It is perfectly fine to be white!

I spent this past weekend doing one of my favorite things… No, not skiing, not yachting, and obviously not competing in any sort of Walk-A-Thon (I do not do “A-Thons”. They make me feel like if I am out of shape, I am condoning the issue. “You only walked a block in a half? You must be Pro-Child Abuse!) No, I spent this Saturday and Sunday curled up on my couch watching very low-budget horror movies. I love bad horror movies, actually I love most horror movies, but if the actors are bad, the premise is poor, and I can see the fishing line pulling the newly animated severed hand across the counter, I am ecstatic! I don’t know why but they are just so damn entertaining – Ice Spiders (Gigantic, radioactive spiders attack a ski lodge), Frankenfish (A genetically altered Snakehead fish attacks and kills in a Louisiana Bayou), and my new favorite Drive Thru (A fast food restaurant mascot, Horny the Clown, kills Orange County teens with the “meat cleaver from Hell”). This might very well have been the funniest movie I have ever seen – The actors were ridiculous, the script was atrocious, and Horny the Clown was seriously hilarious! However it was the opening scene that I would like to discuss.

The movie begins with four very, very, Caucasian, (not that there is anything wrong with that) Orange County teenagers riding around in an Escalade. Two of the teenagers are performing some sort of sexual act in the backseat (Most low-budget horror movies double as soft-core porn, except for those on the Sci-Fi network – they keep it real!). Anyway one of the white boys is sporting cornrows and the other very closely resembled what I can only imagine Kevin Federline and Eminem’s love child would be and the O.C. chicks are just loving it. Throughout the scene they talk about “Bustin’ caps”, drink malt liquor, and call each other “Nigga’”. Well, that is until one gets split literally in two with a meat cleaver and the other gets his face plunged into the deep fryer (seriously, an incredible movie). But this leads me to yet another Public Service Announcement.

White people, it is o.k. to be white… non-whites will still like you. Please, please, please, I beg all of you adorable blue-eyed, toe-headed darlings from the tiny towns of 1500 (usually having only one black guy, probably named Otis, who keeps to himself) to stop trying to sound like you are from South Central L.A... Why? Why do you do this? I just don’t understand. If it is to fit in, you don’t need to; we would really prefer that you didn’t. I cannot speak for all people of color but I am sure that a majority of Native Americans would also appreciate it if people would stop putting on sweatshirts emblazoned with the profile of a wolf, hanging dream catchers from their rearview mirrors and claiming to be 1/8th Cherokee. All of you could not be 1/8th Cherokee, it is not possible. What about all of the other tribes? The Illini? The Quileute? The Unami? There are so many but when was the last time you heard “I am 1/8th Luckiamute.” (Yeah, they are real tribes, I did my research. But why is it always 1/8th?)

Truly, I understand wanting to be something different. In the 7th and 8th grade I desperately wanted to be Asian. I taught myself to use chopsticks, spent an excessive amount of time at the mall’s Asian Gift Store, and tried to learn as many Korean words as possible from Mr. Kim, my best friend’s father. So I do appreciate the longing to feel exotic , but I was 12 and these are grown people. I think it would be absolutely outstanding to see a 6 foot 3 inch dark-skinned black man walking around in wooden shoes claiming to be 1/16th Dutch. How about a Vietnamese woman wearing a Kiss Me I’m Irish tee shirt and ordering her beer with a thick Irish brogue? How great would that be?

I’m just saying that if you are indeed Native American, wonderful! If you have Latino descendants, superb! And if you’re white and from South Central, that’s cool too… but if you are Dawn Marie from Pleasantville, pull up your pants and take off the Snitches Get Stitches Tee Shirt.

Remember: You don’t have black in you, just because you did last night!