The City of Angels and its Perilous New ‘Natives’

Citation: The Gringosphere

Has it come to this? Have white people now accepted that they are becoming a minority. An LA Times opinion piece takes on a journey to a blog called Stuff white people like.

Some of the posts are right on when describing the writing of many of the Caucasians who have moved into downtown recently and it is my opinion that the author is speaking of those limousine left wing liberal white people we deal with on a daily basis while living in southern California. You know, the ones that say we need to build more affordable housing for the homeless , but when it is planned in their neighborhood they become NIMBYS and protest it.

Two posts stand out.

Knowing whats best for poor peopleA great way to make white people feel good is to tell them about situations where poor people changed how they were doing things because they were given the ‘whiter’ option. “Back in my old town, people used to shop at Wal*Mart and then this non-profit organization came in and set up a special farmers co-op so that we could buy more local produce, and within two weeks the Wal*Mart shut down and we elected our first Democratic representative in 40 years.” White people will first ask which non-profit and are they hiring? After that, they will be filled with euphoria and will invite you to more parties to tell this story to their friends, so that they can feel great.But it is ESSENTIAL that you reassert that poor people do not make decisions based on free will. That news could crush white people and their hope for the future.GentrificationI was rolling on the floor when I read this one. How many times have we been in meetings where the folks who have bought lofts or are renting lofts, white people that is, say that they are pioneers and they have taken great risk in moving downtown. WoW!!! Check this out:

White people like to live in these neighborhoods because they get credibility and respect from other white people for living in a more “authentic” neighborhood where they are exposed to “true culture” every day. So whenever their friends mention their home in the suburbs or richer urban area, these people can say “oh, it’s so boring out there, so fake. In our neighborhood, things are just more real.” This superiority is important as white people jockey for position in their circle of friends.They are like a modern day Lewis and Clark, except instead of searching for the ocean, they are searching for old properties to renovate.……..When one of these white people tell you where they live, you should say “whoa, it’s pretty rough down there. I don’t think I could live there.” This will make them feel even better about their credibility and status as neighborhood pioneers.Grergory Rodriguez goes on to say that this blog is a sign that :One irony-deficient reader complained that the blog was less about white people than it was about yuppies. And without knowing it, she was cutting to the heart of the joke. Lander is gently making fun of the many progressive, educated, upper-middle-class whites who think they are beyond ethnicity or collectively shared tastes, styles or outlook. He’s essentially reminding them that they too are part of a group. He goes on to say that as whites become minorities in urban settings and places that used to be predominantly anglo-saxon ,they are having to grapple with their own identity.As unusual as Lander’s site is, it is also part of a sociological trend among whites who live in increasingly non-Anglo cities and regions: their transformation into a minority group. Whites used to think of themselves as standard-issue American — they had the luxury of not having to grapple with the significance of their own racial background; they were “us” and everyone else was “ethnic.” Not anymore.“Demographic shifts have put a new kind of pressure on that category of people who were once just considered the norm,” says Mike Hill, author of “After Whiteness: Unmaking an American Majority.” “White identity is becoming particularized and minoritized. No longer the normative category, it’s becoming one of many identities.”
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