How to Make White People Laugh

by Negin Farsad

  I do remember that feeling of insecurity as a sixteen-year-old girl—that feeling that I wasn’t pretty like the blond girls. The fear that I would never amount to anything in the social world because I just didn’t look like them. Never mind the fact that I had a creeping anxiety over developing bunions.2 I wasn’t given the right nose, the right skin, the right physique, the right ethnicity. I compared myself endlessly with white girls who seemed to control our school—despite the fact that the Latino population was huge, they still seemed to reign supreme. I mean, shit, they all looked like magazine cutouts. To hear three hundred people affirming every crappy, insecure thought I had in my head—in Surround Sound—was more than my little sixteen-year-old heart could handle.

  I wanted the stage to swallow me as the minutes—which felt like anthropological eras—went by. I wanted to run home to my mother to be (a) consoled but also (b) to yell at her for not listening to me, I told her a million times that if she let me shop at Hot Topic. maybe I wouldn’t be having such a rough day! At the time, I took the words of three hundred kids as objective truth. Like 4 out of 5 doctors agree that Sensodyne is the best toothpaste, 300 out of 300 high school kids agree that Noodle Farsad ain’t worth shit. I went around believing that for a long time.

  To be clear, it was more than my little sixteen-year-old heart could handle internally. Internally I was a mess. But externally I did my job. I was an actor, and fuck those little shitstains for trying to distract my laser-like focus from playing the part. The part of a funny girl onstage, that I was born to play. I was going for a Juliette Bi-noche meets Mike Myers, and lemme just say two words: Oscar worthy.

  For some reason I didn’t take note of the audience. If I had taken a closer look, I would have gone on my own rant: You, Dan McDickhole, in the front row! You have an uncontrolled erection that you got from a stapler. You, Man Boobs Johnson, you actually said “Mexicans speak Mexicano” in history class. You, Fart Machine Finley, you dipped nachos into your milk shake at lunch.

  When the scene was over, me and the other girl had to go backstage for a costume change. I was shell-shocked and a tear slid down my face—you know that single tear you see in movies on the protagonist’s face that makes you lose your shit? You know that one tear that an actor releases when the moment is just right and you wonder if there’s a production assistant waiving an onion off screen? I had that stupid single tear. That one dumb little tear carried the weight of every crush I ever had that didn’t like me back, all the times I regretted having an extra French fry, all the times I tried to make myself look cute with lip gloss. If that tear could talk!

  The girl in the red dress saw the tear and was speechless, she tried to say something that would let me know that what just happened was not okay by her standards of polite teenaged society. I wanted to tell her, don’t worry because according to John Hughes movies I win in the end and according to Scorsese movies, the audience ends up being strangled by a dude named “Fingers” in the backseat of a Lincoln Continental.

  Mrs. Rosemary Mallett, our drama teacher, ran backstage and said, “This Assembly will be over soon.” Basically, what she meant was, just go out there again, in front of a bunch of hungry shape-shifting wolves, and do your job. I wiped that one stupid tear, threw on the other costume and ran out to do my closing lines. “Never let them see you cry”—an old adage that was developed by seventh-century Huns3 but repurposed by a sixteen-year-old girl in Palm Springs, California, centuries later. I took a bow. I appeared unrattled.

  I ran out of the theatre when the bell rang, I went to the parking lot through the back of the school so no one would see me, hopped in my parents’ old Honda Accord hatchback, and was the first one off campus. The car had an all-black vinyl interior, which in the heat of the desert meant “ass burns.” I pretended like my buns felt normal and drove directly to the nearest Vons supermarket, where I bought a six-pack of orange Creamsicles.

  I came home and couldn’t speak, but my mom knew something was wrong. My best friend, Anca, came over. I didn’t have to tell her what happened, because she’d heard about it in the hallways; it was the whisper of every locker conversation (locker conversations are the widely regarded inspiration behind “Page Six,” People magazine, and Lockers Weekly). We ate Creamsicles, cried a little, and mostly strategized on how to get the Sri Lankan girl and the Indian guy in our grade to go to prom together.4

  The next day the teachers from the guilty classes asked Mrs. Mallet if they could formally apologize, but I just wanted to forget it. Mrs. Mallett handled it like a pro, she didn’t dignify the hoots and hollers, and offered the drama room as a safe haven for me to skip calculus.

  Mrs. Mallett made a comedian out of me that day because, well, come on—you wanna heckle me? Bring it! What was even more remarkable about her is that she cast me—me—as the hot girl in a play. She did stuff like that—she also cast me in the male part of God’s messenger in Neil Simon’s God’s Favorite. She never saw hotness defined in a certain way or the representative of “God” defined in a certain way. For her, a Jewish Neil Simon wrote about a Christian dude who meets God’s messenger, that was best played by an Iranian-American Muslim gal. That was normal to her. And it is! She didn’t give a shit how you saw it, because she knew the vision of society she had in her head and that vision was right. And everyone else could suck it.

  She taught me two essential lessons: (1) hecklers will never disappear, so you have to learn not to give a shit. There are YouTube comments piled upon mean tweets that will never let you forget that you have opposition. Irrational, ugly opposition. But you cannot give a shit. And (2) if you don’t like reality, cast it differently. Present it differently. Who cares if God is normally an old white guy with a beard? That’s just not how I see it. Who cares if beauty is often a blond woman in a red dress? That’s just not how I see it. I’m casting beauty, and today it looks different.

  I never spoke of this episode to a soul outside the school, not even my mother. Years later I managed to tell a friend as we were exchanging high school horror stories. But I haven’t figured out how to frame it as a funny and embarrassing high school story like getting pantsed outside of chemistry class or showing up to school with toothpaste on your face. I still worry that you’ll hear the story and think, You know, that group of hormonal high school jerkballs had a point—you are ugly. As if they still have power over me. But I know better now. Though sometimes I still take refuge in a comforting orange Creamsicle.

  CHAPTER 4

  When Fig Newtons Are the Last Straw

  On Leaving Palm Springs

  By the time I was ready to go to college, I had developed a well-crafted ideological position on Palm Springs, summed up by: Palm Springs is the cultural armpit of America.1 I had to leave. I had a series of well-reasoned arguments on the nature of Palm Springs, presented here in bullet-point form:

  A Young Woman’s Philosophical Meditation on Palm Springs: The Bullet Points

  Every cactus prick on my fingers is like a pinprick on human development itself.

  The petite bourgeoisie of Palm Springs are too busy rewrapping their tennis rackets to notice the dissolution of their own humanity.

  My soul has withered in this dusty terrain, now please order me a hot dog on a stick with cheese. Do not forget the cheese.

  These meditations on Palm Springs gave way to very real fears about a future in the golf-club-rich terrain of Southern California, which included the following:

  A Young Woman’s Fears About a Future in Southern California: The Bullet Points

  If I stay in the desert, my brain could turn into cactus jizz.

  I’ll die at the Denny’s, with a bunch of senior citizens who are also dying.

  I’ll end up being one of those people who buys hand cream in bulk.

  What if I want a barista job that’s not at a Starbucks? How am I supposed to grow as a barista?

  Inevitably someone will yell “Fore!” and inevitably I won’t hear it and inevitably I�
�ll get killed by a senior citizen with a shitty drive.

  To make matters worse, my parents were like Guantanamo prison guards. Which is to say that they never let me do anything. I had more rules than any kid at school. Mind you, I was a perfect student with the best grades, which you think would mean I got more privileges. But that doesn’t cut it for their immigrant work ethic. Being a perfect student is a total given. It’s just what you’re supposed to do.

  How a Young Woman’s Parents “Celebrated” Good Grades

  You got a perfect report card? That’s great—how about you practice piano to celebrate?

  You were voted president of the debate club? Good. Why don’t you clean up your room so it’s more befitting of a president?

  You were just cast in a school play? Good—we just bought a stationary bike so you can exercise your excitement off.

  You received a scholarship to go to college? Here are some Fig Newtons.

  Fig Newtons, bitches! You know what’s really exciting about Fig Newtons? They’re made from figs, and you know how kids go crazy over figs! Oh man, and that unsugary exterior? Wrap them dried-fruit delights up and pass them out as Christmas gifts, because it is Fig Newtons and not chocolate that people should give each other during times of celebration.

  Growing up, my parents also couldn’t wrap their heads around why I was kinda chubby. I wasn’t super overweight, this wasn’t a “let’s call in the fire department with a crane” situation. But they were always suspicious.

  Accusations Wielded by a Mother Toward Her Daughter

  Are you hiding chocolates under your bed?

  Are you hiding those colorful candies under your bed? (I think she meant Nerds/Runts/SweeTarts.)

  Are you hiding a McDonald’s burger under your bed?

  Yeah, I was asked, on multiple occasions, whether I was hiding a hamburger under my bed. You know, because hamburgers are the kind of thing that you can just put in a drawer and eat little by little. They hold up! Oh mother, the real trouble comes from hiding hamburgers in your body.2

  And why did she think I always hid these things under my bed? I did not nor have I ever had a relationship with the under part of my bed. It collects dust. Occasionally I store sweaters under there. Moreover, I think we can all agree that it’s lost its zest as the Great American Hiding Spot, because everyone looks under the bed first. So if I’m gonna hide anything, it wouldn’t be under the bed. If I did want to hide something, I would throw it in an old-timey tin box in the top shelf of my closet or deep within my leg warmers drawer. Mind you, I was never accused of hiding drugs or alcohol. These were all food-based accusations.

  I also hated Palm Springs because the Southern California lifestyle is based on car ownership. You have to drive and you must own a car or else. I’m pretty sure that’s the state motto, but Google it before you quote me. I am what some might refer to as “a terrible driver.” But honestly, it’s not the driving but the parking that really gets me.

  Like any red-blooded American teen with zits and a tendency to eye-roll, I got my driver’s license at sixteen. I was a sophomore. My parents gave me a Honda Accord to drive around that was from the ’70s. Since the car was older than me, they didn’t really care what happened to it. I spent the next two years of my life scuffing it up in various parking accidents. There wasn’t a parking lot bumper I didn’t hit. There wasn’t a parallel parking scenario that didn’t agitate my gallstones. Here are things you would hear me say about these various parking mishaps:

  A Young Woman Justifies Her Parking Mishaps

  I don’t think it’s normal for a parking garage to have such a narrow entrance.

  I don’t know, I honestly thought I had enough room, but then I was suddenly on the sidewalk.

  You’d think a supermarket parking lot would design wider turns between lanes.

  I feel like this spot was meant for teleportation and not for actual driving.

  What am I supposed to do if the Rite Aid doesn’t have a valet?

  You know who I never blamed? This guy (I’m pointing at myself). I never blamed this guy.

  So, between my antidesert rants, the Farsad dictatorship, and my endless parking nightmare, Palm Springs was dust. It was toast. It was goosed. It was cooked. It was burnt on one side and it would never taste good in these buns. It was time to go.

  CHAPTER 5

  A Protester Is Born

  Dave Matthews, Pleated Khakis, and the Reverend Al Sharpton

  College! It’s where young and oversexed students formulate their thinking while getting small tattoos they can conceal from their parents and also adopting a much more lax hygiene regimen.

  Just as I considered myself Mexican in high school, in college I began shifting my sights to being black (hopefully you read the introduction—but you may be reading this book in reverse order, in which case, carry on anyway). I started watching Spike Lee movies, critiqued academia’s default Eurocentrity, and bemoaned the whiteness of shows like Boy Meets World. I presented my position through such bold acts as wearing a Malcolm X T-shirt on campus.

  A bold act

  I was a double major in government and theatre, which meant every political-science assignment was an opportunity to theatrically decry our society’s racial divide. It also meant that I stage-managed the school’s production of the one play they put on about slavery. For real.1

  I was awash in the politics of neocolonialism; I would gleefully stump on the canon of Senegalese film; I joyfully ranted on the inherent inequality of intergenerational wealth transfer. Basically, I was superfun at parties. It was a politically charged environment, and I poured my sociopolitical frustrations into blackness.

  Race awareness hit me from the very first moments of college, even from my very first college friend. Molly was extremely well liked, blond, beautiful, friendly, funny, smart, and athletic, and to top it off, she could drop juicy gossip with the best of them. We lived in the same dorm freshman year and were instant besties. We were the inexplicably noisy neighbors amidst a large population of really shy and quiet people: “You’re just walking to the kitchen, how are you so noisy??” I don’t know, it’s a talent!

  Later in life, a downstairs neighbor who happened to be my landlord came to inspect my apartment one day. He asked if we had considered putting down any carpet and I said, “No way, have you seen the wood floors! To die!” And then he said, “Because you have a very heavy walk. It sounds like a bunch of rhinoceroses up here.” My roommate nodded her head, “It’s true. You have a heavy gait.” As a girl who’s been battling weight my whole life, I immediately Googled “how much do rhinos weigh.” They can weigh up to five thousand pounds. I understood the rhino analogy to be an exaggeration and promised to wear slippers. But it’s still hard not to think of myself as a loud, lone, rhino, clomping around the earth… in slippers. Molly was skinny, but she also had a rhino walk, which was what made us friends.

  (Brought the story back to Molly despite a huge diversion into rhinos! Come on! That’s how you get segues done, bitches!)

  Molly and I now have a drink once a year when she’s in town, but one time, a couple of years ago, our meeting had a different vibe. I was wearing a weird outfit (shades of pink coupled with a green ascot, it was a quick judgment call, I don’t have to defend myself to you!). Oh, and I was also slowly sipping on a Jägermeister because I was going through a “Jägermeister is actually a really good digestif” period, and look, it’s not my job to defend the health benefits of Jägermeister, I’ll let the next comedian do that, but it does calm a crazy stomach, so get off my back already! Point is, this meeting was different because Molly had something to say. At one point she broke down in tears, apologizing about her treatment of me and her roommate at Cornell.

  Her roommate was Chinese-American. She grew up in New York City’s Chinatown and had an overprotective family. She never experienced the all-American cheerleaders-and-popularity parade that Molly had. I was somewhere in between them. I think we were both a bit env
ious of what Molly got to grow up with—that is, uncomplicated whiteness. The endless sloppy joes, sleepovers, and press-on nails. To be clear, we both loved Molly, because she was lovable. But here was Molly, years later, crying at a bar to me because her freshman self didn’t understand that there was a real difference between us, that we didn’t have the same upbringing she did. That we didn’t immediately fit in the way she always had. She hadn’t understood cultural sensitivity or the privilege of dominance or what it felt like to never question belonging. She just got to put on the press-on nails and have a laugh.

  She had all the benefits of being a mean girl without ever having been mean. She used her powers for good and not evil, because she was a fundamentally nice person. She never did anything terrible; she mostly just dragged me to frat parties where I wasn’t quite welcome or made assumptions about our home lives, whether or not we ever had boyfriends or went to dances. Her assumptions weren’t horrible, but they were only true for her particular white suburban upbringing. But the fact that she was crying only meant that she realized ten years later that she had lacked exposure. She hadn’t been thoroughly groomed for this level of compassion. Having to consider another person’s entirely different cultural context hadn’t occurred to her before. She had been raised around people like her or people who knew to defer to her. That was what college was: It was like being around a bunch of people, some good, some bad, but most of them not yet groomed for this kind of compassion.