{"id":8334,"date":"2011-10-26T12:02:16","date_gmt":"2011-10-26T17:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=8334"},"modified":"2013-11-09T05:12:54","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T10:12:54","slug":"boring-white-guy-really-wants-a-soulful-black-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/10\/26\/boring-white-guy-really-wants-a-soulful-black-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"Fetishizing People of Color: The Downside of Positive Stereotypes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A confession to PostSecret<\/a> this week inspired me to add to and revise this post from 2009.<\/em><\/p>\n

—————————<\/em><\/p>\n

I have posted before on the way that black people are fetishized in the U.S.\u00a0 It is as if they are, literally,\u00a0more colorful, more interesting, cooler, hipper, even spicier<\/a> than white people.\u00a0 Whites, in contrast, can seem bland, boring, vanilla, even whitebread.\u00a0 From this perspective, being a “boring white” person can seem, well, boring. \u00a0Both of these confessions can be read as suggesting as much (though there are surely other readings as well):<\/p>\n

\"bff\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s important to remember that this projection of soulfulness and other positive characteristics onto black people specifically is problematic, even if it’s not derogatory (for posts on the “magic negro,” see here<\/a>, here<\/a>,\u00a0and here<\/a>). \u00a0 People of color often report that they feel like white folks are friends with or date them specifically because they aren’t white. \u00a0This is no compliment. \u00a0Most of us desire to be friends with people who see us as individuals <\/em>and not stereotypes.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A confession to PostSecret this week inspired me to add to and revise this post from 2009. ————————— I have posted before on the way that black people are fetishized in the U.S.\u00a0 It is as if they are, literally,\u00a0more colorful, more interesting, cooler, hipper, even spicier than white people.\u00a0 Whites, in contrast, can seem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[279,329,8080,283,285,1760,1757],"class_list":["post-8334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-objectification","tag-emotion","tag-housingresidential-segregation","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8334"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58633,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8334\/revisions\/58633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}