It wasn’t just the Black kids that were seen this way; it was anyone who wasn’t white. If you didn’t stick to things that white kids thought you should stick to, if you were different from what they assumed you should be, then odds were they would make fun of you for it.
The kids of color who weren’t Black but who defied racial stereotypes were often called “golden Oreos.” Tan on the outside, yet also white on the inside. Really clever, right? I’m sure kids in my high school kept Oreo’s stock doing great.
As I look back, another reason I hate that white kids called us Oreos is because many white people hate, and I mean HATE, being referred to as foods.
If you call a white person “mayonnaise” or “mayo,” many of them will lose it. But there is nothing more intense (or funnier, assuming you’re at a safe distance) than seeing a white person lose their damn mind about being called a “cracker.” I’ve literally seen white people argue that it is a direct parallel to a Black person being called the n-word. Which is obviously idiotic in many ways.
If you don’t know why it’s idiotic, you may need to skip to chapter 10 right now and learn about things you can’t say.
It really wouldn’t have mattered whether they called us Oreos or something nice like “unicorns” or “special,” because none of it ever made sense. There wasn’t anything different about me or the other kids who had these labels. Every person of color I knew was into all sorts of interesting and random things. Because they were individuals.
I remember sitting in class once and talking about the upcoming Star Wars movie with a friend. I was extremely excited because I was and am a huge fan, as is my mom, as is my uncle, and my younger brother, and most people in my family. The love for Chewbacca and Darth Vader has been passed down for generations.
As I was telling my friend about what I was hoping would happen in the new movie, my teacher overheard us and said, “You’re a Star Wars fan?” I replied, “Yeah, I’m going to see it this weekend.” He said, “Oh, that’s surprising. I didn’t know Black people liked Star Wars.”
Now, this may not seem like an issue to many of you, but it’s deeply problematic that a teacher would assume that someone wouldn’t watch arguably the most popular movie series in history simply because they are Black. Not only does this assume that all Black people like or dislike the same things—another example of stereotyping, which you should have already read about!—but it also implies that the Star Wars movies are made specifically for white people. And that’s just plain racist. And ignorant. (Funny how often those two things go hand in hand.)
Honestly, I can’t recall how I ended up replying to that teacher or whether I did at all. But as I sit here, I wish I had gotten his racist ass fired. I remember his name, but he isn’t worth the paper.
But where did this idea come from, that people of color could only like certain things? Growing up, I knew Black kids who were into anime, Asian kids who were into hip-hop, Latinx kids who were into theater, Arab kids who were into salsa, and so on. The people of color I knew were into all sorts of things. None of us was “special”—and none of us was any type of cookie. We were just ourselves.
I started understanding it as I got older. Some white people don’t assume people of color to be dynamic or layered, because many white people have never had to be dynamic or layered themselves.
Now, I can already hear you white readers saying, “What are you talking about, Fred? I have all kinds of interests. I like Beyoncé! I’m layered!” And sure, maybe you like a variety of things. But how many of those things are from white culture? Most of them? All of them? If the majority of your interests are from a single culture, from the mainstream culture, then I hate to break it to you, but: you’re not layered.
But it’s not necessarily white people’s fault that so many of them have a lack of awareness about other cultures. Many white people don’t know any better.
A large part of white privilege is that it steers white people toward their cultural comfort zones. In countries like America, where most aspects of culture are controlled by white people, their culture has become the norm or mainstream.
In America, almost everything you can think of has been created to be comfortable and familiar for white people, and everything else is usually “other,” “diverse,” or “different.”
Whether it’s food, music, movies, clothes, or other aspects of culture, “the norm” is usually based on what white people know and enjoy. Like with anything, not stepping outside of what you’re accustomed to creates a level of ignorance.
In the case of assuming that people of color can’t or shouldn’t be dynamic, and calling them things such as Oreos, it can also create a level of arrogance.
In a way, white privilege is actually part of the reason that many people of color are so dynamic. Since much of mainstream culture is rooted in whiteness, we grow up learning, knowing, and even loving many things that aren’t rooted in our culture.
For instance, there are very few people who haven’t seen or don’t know about the shows Sex and the City and Friends, two shows starring all-white casts with characters who have adventures, experiences, and privileges that most people of color simply can’t relate to. So, then, why do we all know about these shows? Because they were everywhere, and still are.
Entertainment that centers white people and their experiences isn’t just ingrained in American culture and values; it is American culture and values. So much so that Netflix spent $100 million to keep Friends on its platform in 2018. (If you’ve never seen the show, trust me, it’s not worth nearly that.)
Around the same time that Friends and Sex and the City were on television, so were the shows Living Single and Girlfriends. They both had similar premises to the other two shows, except they had all-Black casts. Both are considered classics in the Black community.
But if you ask most white people if they’ve seen them, the answer is going to be no. Trust me, I know, because I’ve been asking white people for years, and I’m deeply annoyed almost every time I get an answer.
The issue isn’t simply that white people haven’t seen the shows; the issue is that they haven’t even heard of them. Which says a lot about not only what entertainment is platformed but also the level of interest among white people in entertainment by people of color that doesn’t have mainstream appeal, which again is another way of saying white appeal.
You can point to the same results with almost anything that has cultural or racial relevance. Music is possibly the best example, as most modern music has roots in music originated by people of color, and yet mainstream music is largely white music.
To prove my point, I ran a little experiment before writing this book.
I had a party, and I made sure the attendees were pretty diverse. It was basically the United Nations in my house: There were Black people, brown people, white people, Asians, Latinxs—we even had some representation from the Pacific Islands.
The goal was to make sure I was getting a wide spectrum of people to help prove the point of this chapter and make my case to all of you.
(For those of you who are thinking that I probably stacked the deck by choosing people who don’t know a lot of music, or that I simply have friends who aren’t very cultured, rest assured that I made sure to invite all of my friends who either work in the music industry or are musicians. These people are supposed to know music.)