Stuff White People Like

So in case you haven't seen this website, take a look.

I am devoting this post to stuff white people like.

White people like being surrounded by non-white people.

Although being the only white person in the room, in the office, in the house, in the town might make white people a little uncomfortable (after all, minority status isn't really what they're used to), being able to tell other white people in the rare occasion that they come in contact, that they spend most of their time surrounded by non-white people is well worth any awkwardness and feeling out of place.

For example, when white people gather at a dinner party in Egypt, the white community evaluates each white person present on a point system of being surrounded by non-white people.

Being in another country at the moment + 1 point

Number of months you have been there + 1 point each

Multiply points by percentage of non-white people in area where you live

Multiply points by percentage of non-white people in your place of employment / study

Language study +10 points

Studying something in English + 5 points

Working teaching English +5 points

Working not teaching English +10 points

Working for a native company / organization +20 points

Multiply points by distance in kilometers from the next major white people area

Level of language proficiency in native language (Beg +1 point, Int + 5 points, Adv +10 points)

Living with white people = 0 points

Living with non-white people = 5 points

Number of non-white friends + 1 for each friend

Living with people from host country = 10 points

Living with people from host country who don't speak English = 20 points.


Its painfully clear to any group of white people together, the hierarchy of coolness based on this point system. Unfortunately non-white people can't really compete in this system, sorry. You should take encouragement from the fact that you are automatically adding a point to any white person's record just by hanging around.

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Other stuff white people like....

White people like gender ambiguous language. Well maybe not all white people, but I definitely do. Have you ever noticed that in English you can say, "I'm meeting a friend" and leave it at that. Friend means friend, and no one knows, unless they ask, their gender, but no one would ask because that's just weird.

In Egyptian Arabic, every single verb and noun seems to have a masculine and feminine form. Add this to a society that looks very discouragingly on interaction between people of the opposite sex, and its almost impossible to utter an honest sentence without having either hellfire or prayers for your soul called down on you. This makes me worry for hours how I can avoid the extreme concern and prayers for my soul from my Egyptian family, who see my spending time with an Egyptian boy as probably the worst sin I could commit, while still avoiding lying to them, which I see as a much worse sin I could commit. Its a lot of unneeded stress that English and American culture have easily disposed of.

I imagine that Egyptian Arabic has developed this way because of Egyptian parents' needing to know who their children were spending time with. Gender relations are something so central to proper Muslim behavior, that language must have preserved this importance, or the importance must have preserved the language to reflect it. If no one cared if the friend was male or female, then gender ambiguity would be fine in language. Because everyone seemingly cares every minute of every day which males and females are together, gender ambiguity cannot stand.

This sucks.