The Oreo Experience or: A Total Whitey in a Black Chick’s Body
Oreo – Slang: Black on the outside….white on the inside.
My grandparents have really cool recessive genes for black people. They have this rich, dark skin with bright blue eyes.
I also have an interesting recessive gene for black people: the one that makes me love Renaissance Fairs, Kristen Chenowith and dressage competitions.
This blog is dedicated to that existence.
We all have super power (so say the Marketing kids down at Virgin Atlantic). Some of us will use those powers to have high-level jobs. Some of us will use our powers to serve the cool. Guess who gets to do what. (Also thanks to Sociological Images for their write-up on this commercial.)
You’d think they’d at least employ the girl with psychic powers to at least work in the control tower to prevent crashes or some such. Or maybe make the precog with outstanding reflexes at least an Air Marshall. But no, much better to keep those two serving drinks and handing out tissues (which you don’t need to have Dr. Xavier style powers to do).
Like The Oreo Experience on facebook!
And subscribe on youtube!
Once upon a couple of weeks ago, Cheerios released an adorable commercial where an adorable little girl uses adorable kid logic and adorably pours Cheerios all over her sleeping father to help him stay healthy.
Cute, right? Haha! Wrong! At least to a good chunk of the online community, anyway.
Cheerios had to close the comments section under this video due to racism. And this week, the little girl at the center of the blended family controversy spoke out…ish.
While young Grace is not an Oreo Oreo (she’s mixed race, not in denial), she’s made of enough cutes to get an honorary mention. Plus, during her interview with NBC, she shows us some great ways to handle the awkwardness that comes when people see that you’re the one thing that’s not like the others.
So the next time you find yourself at the wrong end of an inquiry, remember what Grace would do and try the following:
Wear a jaunty cardigan. No one wants to trouble someone in a delicate sweater. So not only do the long sleeves hide the evidence of your melanin, you get bonus points because the warm fuzzy fabric makes everyone around feel warmer and fuzzier themselves.
Smile and stare in lieu of answering. Making someone ask the same question more than 2 times in a row usually draws attention to the how weird/unnecessary/obvious/rude the question in the first place. So instead of answering, allow yourself a little time delay. You’ll find you won’t have to say very much and maybe not even answer the question at all. If
Look as cute as possible. Delivering a blank stare instead of a canned answer might come across as rude in some circles. But not if you’re super adorbs about it! So rose up those cheeks (yes, guys, you can do this, too), dig in those dimples, shine up that twinkle in your eye and get ready to deflect.
Bring back up. When possible, surround yourself with at least two other people with more patience than you have. It helps if they’re taller and if maybe one of them is white. (What am I saying, Oreos? Haha ‘maybe one of them.’ Obvi, both will be!) You can always use a head-tossing giggle to throw the question to them, ask them to translate or just stand a bit behind them and blend into the background.
Start talking to yourself. When all else fails, just start having a conversation with yourself instead of whoever bugging you. They’ll leave you alone.
Watch the interview here and see these tips in action!
*******
Like The Oreo Experience on facebook!
And subscribe on youtube!
You guys don’t know Julia, but trust me… it was ridiculous how rich she was. Her gated community was so gated that there was like a gate around each house. It was ridiculous how many horses. It was ridiculous how robust her household staff was. She could have reenacted the entire film The Help before the maid cleared the breakfast dishes.
And it was incredibly ridiculous that I even cared about these things because she was a 15-year-old girl and I was a 31-year-old woman who really should have had my life together.
I did not have my life together and that was why I met Julia in the first place. You see, thanks to a divorce and the recession, I had been demoted from being a normal, respectable human being and was instead living life as a drivers ed instructor.
I do not recommend living life as a drivers ed instructor.
First, you have to wear a uniform. And not a cool uniform like doctors or astronauts get to wear. This uniform is khaki. All khaki. It’s stiff and it’s hot and manages to make every person who wears it, regardless of their gender, size or body type, look like they have man boobs and lady hips.
The second worst thing about being a drivers’ ed instructor is that you’re BEING A DRIVERS’ ED INSTRUCTOR.
Sometimes even us experienced drivers take a wrong turn.
Considering how much was going wrong in my life at the time, I really shouldn’t have cared about Julia’s life. She was just some kid. But she was the kind of kid I had wanted to be was young. And she was living the kind of life I wanted to live now that i was less young.
She was a ballet dancer. And when I was her age, I loved ballet. But when young me told my mom I was interested in ballet, my mother told me in no uncertain terms that I was too fat to be a dancer but that was okay because “black people don’t get skinny anyway” and that maybe I should consider engineering. So not only was Julia a skinny dancer, her mom also liked her.
Julia had a nice new car…several, in fact, the driveway was lousy with cars. At the time, my car had been stolen. Rent controlled apartment – great! Being the only person on said block who wasn’t in the Canoga Park Alabama gang, not great.
Apart from not living in gang terror, Julia was popular. She had a busy social life. She had enough money for groceries. Her house had heat and at the time, I was huddling around my stove at night because that was the utility I could afford to turn on.
And just when I thought I couldn’t dislike her anymore, I made the mistake of asking her what she was going to do for the holidays. I had just made peace with the fact that I would be having Christmas dinner with the wait staff at Jerry’s instead of with family or friends, so I thought I could handle her answer.
“Ugh,” she said with an impressive Valley accent considering her family was from Manhattan. “We’re going to Hawaii. Again.” She said with so more disdain than I thought could possibly fit in her 80-pound body.
“Awww, you know, I’d love to be able to go to Vons without freaking out, much less Hawaii, so why don’t you just shut your ungrateful little face until you at least learn how to drive stick!!!” was what I wanted to say. But you can’t say something like that to kids, so instead, I said:
“Hawaii. That sounds nice. What do you like to do there?”
“Ugh. I’ve been so many times. I don’t even do anything anymore. I hate it”
What I wanted to say was: “Awww, you’re a horrible human being and I wish that I could drive this stupid car right into your community’s stupid gate and run over your stupid face!!!”
Hell on Earth
But you can’t say that to a kid. So instead, I said. “Ugh, sorry about that. What about the new year? Any resolutions?”
“Ugh. I just hope this year is better than last year.”
Now, I knew the girl had broken up with her boyfriend and that she was bummed out about that. But I was going through a divorce. I didn’t care about her stupid breakup that she was going to forget about by next semester. But you can’t say that to a kid, so instead, I said:
“Oh, you mean because of your boyfriend?”
“That,” she said. “And hopefully my back will get better.”
“What’s wrong with your back?”
And then she told me about that one time when she was almost paralyzed. About how her one dream, the one thing she’s wanted to do more than anything else in the world might be taken away from her before her sixteenth birthday.
Julia had been dancing at an elite level since she was in elementary school. She told me about the hours and hours and hours of rehearsal every day, of top-tier competition and of show after show after show.
She told me about how earlier that year, she started feeling like her arms and legs were on fire. About how there were days when she just couldn’t feel her thighs. About how she danced anyway. About how she started downing ibuprofen like candy and strapped ice packs to herself all day long. And about how this one time after this one show, she laid down to relax and couldn’t get back up again.
It was a stress fracture in two of her vertebrae. And the doctors said that it was only because of chance and luck that she was still walking.
One more show, one more fall, a stumble on some stairs, a jerk from her dogs on the leash during a morning walk, a badly timed sneeze and the break could have been permanent.
“It’s all I want to do,” she whispered. “I don’t know what else to be.”
And I got that. At that time, I didn’t know what I was going to be either.
When we got home that day, I looked at Julia’s mansion. As gorgeous as it was, as many lovely, brand name, top shelf things as she had in there, as expensive as they were, they were worthless if they couldn’t give her what she really wanted.
But you shouldn’t say that to a kid. So instead, I told her, honestly, that I hoped she had an amazing vacation.
*******
Like The Oreo Experience on facebook!
And subscribe on youtube!
When I left work on Friday, my hair was about shoulder-length. It was reddish brown and cut into a nice little bob with bangs.
When I got to work this week, my hair stretched to the middle of my back and was jet black. Still have the bangs, though.
Some things are rocket science. This is not one of those things.
(source)
Basically, after straightening my hair since I was 8 (so you know, only like 13 years ago), I got tired of the chemical burns, I got tired of the dollops of hot grease dipping from the hot comb and I did what any self-respecting, professional woman would do. I learned to be content with who I was and love me for me. I decided that even though I can’t grow long hair, I can still buy it.
Beautiful silky waves of someone else’s hair have been affixed to my own. No heat. No chemical burns. Just an afternoon in the chair watching Miss Congeniality and The Proposal. I love me some Sandy B. (well, mostly)
It’s understandable that people would be surprised when they saw me. I look quite a bit different. I’m super excited about my hair, so I’m tossing it around like a child and I’m sure everyone in the morning meeting was wondering why I was grinning like I just won my first ballet recital.
Because of the change, there are plenty of perfectly reasonable questions to ask. This, however, is not one of them:
“Did you get extensions?”
That is a dumb question. Because by asking it, you’re assuming one of two things: that you just didn’t ever notice this extra foot of hair on me in the year to 10 years we’ve known each other; or that you live in a world where hair grows 12-13 inches over night all while changing color so the extra hair is just a biological possibility and not clearly the work of a scalp-centric intervention,.
If you didn’t notice me before, you don’t have to start now. And if you live in a world where hair grows that fast, please let me in!! I’ve been trying to get long hair since I was about 8. It’s never happened until now. And if there was a way to do it without also having to watch Think Like a Man (it was her salon, I could only ask for so much Sandy before she pulled rank) please let me know! I’ll move if it means I end up in a hairadise where long locks come easy.
Just in case someone else changes their hair and you want to ask something stupid about it, here are some alternatives to ask instead:
See, look how many options there are. We’re all adults and can make intelligent conversation without doing some Meisner exercise of stating the obvious.
The only reason you’d need to double check if long hair is extensions is if you’ve all been the survivors of a Lost-style plane crash and you need all the hair you can gather to make a rope to get in and out of the hatch more effectively or a sail so you can take your chances on the open sea. Outside of that situation, just use your best judgment and ask pretty much anything else instead.
What’s the dumbest thing someone has asked you lately? Or have you let a question slip that should have stayed inside your brain? And what was the big deal about GoT this weekend? Let us know in the comments!
****
One Dr. Drew gave me the worst day of my life. Another Dr. Drew might be giving me one of the best.
In a piece published yesterday at americanthinker.com, Dr. John C. Drew, an award-winning political scientist debunked the thought that our President is a black dude.
Said Dr. Drew:
TIME has just published pictures from Barack Obama’s prom night in 1979. For me, these photos are more evidence of something I have thought for a long time – young Obama seemed like a white guy.
Four white people walk into a prom.
(source)
Drew wants to make sure that readers understand the weight of this image:
This ruse needs to end. The young Obama I knew was nothing like the young black people I knew at Occidental College. He did not come from an underprivileged background. He did not have any of the hostility to white people that I sometimes saw among blacks at Occidental College. All the reports we have so far indicate that young Obama was dating white women, hanging out with his white roommate — Phil Boerner — at Columbia, and generally living a white lifestyle.
One of the biggest pieces of inspiration for an Oreo-to-be is film and TV. It’s so motivating to see what a diversity of experiences one can have…if one only had the foresight to not be you know…a brown. It’s clear that the images we see on screen affect how we think and what we do (if they don’t, someone really needs to have a good, long sit-down with the advertising industry), so it’s important as an Oreo to keep checking films and TV to see if it’s worth relaxing for one second and letting our RBP out. (spoiler alert: it’s not)
Memorial Day Weekend marks the start of the big budget summer blockbuster the kids are out of school, so holy god, do what it takes to get them into a theater movie season. We’re certain to get some exciting films, so let’s check out some trailers, see what people get to do in said trailers, and see how they stack up against the Oreo agenda.
The Bling Ring – Hermoine’s not at Hogwart’s Anymore
Things White People Get to Do in This Movie: Party near celebs, pontificate about society, have excellent luck using Google, be the devil on the shoulder, steal a bunch of shit, be naive as parents, have a family, have friends, drink a good amount of Starbucks, walk like a boss, bit into Paris Hilton’s shoes even though she’s a woman and he’s a dude, covet pets, cover the news, fake apologize, care maybe too much about what the young Ms. Lohan thinks.
Things Not White People Get to Do in This Movie: n/a
Man of Steel – Superman gets rebooted. Again.
Things White People Get to Do in This Movie: Make plans for their kid, have parents–even if he never knew them, go to school, dream of becoming something other than what society had intended, adopt a kid, get new parents, be the key to an eons-long question about humanity, work on a big ship, look like Wolverine in one shot, have a dog, ask leading questions, brood, fly.
Things Not White People Get to Do in This Movie: Um… pay $14 to go see it?
Much Ado About Nothing- Whedon Does Shakespeare
Things White People Get to Do in This Movie: Have a weird ass party, enjoy a nice walk in closet, be flippant, be coy, swim with a martini, do shots, collect stuffed animals, get married, have a huge camera, get high, kiss, practice aerial arts, fight, crawl, cuddle.
Things Not White People Get to Do in This Movie: stand behind Lady Beatrice, stand in front of Lord Benedict
This is The End – Actors Use Their Real Names, Get Real
Things White People Get to Do in This Movie: throw a party, go to/from the airport, be perturbed, do drugs, my goodness Seth Rogan has lost some weight! panic, panic, steal, panic.
Things Not White People Get to Do in This Movie: be sexually desperate, get their butt slapped, slap back, die first, panic, scream like a beyotch.
(apparently, the end of the world is a pretty solid equalizer)
The Purge – Don’t Open Your Door For that Black Guy
Things White People Get to Do in This Movie: Have a family, kiss gently, sharpen machetes, shoot guns, explain things calmly, make ridiculous demands of their parents, lock and load, feel worried, feel safe, have a fancy yet super simple security system, live in a huge house, have doubt, try to save someone, be pretty sociopathic, wear horrible masks, figure out a way inside,
Things Not White People Get to Do in This Movie: Appear in one shot, be desperate, be hunted,
The Internship – Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson screw up at Google
Things White People Get to Do in This Movie: listen to Macklemore, wear suits, get each other excited, sell watches, close companies, start over again, be awkward, be funny, be the love interest, get inside jokes, not get inside jokes, be okay with being in a wheel chair,
Things Not White People Get to Do in This Movie: deliver some bad news, nod in agreement, speak in a foreign accent that he never uses on The Daily Show ever.
The East – Rogue Gets Real
Things White People Get to Do in This Movie: Work in senior level management, resent senior level management, attend snazzy cocktail parties, speak dramatically from behind a mask, feel bad for birds, jump rope under a bridge, have families, go to the airport, kiss, siphon fluids from your body,
Things Not White People Get to Do in This Movie: appear in one shot
Now You See Me – No one puts magicians in a corner
Things White People Get to Do in This Movie: Perform in sexy Vegas magic shows, use the Parisian banking system, fight for the little people, drive speedily, work for the government, attend sexy Vegas magic shows.
Things Not White People Get to Do in This Movie: Explain the plot
After Earth – Is Jayden Smith old enough to wear something that tight?
Things White People Get to Do in This Movie: Wait, what?!
Things Not White People Get to Do in This Movie: Wait, what?! Hmmm. Are we sure this is going to work?
What are you watching this weekend? Let us know in the comments!
****
Dear Vanity Sizing,
Stop it. Please. Just stop it.
It’s rare enough that I even look at what I put on my body in the morning. Rarer still that I recognize that I’ve had that same pilled sweater since 2004. And you’re more likely to see a unicorn than you are to see me arriving at a store to torture myself go shopping. Why are you heaven-bent on making this process even more difficult for me?
It’s not that I hate my body, I just hate clothes. Why does everything look like it was built for a 4-year-old stripper? When did all tops become clear and cut down to the bellybutton? When did it become impossible to distinguish shirts from dresses? Why does everything come in a legging? Who are these no-waisted, no-thighed, breastless pregnant bone people that all clothes seem to be cut for? What did I ever do to you Urban Outfitters? I live in the urban! I like outfits! Why do the only clothes that seem to fit me come from Chicos? Why has the fashion industry turned me from a hip, cool, totally with it, savvy woman about town into a dowager?
This is unhelpful
The only thing worse that sobbing in a Forever 21 changing room is sobbing because you have lied to me, vanity sizing. No one likes to be told they’re being lied to while they’re naked and in a small room.
I should be able to pick up a size 8–for that is what I am–and have it be a size 8, not a circus tent. I mean, I could tattoo “millionairess” on my forehead, but the fine folks at the diamond and Bali vacation store will not be happy when it comes time to run my credit card. You don’t make me feel better when you put me in a size 2, you make me feel exhaustion and rage.
This is not what a ladies’ medium looks like.
I don’t shop at the kinds of stores where skinny attendants wait outside and bring you new sizes whenever you want. If I’m standing in front of that full length mirror and you aren’t the right size, it’ll take me half an hour to schlep across the acre of Burlington between the changing room and the Damas section. So stop screwing with me!
I’m going to get dressed now. I do have this a skirt from 2002 in there that has always been honest with me.
****
