CAPS Blog #1 - Whiteness

Is the term "whiteness" really appropriate in describing the Caucasian community? Shouldn't we be looking at "whiteness" as just another form of stereotyping? Whiteness can be looked at through three dimensions; 1) normative race privilege, 2) the standpoint from which people see themselves and others, and 3) a set of cultural practices. The website stuffwhitepeoplelike.com offered some stereotypes of white people and their behavior.
While looking through the website there were a few of the entries that stood out to me, but not in a good way. They ones that stood out to me were because of where I am in my life.  I am a white dark hair dark eyed female. I grew up in a town and attended a school where whites were a minority. I have a sister-in-law who is Hispanic, and I am dating a guy from Vietnam. Because of these things entry #7 Diversity made me rather upset. The entry states that white people only like diversity as far as eating at an ethnic restaurant.Don't get me wrong I love ethnic foods I don't think that my cultural awareness came from me eating the food. The entry also offers that only Asian or Mexican food is seen as ethnic, this however is not true, just because most Italians are white does not mean that their food is not ethic. 

The second one that stood out to me was #19 Traveling. When I went to Europe after high school I was well aware of the fact that I was not the first or only white people to travel there, especially since I was part of a group of 300 students from all over Nebraska. Our trip was not extra ordinary or special it was very cookie cutter seeing that this trip happens every two years and is always the same. Above is a typical touristy photo taken by the eye in London, I am not the first to take this picture and I definitely wasn't the most successful at trying to make it look like I was in the center of the eye. If you could extend this image you would see several others from the trip attempting this same shot.
The last entry that I found interesting was #22 Having Two Last Names. Call me old fashioned but I am perfectly okay with taking my future husbands last name, it is just tradition. I think that there are times that people take both names for example my sister-in-law has decided to hyphenate her name because she has her PhD as well as other published works that already have he maiden name on them, she decided to hyphenate so that it would be easier for people to make the connection between her older and her newer works. However, this is the only avenue of her married life that carries the hyphenated name, any children will carry her husbands name.
The three entries above are examples of a white person stereotype are not ones that I fit into, as a matter of fact as I was going through many of these entries I did not laugh at or feel that I fit into any of them. Maybe it is time that we start to look at whiteness differently as well as other cultural stereotypes.

References

Clander. (2008, January 19). #7 Diversity. Retrieved from: Stuff White People Like: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/19/7-diversity/

Clander. (2008, January 23). #19 Traveling. Retrieved from: Stuff White People Like: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/23/19-travelling/

Clander. (2008, January 24). #22 Having Two Last Names. Retrieved from: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/24/22-having-two-last-names/

Martin, J.N, & Nakayama, T.K. (2009). Intercultural Communication in Contexts, (5th edition). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill.