Artisanal Products: Anything made from cheese, hemp, broken glass, seashells, or repurposed wood. We like the notion that something was made by hand, and therefore “local,” even if that locality is somewhere far, far away. We value the small imperfections in our decorative art that imply that no one else in the world has what we have; artifacts of derivative meaning, lacking any authentic culture save for the story of their craft.
More: Abandoned Malls, Antiques Roadshow, Appropriation…
Bingo: The farmer’s dog. The fire hall. Stale breath. Decaf coffee. Powdered cream. Dead skin. Bingo is, like all lottery games, designed to remind us that we all have chances, but only some of us get lucky. The very word, with its happy self-assuredness, its sing-song inflection. We employ bingo to indoctrinate our children, to distract our senior citizens from their imminent death. Oh, the trembling thrill of watching those tiny balls twirl in their cage, hoping our numbers will get plucked. Our lives rapt in a card of randomly assigned numbers. The unmistakable burst of joy, knowing not only that we have won, but that everyone else has lost.
More: Barn Dancing, Bed Bath & Beyond, Bob Evans…
Craigslist: Who is Craig? We don’t care. His list offers all the things we crave in one place: free trash, garage sales, prostitutes, under-the-table jobs, dick pics, and a forum to unleash our racism, all under a guise of anonymity.
More: Clammy Handshakes, Conspiracy Theories, Corporations…
Demolition: While we enjoy the general ambience of new construction (see: Renovation), the white tradition also revels in the grandeur of destruction. This is due, in part, to our proclivity for Nostalgia; we need our landmarks to be destroyed in order to mourn them, in order to feel. We find joy in large and loud events such as fireworks, demolition derbies, landslides, implosions, drone bombs, rocket launches, and nuclear decimation, which is why 9/11 was such a rousing occasion. We were offended that a group of non-white terrorists could outshine us on such a massive scale, and we have spent the last twenty years wallowing in miserable, aimless envy.
More: Denial, Dog Shows, Dried Fruits…
Erasure: Not the 80’s brit-pop band, although we do enjoy “A Little Respect,” (not quite a cover of Aretha’s version, but a nice alternative). Erasure enables us to live with ourselves, because we never have to confront the destruction we have wreaked.
More: Emergencies, Euphoria, Eminem
Flea Markets: Because we need a place to sell and buy Artisanal Products and stale baked goods, but also the junk we spend our lives Hoarding: G.I. Joes, confederate quilts, all things camouflage, chickens, scrapwood, belt buckles, pocket knives, boy scout uniforms, nutcrackers, American flag bandanas, dog tags, little league trophies, galvanized buckets, baskets, bayonets, butter dishes, Mamie figurines, Nazi memorabilia, snow globes, milk jugs, Jesus portraits, and framed knitted proverbs about family, love, and home.
More: Flagpoles, Flight, Fiddles…
Glee: Not just the show but yes, the show, because it captures the essence of the glee club in all its banal appropriations of music, culture, feeling. We are more likely to feel that feeling is wholesome, light-hearted, lacking substance, full of smiles; in other words, not a feeling at all. Glee is not true happiness, rather a mimicry of joy, the artificial excitement that makes us clap on the upbeat (or with no rhythm whatsoever), the celebration of celebration itself. Glee is the opposite of the blues, because it is all performance and no experience. We relish the theater of joy, because we live with too much guilt and comfort to ever feel anything, let alone happiness.
More: Gaslighting, Golf, Gluttony…
Hoarding: We tend to accumulate. We hoard land, and cars, and pets, and food, and toiletries. We hoard public space, and clean air and water, and wealth, and opportunity. But above all, we hoard things. We fill our basements and attics and yards and stairways and bathrooms and cars and storage units with our Artisanal Products, because we are afraid. Afraid of dying alone, afraid of abandonment, afraid of everyone we’ve exploited for our comfort, afraid of the wrath of the invisible god we pray to, if only to absolve our guilt. Because if the grid went down today, at least we would have a few treasures to barter at the Flea Market. If our gluttony destroyed the earth, at least we would die smothered in our own Nostalgia.
More: Hamburger Helper, Highways, Hysteria…
Imitation: We are parrots of language. Thieves of slang. Hawks of culture. We have purged all forms of originality for the comfort of clichés. We have bleached ourselves clean, but we are still so dirty, and so less interesting. Brooklyn means everything, and nothing at all.
More: Intolerance, Intervention, Independence
Jaws: The bones that let us chat, chew, and feign a smirk. And of course, the classic movie: Spielberg. Dreyfuss. The town of Amity itself. The magnificent doom of those two notes. A mob-like revenge for the death of a white woman. Risking death over a loss of Tourism. Please, whatever you do, don’t close the beaches.
More: Jeeps, Jogging, Journey…
Ketamine: We prefer this drug because its effects are eerily similar to our natural defenses when we are accused of any transgression, especially related to race: hallucination, immobility, a floating sensation, and euphoria—such that our world of whiteness becomes one massive K-hole.
More: Kohls, Kombucha, Ku Klux Klan…
Litigation: When we are victims of defamation, pollution, poor living standards, job discrimination—in short, when we have the smallest nibble of anything non-white people experience daily—we resort to litigation. This is an especially attractive option when we are publicly accused of something we have, in fact, done.
More: Large Ice Cubes, Live Love Laugh, Lying…
Medieval Times: We are known to plan all family vacations near a Medieval Times. We love dark lighting, elaborate costumes, stadium seating. Something about the smell of horse dung makes our skin tingle. We thrive being fed turkey legs by a servant as we watch actors joust for knighthood. We revel in any chance to champion our mythological white ancestry; to erase the slavery and the genocide, and reminisce on the days when royalty was earned, not taxed.
More: Made Up Holidays, Mister Clean, Meddling…
Nostalgia: We prefer to experience nostalgia instead of grief: we mourn white neighborhoods, white restaurants, white bathrooms, white pools, white poetry, white statues, white gravy. We mourn to reinforce the myth that all these things no longer exist—to ignore the reality that the way things used to be is quite like the present.
More: Nantucket, Nooses, Novelty…
Obstacle Courses: Given our affinity for comfort, we seldom experience any natural forms of pain, conflict, or life obstacles, and tend to seek manufactured versions of these experiences. We flock to iron mans, decathlons, tough mudders, warrior dashes, polar bear plunges, and escape-the-rooms. We thrive when our skin is covered in mud, ice, or sweat—if only because it makes for a better photograph.
More: Oil Spills, Organic Fruit, Outlet malls,
Penis Envy: There isn’t even an abbreviation for a Big White Cock because we speak of them so rarely. It is not just a matter of size, but the aura (or lack thereof) of the white penis. There is no mystery, no allure. White penises are like the butt of a bad joke. If you must explain them, all their value shrivels away to an awkward silence, the perfect breeding ground for a dark, perilous envy, the kind of envy that will one day destroy the world.
More: Peanuts on the Floor, Pee-wee Herman, Plastic…
QVC: I want I want I want I want I want I want I want to buy something for four easy payments of 19.99.
More: Quaaludes, Questionnaires, Quips
Renovation: Not to be confused with Reformation (which we failed, miserably), or Reparations (do I need to explain?), or even Restoration (which we rarely achieve; see Nostalgia), renovation’s true synonym here is Renewal, as in to make new. The utter destruction of the past to make room for the latest trend. The Demolition of historic neighborhoods to pave parking lots (see: Erasure). The slapdash application of metal siding over a brick structure. Renovation always leads to more waste—the constant conformity to the fad that will soon fade.
More: Redlining, Renaissance Fairs, Ribbons…
Suburbs: It is no secret that we founded this neighborhood model for the preservation of whiteness. The suburbs syncretize the worst aspects of American environments: the isolation of rural life without the benefits of the natural surroundings destroyed to build them. The nosiness of urban communes without the diversity or cooperation. All the trees are young, and every back deck is the same size (see Penis Envy). No one speaks to their neighbors, because the community is artificial. Behind the general ambience of security lurks a haunting silence, which is ultimately a fear of the self: Oh dear. What more could I want? Why am I not happy? Who is that Black man, walking through the neighborhood? Oh, that’s just the Amazon driver. Oh dear.
More: Snobbery, Speaking to the Manager, Sunburns,
Tourism: The active verb of whiteness. Tourism does not create or sustain culture, it swallows it. We do not travel to seek enlightenment. We travel to consume. The tourist is the man who roams the world with his camera wanting to capture something that is not his; who is always belligerent, always taking space; who demands a performance everywhere he goes; who shakes his money out as if it were his floppy white penis, wanting the world, trembling in its poverty, to take it; who considers himself worldly because he has devoured the world.
More: Tax Evasion, Televangelists, Trolley Rides…
U2: A sanitized sentiment of liberation; of bloody Sundays, and streets with no name, and vertigo, and still not having found what we’re looking for. The soundtrack of white tears and commodified Christianity. It was a white idea to have their 2014 album (titled Songs of Innocence, of course) automatically added to our devices, as if it were always there, lurking, demanding that we listen. Here, it’s free! Who doesn’t like a handout?
More: Up-and-Coming, Unchecked Power, Unicycles
Vacuums: A loud machine sucking up anything that is not white, a filtration into the void in which all that matters is the purification of the present.
More: Vanilla Ice, Vodka, Voter Suppression…
War: We will stoke eternal war to bring white peace to the masses. We will drone bomb the brown terrorists and wait for democracy to emerge from the rubble. The brown terrorist corpses will turn pale under the wreck of our wrath. They will almost become white.
More: Wanting to be a Cop, Wearing Shorts in Cold Weather, Wrangler…
XXX: Because censorship hides our ugliness. If we do not see it, we can pretend that it does not exist. Our pornography reveals that our truest desires are the experiences we are forbidden from, yet continue to exploit. Why are they allowed to say it but I can’t say it?
More: Xenophobia, Xylitol, Xylophones
Yachts: Our vessels of pleasure and compensation, floating territories of privacy, and primacy. Most of the land will soon be underwater. We are all terrible fathers needing to escape our spawn. The water looks more beautiful from the third deck at the bow, where you cannot see the oil trailing behind.
More: Yankee Candle, Yogurt, Yurts
Zombies: No, not The Cranberries’ hit song, but we love that too. And their bombs, and their bombs. We fetishize zombies because they embody our Erasure of death. A resurrection. White Jesus in the flesh. We fantasize an apocalypse that is not brought upon by our whiteness.
More: Zoology, Zillow, Zippos…
Michael Bennett (he/him) is a writer and educator born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the city and subject he may never escape. Michael holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Chatham University. He teaches young writers at Pittsburgh's Creative and Performing Arts High School and juveniles incarcerated at the Allegheny County Jail. His work has appeared in The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, Coal Hill Review, Homology Lit, and elsewhere.
Photo by Paula