friends about his unrequited love, while the female uses this strategy to attempt to ward off (or at least discourage) a sexual advance from the male.
Every single white person who has been in a platonic friendship has experienced at least one of three possible outcomes. The first and most hopeful is that the white male achieves his goal and is able to convince the white female to date him. This often happens after either a drunken sexual advance or, for the more sensitive males, a proclamation of love through a letter or poem. Once the female has agreed to a relationship, it just becomes a normal white relationship.
The opposite of this, of course, is when the female rejects the advance or declaration of love. In this horribly awkward situation, the white male will reassure her that everything is OK and then proceed to extricate himself from the friendship and begin the process anew with a different girl. While white girls will often complain about how they have lost so many friends because of this, they also like to say that these situations are “complicated” and are “a long story.” In both cases, they are hoping you will ask them about it.
Finally, and perhaps most common, is the situation where the friendship becomes strained after the white female begins dating another male. The more aggressive white males might even be willing to profess their love at this stage in a Hail Mary attempt to reach their goal of romantic involvement. But in general, most white males will pretend to be happy for a while and then gradually stop talking to the female.
When you are talking to a white person about personal stuff, make up a story about how you were friends with a girl/guy when you were between 15 and 20 (these are the prime platonic years) and how you were obsessed with her/him; you had these great moments but she ended up dating some jerk who cheated on her/him. Your point will be to prove the lesson about the value of a sensitive person over a good-looking one. There is no chance you will even be able to finish this story, as the white person you are talking to will interrupt you to tell you their version of the story. All you need in order to seal the friendship is to nod and reaffirm how right they are.
121 Reusable Shopping Bags
Many white people have been able to decrease their carbon footprint by using plastic shopping bags for such diverse purposes as garbage bags and bathing-suit transport. Though helpful, the accumulation of bags is often at a much quicker pace than the reusing process, and within months, drawers and closets begin to fill up and are not emptied until the white person moves. It is one of the great tragedies of modern white culture. Fortunately, as with all white problems, there is a simple, expensive solution!
Advanced white people have started to reject plastic shopping bags and have started to bring their own bags to the supermarkets and stores that they frequent. These bags serve two essential purposes in white culture: marginally reducing waste and, more important, publicly showing a commitment to the environment.
Basic-level white people will use the free tote bag they received from their donation to public television or radio to carry a small amount of groceries or farmer’s market produce back to their homes. Though this is respectable, it’s not really all that impressive.
Up a notch are people who have purchased a bag that was specially designed for groceries and features the logo of the store on the side. This not only serves to show those outside the store that they shop at a responsible location, it tells the people in the store that they are lesser for not using that bag. This is essential for defining the hierarchy of white people within certain grocery stores. But again, this bag is only really useful for small quantities of groceries and produce.
The highest-ranking white people will only use the aforementioned bags for short trips. When they purchase large amounts of food they will bring their own bags made of organic cotton string. These bags expand and can accommodate more food and are easily loaded into the back of a Prius or Subaru. But even that is not enough. To achieve the highest possible status, white people must also carry their own muslin sacks that they can use to bag produce like tomatoes and garlic. This prevents them from using one more plastic bag, and it demands recognition from the person at the checkout counter.
All these white people want you to tell them that they are doing the right thing. In fact, they are so eager for praise that you might be able to acquire a free bag if you play your cards right. At the checkout counter of the organic co-op, take a look to see if the white person in front of you has more bags than they need. If they do, nudge them and say “What are those?”—doing your best to get the white person to deliver a speech about how much waste is created by plastic bags. Then start to ask where to get them, and finally say, “I don’t really have that much in my cart, and I’d really hate to have to use one of those plastic bags. I would feel guilty all day.” And boom! Free bag! If you are willing to travel to different markets, you can likely acquire a full set within a month.
122 Acoustic Covers
In terms of music, nothing will please white people more consistently than acoustic covers of songs that don’t seem to lend themselves to acoustic covers. In fact, whenever a white person puts together a mix—on a CD, an mp3 set, or a podcast, or for a party—the crown jewel is always an acoustic cover of a pop or hip-hop song.
On the surface it may seem confusing that white people love these covers so much, but if you dig just below the surface, it’s really not so surprising. You see, white people are not supposed to like mainstream hip-hop, pop music, or heavy metal—those are all enjoyed far too much by the wrong kind of white people. But because of their relative popularity, virtually all white people are familiar with the music. So when a musician takes one of those songs and converts it into an acoustic cover, they have made it acceptable for white people to enjoy because it is now in a style of music that they like.
White people love acoustic guitar, but they also love familiarity and catching pop-culture references, so when an acoustic cover comes along, it delivers on every level!
There is a 100 percent chance that at some point a white person will ask you to “come listen to this,” and watch your face to see how long it takes you to figure out that the song is a cover. If you plan on pursuing friendship with this white person or if they have something you need, it would serve you well to act surprised when you recognize the song, then start laughing, then ask the white person, “Where did you get this?” They will gladly tell you and will be more likely to buy you lunch.
123 Dave Chappelle
Sitting next to the Michel Gondry collection on the DVD shelf of white people is Chappelle’s Show, seasons one and two. Though Chappelle had been very popular with white people prior to getting his own show (ask a white person if they have seen Half-Baked ), when he was given a weekly sketch show on Comedy Central it propelled him from preferred comic to true white comedic hero—joining ’80s Eddie Murphy, early ’90s Martin Lawrence, and late ’90s Chris Rock.
Though Dave Chappelle is popular with all kinds of people, the way that he is popular with white people might be different from what you would expect. For one, you have to be careful about which sketch you list as your favorite, as some have fallen out of favor. When it was first shown, all white people laughed very hard at the whole “Rick James” bit, but within a month it had been strongly co-opted by the wrong kind of white people, who started saying, “I’m Rick James, bitch,” in the same way that they used to say “Yeeaaah, baby!” after watching Austin Powers. So to quote that sketch will likely identify you as someone who lives on the wrong side of good taste.
When the topic of Dave Chappelle comes up, it is recommended that you mention the show only sparingly. Instead, you should mention how much you loved his many stand-up specials. This will not only give the white person a chance to repeat some jokes to show their comedic timing, but it will allow them to tell you how they were rea
lly into Dave Chappelle’s comedy before the show. Since you have mentioned the comedy specials, they will recognize you as someone who likes things before everyone else—quite the enviable position indeed.
If you are attempting to move your friendship with a white person to the next level (either socially or romantically), it is a good idea to invite them to your house to watch something featuring Dave Chappelle and smoke marijuana. This combination is irresistible to white people.
124 Tibet
In the history of white causes, there might never be one bigger than Tibet. The cause has celebrity endorsements, concerts, T-shirts, bumper stickers, Buddhism, and a simple solution. The latter is the most important, since many white people do not need to know the history of the situation in order to be passionate about the need for China to “get out of Tibet.” Unlike many other problems that have exceptionally complex solutions (global hunger, poverty, the environment), Tibet presents a rather clear-cut solution and is much easier to support blindly.
Ask a white person why they love Tibet so much and you will always get the same response: they see the nation as a place where people live simple lives, practice Buddhism, and find enlightenment on a daily basis. Tibetans have no need for material posessions, and it is rumored that the country actually absorbs pollution from China and turns it into self-help books for the West.
Stuff White People Like Page 13