How did “that white people shit” come to be? I don’t know, but it must’ve always been there.
I was introduced to it in elementary school when my friend from next door caught me practicing on a skateboard in my driveway.
When they learned I’d fallen in love with the Gorillaz, “that’’s white people shit.”
When I watched JACKASS and VIVA LA BAM, “that’’s white people shit.”
Most of all it was tucked between the lines of the stories I wrote. And there was nothing I wanted to be more than a writer.
A creative writer? We didn’t do that in Memphis TN, my hometown. People didn’t go to Montessori or performing arts schools. That’s what they told me at least. So when my parents sent me there, I wondered if I was more “them” than “we.” Or maybe my parents really were “uppity” like their sisters and brothers claimed. It certainly felt like it. The more “white people shit,” I did, the more I thought someone had to be true.
“That’s white people shit” didn’t define what I could be, just what and who I could not be.
I grew up being told we could do EVERYTHING and people were still surprised when I did ANYTHING.
The phrase was supposed to encompass those things outside of the realm of my culture. an almost otherworldliness, leaving “black people shit” to be a limited list of acceptable behaviors. I was a non-basketball playing, alt-rock listening kid from the inner city who was told he talked white. I didn’t even know how to talk the way I was supposed to.
If being born to two Black parent didn’t make me Black, then what did?
I think what I’m getting at is by defining things as “white people shit.” It suggests that we aren’t deserving of certain things, activities, foods, hobbies, modes of expression.
If we did give these things a try then it is at the whim of the white people to decide whether we get to keep doing the shit. The concept of white people shit asks us to modify our response to a question we haven’t been asked; to pass a test with no answer key. To confine Blackness to only what we’ve seen or been allowes to do.
I ask you to do “white people shit” because its existence isn’t as prevalent as we have been lead to believe. Don’t get me wrong there are some undeniable examples of “white people shit” like choosing to shower irregularly, letting your dog kiss you in the mouth, and mayonnaise on every damn thing.
But in most cases it’s a useless identifier.
I’m 33 years old now. I don’t know that my elementary school self would even recognize me. Because I’m no longer hiding, relegating myself to just the Black shit. I’ve found myself beginning to write again. I’ve gotten into fountain pens. I’ve found a love for poetry, scriptwriting, novels, Wes Anderson movies, and table-reads with my friends.
At one point I thought that I was finding myself in this creative exercise, discovering who I was meant to be. In all honesty, I think I was simply remembering who I always was. And that’s not white people shit. That shit right there is mine all mine.
So I beg of you: Live fully and decide whether “white people shit” is keeping you from joy, from purpose, from living.
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My favorite: “I grew up being told we could do EVERYTHING and people were still surprised when I did ANYTHING.”
Precisely this. 🔥
Me, the two Erica’s and the two Jens were 5 of only a handful of Black people at our HS. We decided to integrate the ski club. I remember my BK and down south fam being like thats YT people 💩. And years later, them same people joined the National Brotherhood of ⛷️ skiiers—-that’s all Black people 💩😉.