You Offend Me…the voices whisper
How all of your life choices are wrong
You wake up to the sound of your husband heading out the door to work. (The first thing you did wrong? A good wife would be up and dressed with lipstick on and a hot breakfast on the table for her husband before he got down! — no, grandma, this isn’t that kind of article!) Very heteronormative of you, being married to a man and all; and Texas is a common-law state where you didn’t even have to do all that rigamarole, but you went and had a big wedding anyhow to rub it in the face of everyone not in your situation. It’s like you want to go back to the 1950s, white picket fence around your white clapboard house with your white family inside, no people of color except servants.
What’s that? You’re white, but your husband isn’t? What, you got jungle fever or something? He shouldn’t marry out of his race. White America has made him ashamed of his background and made him want to be white, so he marries you in the hopes that he’ll fit in — and you marry him so that you can whitewash him. Look at the government — Clarence Thomas, SecDef William Cohen, Mitch McConnell, Mia Love, Nikki Haley, nearly everyone in mixed marriages is Republican, which should tell you all you need to know about the agenda. It’s a ticket to whiteness for one side, a way to assert white dominance for the other.
You get dressed. You reach for a pair of black stretch pants — but they’re now called yoga pants. You shouldn’t wear them because you’re overweight, and some people are bothered by the sight of overweight people in stretch pants (and of course overweight or older people shouldn’t exercise in public, or some Playboy model will mock you on the internet). Or you’re not overweight, but you don’t do yoga, so that’s pretentious. Or if you do do yoga, you shouldn’t do yoga, because you’re not Indian and that’s appropriation. Or if you are Indian, you should know better than to wear American “yoga pants,” which have no place in the deep spiritual tradition of yoga — you’re contributing to the genocide of your culture, have you no shame, you coconut?
You finish getting ready. You brush your hair and figure out what to do with it today: up in a French twist? That’s appropriation of black culture. In braids? More than two braids and that’s appropriation of black culture, two or one and it’s Indian. French braid? That’s not French, it’s Algerian, so it’s both appropriation and colonialist. In a bun? Pretending to be a ballet dancer, are we? Give up and leave it straight and loose? You’re reveling in your straight white-girl hair, just rejoicing in how much better you are than everyone else, aren’t you? Or is your hair naturally very curly? Better pull it back to hide it, because having hair like that is appropriation too, or just frizzy.
You pick up some earrings your mother got you from the Ancient Rome exhibit at the museum, replicas of ancient Roman hoop earrings. Don’t wear those, that’s appropriation of modern Latinx culture. Studs it is — though be grateful you let that nose piercing from high school close up, as well as the extra ear holes. Good thing you’re not much of a makeup girl — don’t want to be appropriating chola culture, do you? Plus, wearing makeup is pretending to be something you’re not, generally in order to conform to some male fantasy. And bronzer — or getting a tan — is your attempt to appropriate the look of darker-skinned cultures. Where did that get Rachel Dolezal? Of course, staying out of the sun in order to protect your whiteness is problematic too, and sunscreen is just catering to white privilege.
You go to wake up your child — who shouldn’t exist. Breeders like you are polluting the earth. The last thing this world needs is more people. What’s that? You’re with Elon Musk, thinking that it’s suboptimal if those with the means, education, etc. to raise children are those least likely to reproduce? Rather classist of you, but fine. But remember that husband? You are diluting his culture and genes by adding your whiteness to it. You’re expressing your neocolonialism through making impure children. You’d better hope your child doesn’t shame her culture — the only one that counts — by identifying as “mixed-race” like Rashida Jones (whose sister Kidada understands that the old “one drop” rule should be reclaimed as a power source) — or worse, by being like Tiger Woods and claiming an affiliation to more than one race (what’s with this “Cablinasian” thing? He should deny all other aspects of his background and admit he’s just black, but he’s a product of white culture and ashamed of his blackness — there’s no other valid reason for him to identify otherwise). Also — you have only one child? Setting your child up for a host of personality problems, aren’t you? — no, wait, the mommy wars are a different crisis. This is a culture and caste loop. You can have a stream of consciousness crisis about the mommy wars tomorrow. Focus.
You get the kid out the door to school. A parochial school? You bigot. A private school? (Even worse: a charter school?) You’re the cause of any shortcomings in the public school system, when the students with means and with educated parents leave behind the classmates they should be assisting. You say the reason is that you don’t like the reports of gang violence in your local public school? That’s just code for saying you’re afraid of children with a different background. It’s just another form of white flight. What’s that? You do go to public school? You’re abusing the system, using government money to pay for your child’s education and childcare when you could afford it yourself — it’s as if someone with your income demanded to be given SNAP credits. And if it’s a school where most of the students are of one race (that’s not yours), you’re trying to infiltrate and destroy their beneficial homogeneity. The public schools would be a lot better if people like you didn’t insist on inserting your unwanted children there.
You go to work — at that mythical unicorn, a workplace that is ethically sound and doesn’t offend anyone. Your family doesn’t need your income, but you like your job, so you go. How dare you? You’re taking the employment spot of someone who’s struggling to make ends meet. You shouldn’t work if you don’t need the money.
You volunteer instead? That should be outlawed. Your volunteer location is exploiting you, and using your free labor as an excuse to not pay someone else for that work. Your self-serving actions (you feel good about volunteering, don’t you? That shows it’s all about you) are denying an income to someone else. How does that make you feel?
Oh, you aren’t employed or a full-time volunteer? Shame on you. You’re a leech on society. Look at the example you’re setting for your children. Your husband pays for your upkeep and you sleep in his bed in return? There’s a term for that…
You need to get some food for dinner. There’s a farmer’s market nearby. Ah, the farmer’s market, with its organic foods, the bastion of white privilege and class distinctions. You say you feel closer to the land when you buy at a farmer’s market? You probably also put on your feathered headdress and bindi at Coachella and talk about how spiritual it makes you feel. Look around you at the farmer’s market or Whole Foods — parking lot full of expensive hybrid or electric cars, all rich white shoppers happily virtue-signalling all over the place. You could go to the local grocery store instead. You don’t care about any animals but humans, so you ignore the problematic dairy industry and go buy a gallon of milk. There are four different brands and they all look the same to you, so you get the cheapest one, which has a WIC label on the price tag. Trying to look like you’re in need of food assistance, are you? When selfish people like you take them all off the shelf, people who actually need help will be out of luck, thanks to you. Pick a more expensive brand? May as well adjust your purse so people are sure to see the Gucci logo and be certain your coat swings out to show off the Burberry lining while you’re at it, if you want to make sure the world knows you’d rather throw away money on yourself than use it to help others.
You get home and park by your freshly cut yard — do you have a lawn service? You enjoy seeing underpaid Mexicans working in the heat for your comfort, I’m sure. The white woman inside in the cool air while the brown man labors in the hot sun has a long tradition around the world. Or do you take care of it yourself? You have the means to provide employment to that guy who keeps dropping flyers at your door, but you’d rather keep your money to yourself instead of sharing it, especially with an immigrant.
Why do you even have a house? Rather ostentatious use of space when the more efficient route would be high-density housing. Then you also wouldn’t feel the need to have a polluting car that wastefully sits empty most of the time. If you needed to go somewhere off the transit lines and outside walking or biking distance (though who knows why you ever would), you could call a taxi (no, that’s exclusive) — call Uber (no, they’re exploitative) — call Lyft (no, they give to the wrong political organizations) — use ZipCar and not be weighed down by material possessions. But for now, you’re living in the hipster part of town, formerly the hippie part of town, formerly a tony neighborhood. You say you like the diversity and the fun people around you? You are using human beings for your entertainment. You’re in a modern townhouse or heavily updated bungalow? You’re gentrifying. (You say your grandmother was born on the same block in the 1920s? Older history doesn’t matter. Only very recent history, something within the personal memory of someone born since the 1970s, is valid.) You’re in an inexpensive older bungalow, although you could afford more? What lower-income person did you push out to live your fantasy lifestyle filled with poverty appropriation?
Time for dinner. Do you eat in or go out? Either way, you’re doing it wrong. Apart from the problematic picture of a woman in the kitchen preparing food for receiving family members, of course. (Again. Save that for the mommy wars crisis loop tomorrow.) What will you make? It’s Tuesday, how about “taco Tuesday”? Go ahead, make something with so little connection to its origins that it’s basically cultural genocide. Why not draw a curly mustache on your face, wear a comically oversized foam sombrero, and put on some Speedy Gonzales cartoons while you’re at it?
Well, how about a nice healthy stir-fry? Fine, if you make it with authentically-sourced ingredients in the traditional manner with a full understanding of the history and discrimination behind it. But you’re not Chinese, so that’s impossible. You lived in China for years and are fluent in Mandarin? Typical colonialist, going to gawk at exotic foreign places that you can refer to in an othering manner, appropriating their language and whatever bits of their culture you find palatable and appealing. You probably took pictures of yourself there, a glowing piece of whiteness sticking out among darker-skinned people, props to show off your white savior complex. There is nothing you can do to make symbolically devouring and destroying another culture through eating its food acceptable.
How about going out? You’re in the most culinarily diverse part of the most cosmopolitan city in the country. So there’s nowhere you can go that’s not appropriative and also (if they’ve got “authentic” decor and staff for your white gaze) voyeuristic.
Forget it, order pizza — delivered by exploited labor? Scratch that! Make a frozen pizza — you haven’t heard any Italians complaining about anything but the quality there, so you’re probably ok. For now.
