Stuff White People Like. Carol Moseley Braun. Facial Hair.

If there's something I've learned both inside and outside the classroom in my college career it's that stereotypes can be both good and bad. It's popular belief that all stereotypes are evil, wrong, and useless. Well, I disagree. If not for these broad generalizations about people, our brains would literally explode, or at the best, be really unorganized. Now I'm not saying that these mental filing cabinets should be closed at all times, but rather reorganized based on new experiences, conversations, and friendships. Use your stereotype to start a conversation rather than to avoid one. Get to know a person based on their unique personality, not the way society views that individual based on skin color, eye shape, height, weight, hair style, vocal accent, clothing. All that said, some stereotypes are hilarious. I am a white person. Sure there's lots of stereotypes about white people, different kinds of white people, but rarely do you hear a stereotype for the newest generation of white people. A blogger out of Canada named Christian Lander formulated a slew of new stereotypes about himself and other white people. He came up with the idea while talking with a Filipino friend about the show "The Wire", stating that he didn't trust any white person who didn't watch it. Expounding on the idea both Lander and his friend then tried to figure out what white people were doing when they weren't watching "The Wire". "We said, 'Oh, they are going to plays, they're doing yoga, they're getting divorced,' said Lander. Now with more than 120 "things" that white people like, Lander's blog "stuffwhitepeoplelike.com" gets thousands of hits per day. Some of my favorites (nearly all of which apply to me...I'm so goddamn white) are #112 Hummus, #75 Threatening to Move to Canada, #47 Arts Degrees, #44 Public Radio, and #38 Arrested Development. Lander certainly has me pegged and most likely a good portion of my 20-29 year old friends. Lander says he does most of his research at Farmer's Markets, "keeping his eyes open".

Keeping on the topic of race and ethnicity, which is always a tricky subject to talk about, Carol Moseley Braun came to campus last week. She took part in a series of talks here at UIS. It was really interesting to hear about her experiences being both and woman and being black in American politics. She had so many great anecdotes and stories about her life and career. It was nice to hear about her on a more personal level rather than a professional one. They ended with a question and answer session and while most questions were tastefully worded and executed, one man stood up and made the entire audience feel uncomfortable and most likely, a little angry. The man told a sob story about his white family growing up in Illinois and being racially discriminated against because of affirmative action laws. His question was "How many more decades can we expect of reverse racism in our legislative system?", but it was one of those questions where it wasn't a question at all. It was a statement made by a misinformed and tragically unlucky individual who instead of taking initiative in his own life, decided to blame another group of people for his misfortune. Carol handled it was class and made her answer much more eloquent than the question that prompted it.

On to my last point in this post. Facial hair. Now that I've hit that stage in my life where no longer is my facial hair coming in patchy and uneven, I've decided to change it up quite frequently. It's the perfect canvas, if you don't like something just shave it off and then it'll be back in less than a week's time. Over the past couple months I've tried on a couple styles, with mixed reviews. While in Australia I kept "the chin strap" for a good part. I also rocked the full beard, mustache and mustache plus goatee. The mustache usually splits the crowd. Most guys think its "awesome" whereas most girls think it's "creepy". Since I've been back in the States I've tried the mustache again, not to much approval from my friend group. I'm currently sporting a pair of muttonchops, the most vintage (Stuff white people like #49) form of facial hair. I mean muttonchops were popular in what, the 1800s? Nothing says "I'm a civil war re-enactor" better than a pair of muttonchops. I have a slight feeling though, that they make me look like a tool. Oh well.