Sorry, but it’s a classic, lazy, con-job.

Why I Don’t Like StuffWhitePeopleLike
By Gary Dauphin
By now you’ve likely been forwarded the link three, maybe four times. The nation may be divided by the war in Iraq, the Democratic Party may be lumbering towards a Denver apocalypse, mortgage-meltdown tent cities may be springing up while lenders collapse, but, look on the bright side: At least everyone loves Stuff White People Like. The blog, started this past January by 29-year-old L.A. comedian and “internet copy writer” Christian Lander, cheekily promises “a scientific approach to highlight and explain stuff white people like,” Barack Obama (#8), for example, or traveling (#19), or “having gay friends” (#88).

On the basis of such offerings, stuffwhitepeoplelike.com (SWPL) has easily become 2008’s first legit web sensation, the faux-encyclopedia (89 entries and counting) generating nearly 14 million visits, garnering a few thousand blog mentions (including a standing link on the front page of TheRoot.com), spawning a handful of copycat sites and inciting several favorable nods from old media.

The giant pile of consensus about SWPL could easily be cliff-noted in four, exclamatory words: “Funny!” “Brilliant!” “Insightful!” and (from white folks who claim SWPL cuts a little too close to the pale bone) “Ouch!” Me, personally, I can’t stand the thing. That’s not to say I think SWPL is particularly evil or nefarious; it just annoys and bores in the precise measure needed to land it on the list of “stuff gary dauphin can’t stand.” (It’s a long list, let me tell you.)

I’ll confess that part of my antipathy is just old-fashioned player hate. Nothing gets under my (colored, nearly-middle-aged) skin like the spectacle of a twentysomething white kid doing what twentysomething white kids do all the time, namely, play on some or another aspect of their race for smug fun and profit. Lander has already reportedly been offered a $350K-plus book deal from Random House. (Can a VH1 Special be very far behind?) People of color are constantly accused of playing various race cards, but “White boy makes good by being white” is hardly a man-bites-dog story.

Envy aside, though, SWPL also smells like a classic racial con-job. It goes without saying that the specific entries (Oscar parties?) don’t really apply to anyone. That makes Lander’s overall pose–and the uncritical response to it–the real action. You’d think from the approving hubbub that SWPL had discovered (white) America or something, but white comedians, academics, and artists have been thinking and cracking wise about “white” culture since before Lander was in, well, short pants (#86). Usually, even jokey talk about whiteness has a whiff of danger to it, but SWPL is likely the safest, most affable racial satire ever, a loving high-five between friends passing as critique.

For the rest of the story, click here.