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Jewish World Review April 30, 2008 / 25 Nissan 5768 Hate-Loving Whitey By Julia Gorin
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The Washington Times recently reported that "the church where Sen. Barack Obama has worshipped for two decades publicly declares that its ministry is founded on a 1960s book that espouses ‘the destruction of the white enemy.’ Trinity United Church of Christ’s Web site says its teachings are based on the black liberation theology of James H. Cone and his 1969 book ‘Black Theology and Black Power.’ …Conrad Worrill, a leader of the Chicago-based National Black United Front, said…’I think most black people would agree that what Jeremiah Wright said is the truth.’"
It sure is ironic, then, that a parishioner of such a church, with the full backing of the church, would be seeking to inhabit the White House.
Or not.
After all, it’s part of a widely noticed but not often spoken of pattern among black Americans. Starting with soda, for example. Most white people drink Coke or Pepsi -- the dark sodas, in other words. But black people consistently prefer Sprite. That is, the clear or ‘white’ soda. ‘Sprite’ even rhymes with ‘white’.
I first noticed this in high school in the 80s. Later, when I waited tables for five years and a black family would walk in, I’d have the Sprite ready before they even ordered. The corporate heads at the Coca-Cola Company, which makes Sprite, apparently caught on sometime in the 1990s, since it was midway through that decade that Sprite commercials caused me to remark, "Finally. They figured out whom to put in the commercials."
Now let’s move on to ice cream. Whereas I -- a white person--swear by chocolate, working at Darrell’s Almost Famous Ice Creamery in Baltimore in the 1980s -- and later at Ben & Jerry’s in New York -- I couldn’t convince a single black customer to try the ecstasy-inducing Chocolate Fudge Brownie. No, they had to have their vanilla-based Butter Pecan. And if we were out of that (Ben & Jerry’s didn’t even carry it), invariably they would ask for just plain Vanilla. This inversion between black customers and myself reminded me of the fact that Mr. White is almost always black, and Mr. Black is usually white.
Meanwhile, what do you think the preferred bread among African-Americans is? Hmm, I WONDER. Ever see a black person eating pumpernickel?
And limousines. You know how white people usually opt for black or gray limousines? Well, black and Hispanic people always seem to go for the white ones.
Then there are the dogs. I caught sight of a magazine at my mother-in-law’s house, titled "Opera Weekly". On the cover was a black diva of the opera snuggling her foofy-doofy white dog. Which reminded me of the one black family that lived in my Upper East Side building. What color do you think their white poodle was? And take my parents’ realtor, Terri. She and her fiancé are both black, but when I met their dog, it was the first time in my life that I ever saw an all-white Akita. Named Snowy. I was genuinely shocked to see that Oprah Winfrey’s recently deceased cocker spaniel was black, which led me to wonder how black Oprah is really.
On the subject of black celebrities, meanwhile, let’s talk about Tiger Woods and black pop singer Seal. Judging by these two very rich and famous men, when a black celebrity goes for a white woman, she has to be really white. Tiger Woods didn’t just ‘go white’ -- he went all the way to Sweden. Seal didn’t just go white either; he went to Germany and got him some Heidi Klum. A Jew like me probably isn’t even white enough for these two.
Getting into more controversial territory now, I’m not the first person to note -- and many sociologists have -- that dark societies celebrate their lightest people. This is true from Africa to Latin America to the Middle East: the lighter you are, the higher your status. Whenever I see news footage of statesmen from Colombia or Mexico, I’m looking at completely white men. Even Fidel Castro -- beloved by many an aggrieved African-American -- always surrounded himself with strictly "white" Cubans in his cabinet, despite the plethora of black Cubans out there. Meanwhile, my Colombian sister-in-law Conchita, when asked by an Indian co-worker to tell her something general about women in her country, answered, "OK. I’ll tell you something: We always go for the white man first." (Though Conchita accidentally ended up with a Jew and complained that her only son came out "too dark.") It reminded me of an episode of Cedric the Entertainer’s variety show on the Fox network, in which a black female character is pleasantly surprised by the lightness of her newborn’s skin, and starts singing, "My child gonna be beau-tee-ful, my child gonna be beau-tee-ful…" An anesthesiologist friend of mine told me of a colleague who went to medical school in Guadalajara, where the delivery rooms were filled with men obsessed with how white their babies came out, and rejected dark or "Indian-looking" ones.
In the country of India, meanwhile, white tourists are instant celebrities -- even the tinted Jews of Israel; my Israeli cousin told me she was mobbed with people gawking into her pedicab every time and asking for a picture with her and her friend. Imagine: Israelis -- lepers to everyone else, but gorgeous to Indians. You see what happens to societies deprived of white people? They miss us! (And these are people who were once colonized by whites, for heaven’s sake.) Even in the supremacist Muslim world of the Middle East, it apparently impresses your friends and your imam if you snag a white woman. (Including in Iran, which has the most beautiful women alive.)
But back to the white-love on the domestic front. In perhaps the most high-profile one of those many articles reporting that whites soon will no longer be a majority in the country (and for some reason always gleefully quoted by white news anchors), a famous NY Times piece from April 2001, titled "Whites in Minority in Largest Cities", cited Census 2000 figures: "For the first time, nearly half of the nation's 100 largest cities are home to more blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other minorities than whites."
According to the same article, though, the twenty fastest-growing cities experienced a five percent white increase, along with 23% blacks, 69% Asians and 72% more Hispanics. They’re moving to where white people are moving. So what does that tell you? Everyone wants to be near white people. Conversely, take the city of Detroit: white people started leaving, and then everyone else joined them. Really, if you think about it, what is "white flight" all about? It’s predicated on blacks moving into white neighborhoods. Why would blacks want to move into white neighborhoods? Because even if they won’t admit it, deep down, they love us, and they feel safer with us around.
While razzing white folks over their impending minority status, people should stop for a moment to think about who established a country that allowed and embraced such demographic shifts, which had the inevitability of change built into its very fabric: rich white men. And while "dark" societies elevate their whitest members or discriminate against the darker ones, "white" societies promote everyone but the whites. So as things stand now in the world, we have a nice little cross-promotion going on. But what do you think will happen when the forecasted racial shift that so many white self-loathers eagerly anticipate arrives -- and continues in the same direction? We’ll do what other dark societies do: celebrate the lightest-skinned.
With that in mind, black Americans should think carefully if someone subscribing -- whether he admits it or not -- to a white-annihilating philosophy is the black president they want to see in the White House. After all, without whites, who will keep the pro-dark balance in the world? The Latinos shooting blacks in Los Angeles? The African governments exterminating fellow Africans? The Middle Easterners enslaving them? Many a black Hillary supporter has explained not voting for Obama with the cynical view that "America" isn’t ready for a black president -- that if a black man actually becomes president, he’ll probably be killed. There’s something unconvincing about this as a reason to dismiss out of hand the opportunity to vote for the first black presidential candidate (not counting Bill Clinton) who has real potential to get elected. I’m left wondering if between the white ice cream, white soda, white limos, shiny white shoes and white poodles, there is an underlying, subconscious appreciation of Whitey’s World.
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JWR contributor Julia Gorin is a widely published op-ed writer and comedian who blogs at www.JuliaGorin.com She's the author of the just-published "Clintonisms: The Amusing, Confusing, and Even Suspect Musing, of Billary".
© 2008, Julia Gorin. |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
