A black colleague e-mailed me about a website called Stuff White People Like. I had heard of the two-month old blog before, but I hadn’t checked it out until this weekend.
I was curious how I would fare. Early on, I meshed with items 8, 12, 35, 36, 38, 43, 44, 46, 50, 55, and 57. But these last several posts:
* #78 Multilingual Children – well, optimally
* #77 Musical Comedy – I like Weird Al
* #76 Bottles of Water – afraid so
* #75 Threatening to Move to Canada – once in a great while
* #74 Oscar Parties – been there
* #73 Gentrification – not yet
* #72 Study Abroad – not yet
* #71 Being the only white person around – d/n/a
* #70 Difficult Breakups – oh, yeah
* #69 Mos Def – not so much
* #68 Michel Gondry – no
* #67 Standing Still at Concerts – depends
* #66 Divorce – yes
* #65 Co-Ed Sports – not recently, but there was that volleyball at the Y period in the early 1990s
* #64 Recycling – absolutely
My cultural identity is in shambles!
I jest, but there is this:
I was leading adult education for three weeks during Black History Month, a/k/a, February. The latter two weeks, this guy shows up and talks. A lot. About issues tangential at best to the topic at hand.
The last week, I’m wearing this African garb. As I rush from Adult Ed to the bathroom, then onto choir, this guy asks me if I were African-American. I figure he’s just yanking my chain and ignore him.
Then the new church letter comes out for March. Inside is a black-and-white picture of some of the participants of the first adult ed class I led, including someone who I didn’t immediately recognize as me. In my mind’s eye, I look the same as I always did, but the vitiligo has rendered me light enough so that someone who did not know me DIDN’T know that I was black. Most peculiar.
ROG
