My friend Christina pointed me to a site — a blog, actually — that has been the bane of my existence. It's Stuff White People Like (as well as a like-titled book by Christian Lander) and, to my self-reflective, obsessively analytical brain, it's a nightmare.

Well, first, I was reading along and thinking, "gosh, that's funny" — each item, one after another, actually did reflect things that I liked or that I recognized that most people I know [and most of them are white, I might add] liked. It's amusingly written as a guide to non-white people on how to assimilate into white culture — a sort of field-guide or cultural travelogue. Christina mentioned it because it's as if white culture were invisible — assumed by default — so there aren't really anthropological studies of it … at least that either of us could recall.

But then about page two, and 35 or so entries in, I started to panic. Was there anything unique about myself at all? I mean, here it was: a definitive list of all things I was, with only a 10% miss-rate. At least "White people like to claim understanding of what it's like to be a minority by reading 'Stuff White People Like'" was not (yet) on the list — despite tangentially-related topics like "#20 Being an expert on YOUR culture" and "#62 Knowing What's Best for Poor People".

I'll have to contact the author.