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March 17, 2009

Reflections on Christian Lander one year later

Posted by Anna Bowen at 04:21 PM ET

I was flipping through Christian Lander's web-site based book, What White People Like, which has garnered lots of media attention and blushing from those who can relate over the past year. Among the culprits? Brunch, high-performance clothes, Moleskine notebooks, sushi, taking a year off, IKEA, saving Africa, etc. Most people are familiar with this already. I was thinking about this on the subway, thinking Christian Lander needs some more critique, when I overheard a group of middle aged white-Anglo people behind me discussing their love of jogging, half marathons, and staying in shape. Their conversation initially caught my attention because they started talking about how "the Kenyans" are always running past them and are so very fast. One of them said her favourite thing was to find a 5k "brunch jog" - that way she could jog a loop and reward herself at her favourite brunch spot. No joke.

So a little more than one year after Lander's webpage became a hit overnight, and six months or so after his book was published, nothing much has changed (save perhaps awareness, that elusive term). Will it ever?

Having been put in my place by subway eavesdropping (Lander is obviously hitting this thing on the nose), I reflected a little more on Lander. My first reaction is funny, funny, yes, yes, ooh uncomfortable, funny, irony, oh irony. But that only gets you so far. My next thought is that it's amazing that "white people" love this stuff (Not the "stuff," but the book and the blog). However, I can imagine many Canadian "white people" laughing along but sort of looking over their shoulders thinking, I totally love brunch! Wait a second, I'm white?

Thoughts?

1. Although we try to avoid talk of race in Canada, unlike our American counterparts who are more at ease with being upfront about it, the popularity of this site and book - even up here in multicultural Canada - shows that we know deep down inside that race is still an issue despite the beacon of multiculturalism that we uphold.

2. "White people" can take a joke (well, for the most part - a lot of not-humour comes out in the comments), a good first step

3. But what about this comment about "the Kenyans"? What of the things that these selfsame "white people" don't like? Burkas, for instance, or elementary schools in "undesirable" neighbourhoods? One blogger pointed out that "white people" don't like too many people living in one house. As we look a little deeper into what it is "white people" don't like, the joke gets a little less funny.

The cover of today's G&M shows a couple who fit deftly into the pigeonhole "white people," cuddling on pillows with their "Instant Family," siblings they adopted from Ethiopia. Although the premise is that this is a win-win situation, there's no pretending that overseas adoptions are not sometimes (a) fashion statements (b) benevolence
statements, or (c) trendy.

As Chandler Levack pointed out in her timely THIS article last year, what works about Stuff White People Like is that you can "laugh at yourself while maintaining a sense of superiority" when you read this stuff. And while that's what makes Lander's joke so successful, it's also what allows room for, and demands, more work.

More entries on: Race

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Reader comments:

I think it's also important to qualify the catch all term "white people". There are plenty of 'white people' who don't fit into the stereotypes Lander discusses, because really, he's talking about upper middle class "white people," a decidedly small segment of North American society, and one that receives relatively little cultural critique. And in that respect, I think Chandler's wry observation are a good starting point.

But I must say, that brunch jog sounds AMAZING...

Posted by: Elaisha at March 18, 2009 09:54 AM

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Yes, the class critique of Lander has been probably the most prominent backlash against his stuff. The LA Times has a good article from last year about it called "White like us" by Gregory Rodriguez

Posted by: Anna at March 18, 2009 11:34 AM

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