Regarding stuff white people like

I'm sure you are all familiar with the Stuff White People Like blog. I think its funny and clever and reminds me of a list I've been compiling in my head for more than 20 years. Being mixed (and nerdy) is part embedded reporter, part quirky anthropologist, part donnie brasco. I began my mental list years ago with realizations like this: White people really like woks but they don't like washcloths. They love fancy rugs but they don't use curtains. How curious!

I began to pick and choose which things from each lifestyle that I would adopt. As a child there were no value judgements about which was better/worse. It was more like shopping. Hmmm....yes....please give me one scoop of broadway musicals and one scoop of double dutch. I will learn to diagram sentences (you were right dad, it did help) and I will participate in any type of line or group dancing whenever possible. As I got older, some decisions got harder to make and others were made for me. But at the end of the day, I am a deliberate smorgasbord of Stuff Mixed People Like.

To illustrate this point further, I took the Stuff White People Like "Quiz". Out of 107 stuffs, I liked 57. That is 53%. (I really like The Wire, NPR, and 80s night in particular.)

I can't find a comparable list for what Black People Like. The few other sites I've seen only have 10 or so posts, which as a data set can't really be compared. (White people like data.) Nonetheless, on one such list I scored a 70%. But on What Educated Black People Like, I scored a 13%!

So I propose that the US Census bureau should develop a list of cultural indicators similar to the swpl. Instead of filling in the bubble next to Black (non-Hispanic) or Asian/Pacific Islander or whatever, we could just write down our score. I'm a 73%, what are you? S14%M seeking S88%W for romantic relationship. National Association for the Advancement of People over 51%. A person's individual score could be updated annually, allowing for a more fluid method of self identification. We could enlist those braniac post-grad students at Columbia to develop a framework and write a fat grant for the project.

Until that happens, does anyone want to put money down on the point spread between Michelle and Barack Obama's percentages????