What happens when the culture you try so hard to blend in to throws you a curveball with something like this. One one had, they have a high-end wedding and nary a face of color in the audience…perfect! But then…a dance number? To Chris Brown? Nevermind the fact that a couple actively chose as their wedding song something written by a woman-beater. But the ceremony was well on its way to being as white as her dress. Now it will forever be soundtracked by light soul runs and autotuning. 

I’m so returning my gift. 

Check out this link to see just how important it is to keep up the fight. I’m not sure what we did to Poland, but they can rest assured that we are very sorry. We’ll be sending over the apology saffron assortment basket post haste.

When I saw the headline, I though I was going to get to send a traditional gift of tea cozies and yacht club shot glasses to Roxanne Shante.

Shante overcame the burden of being a rap star, from the ghetto and a teenage mother and was awarded a Ph.D from the Ivy League school Cornell that was paid for by her music company. She sounded like a perfect candidate for Oreodom.

But then I read the rest of the story.

Her degree is in psychology…so far, so good. But a further investigation shows that any Oreo points earned by attending an exclusive university and earning a degree level that puts her hands and feet ahead of the average education level of most people, let alone most people of color, should be immediately stripped. 

Shante wasted this perfect opportunity and used her degree to start a therapy center that not just focuses on exclusively helping African Americans, but on urban African Americans. 

She could have at least poached from the Jack and Jill population.

But no. She was handed the keys to freedom, to comfortable homogenization and instead put the shackles of expectations right back on.

And for no good reason. There are already plenty of people of color, scores of non-profits and a bunch of guilt-ridden white people serving this population. Why not cater to people who do not get such constant attention? People who would a take a budding therapist from cliche to really interesting. 

Here are some suggestions for appropriate practices.

Birds of a Feather: A google search for “depressed parrots” will yield more results than you might realize and will reveal the inter-species use of Prozac. But where is the mass media coverage of this emotional pandemic? Parrots are the type of pet typically enjoyed by those who live in homes large enough to not hear their angry squawks, or sad squeaks, on the other side of the east wing. And this makes this population a great one to concentrate on for one striving for Oreodom.

Potential Problem: Parrots are also owned by people who live in the rainforest. Who tend to be brownish. Therapists should avoid this demographic in favor of the citied birds.

 

 

 

You Are What You Eat: While McDonald’s may be trying to lure people of color back to the fold with horrible campaigns like 365Black, it’s more than easy to ignore these when one considers the benefits of controlling all manner of emotional ills through the eating of food grown by organic farmers and never cooked. These foods are always more expensive and not nearly as immediately satisfying, so you’re sure to get a clientele that has the money and time to waste on getting satisfaction from their food.

Potential Problem: Eating food raw can also occur when one’s gas and/or electricity has been disconnected. Do make sure clients are eating food sans heat processing voluntarily.

 

Waste Not, Want Not: Finally, a urine therapy center is always a great option. Yes, this is a real thing. People can drink, bathe in or dab on urine in all sorts of ways to cure all sorts of ills. Again, as this must be practiced by people with disposable income enough to pay for the issues likely to occur when one ingests his or her own waste products. 

Potential Problem: Just because someone smells like urine doesn’t mean that they paid the big bucks to do so. Do make sure that your urine enthusiasts have purchased the proper storage containers (and they exists) and do not have the golden miracle on them because they lack a working restroom at home.

OreoWriter and WhitePal stand outside of a Great Ape exhibit. OW stares intently ahead. Doesn’t notice WP looking at something on the ground.

WP: Check out this scrilla

OW: It’s a bonobo.*

WP: What?

OW: It’s not a gorilla. It’s a bonobo. Also known as the Pygmy or Dwarf Chimpanzee. They’re brilliant creatures.

WP: That may be so. But this is scrilla.

WP holds up a huge wad of cash.

WP: Someone left a roll of fifties here.

OW: Oh…of course. I knew tha– You know, there are two bonobos who have been taught to communicate through symbols. They could probably count that script…no, scrawl…scrunchi…?

WP: Let’s just go.

OW: I can do this one! Scr….scribble, scroll, screwtape…

WP: Why are we even at the zoo?

OW: Hello! They releasing two new dik diks* into their pen. Like I was going to miss that ribbon cutting ceremony.

(Readers: Please do not assume that my affection for two African animals, the bonobo and the dik dik–pronounced “deek deek” by the way–relates to any affinity for the continent itself. I can’t help it if these animals are super adorable)

The Urban Dictionary defines a “butter face” as a girl with a great body, but a less than desirable face. Ie. She is pretty, but for her face. 

This weekend, I was told about a time I was put into a similar category.

It was years ago and I was with a new group of friends at an old bar in Los Feliz. There was a guy there with whom I thought I hit it off. We talked all night, made tentative plans and exchanged information…and then I never heard from him again.

One of my girlfriends from that night told me this weekend that he told her that he thought I was nice, but that he just preferred blondes. Or Latinas. Or Asians. Basically, he had a melanin quotient and I surpassed it.

I became a “butter race.”

Oh, but if he could see me now. Hair freshly relaxed, riding pants freshly pressed, RSVP for a foxhunt in Bath to which I’ve been invited freshly sent. 

Though I hope he doesn’t mind sport hunting. I’d hate to become a butter chase.

I expect as much from Mr. Perry (a co-producer behind Oprah’s new movie Precious). He after all, make his living by making things harder for black people. But Oprah, a woman who has managed to escape her ethnicity (she is after all, not really a black woman so much as she is a bazillionaire demi-god) has hurt and disappointed me.

By putting her bazillions behind the new movie Precious, she has lowered the bar for how hard Oreos have to work to save face.

Once again, we have a movie highlighting an unnuanced black angst. A hardened and unfortunate kid from the ghetto battles abuse and finds inspiration from a light-skinned, kind-hearted teacher. Ostensibly learning to stand up for herself and find herself beautiful in spite of her poor choices. See also: Finding Forrester, Dangerous Minds, The Gridiron Gang, The Ron Clack Story, O, Hardball, Freedom Writers, Bring it On, Blackboard Jungle, Up the Down Staircase, Pride, Wildcats, Take the Lead and Fighting the Odds: The Marilynn Gambrell Story.

I was already not born in the ghetto. Through no effort at all, I arrived in the world middle class. And if Hollywood continues to allow this singular view of black life into the cinema, my birthright will be the only work I need to maintain my Oreodom.

I have worked too hard, suffered too many second-degree burns, memorized too many jokes and turned down date offers from too many men of color to have these movies make my efforts null and void.

Part of the fun of a repression-based lifestyle is working toward an impossible goal, insuring that there will always be something to work toward. Please do not tell me I have arrived already. I’m enjoying the journey, and what would I do if I, and the rest of the world, was content with who I am.  Please, Oprah, do not take this away from me.

But please do invite me to your Legends Ball. I will risk communing with that many descendants of the enslaved because you get diamonds at the Legends Ball. And what’s more Anglo-tastic than enjoying something created at the chafed hands of the oppressed.

Oreo isn’t the only item in the grocery store useful for both consumption and labelling. Many food items give us the opportunity to better describe humanity.

Lettuce Heads – They appear lush and vibrant on the outside, but on the inside are really very bitter.

People who fit this description: Most artists, writers, comedians.

Pineapples – Tough on the outside, yellow on the inside.

People who fit this description: Bullies of any ilk, be they schoolyard, fraternity or corporate.

Kiwis – Fuzzy on the outside, green on the inside.

People who fit this description: Liberal activists who appear like a sweet stuffed animal, full of love for the less fortunate, but really very envious of those who made more lucrative career choices.

Baloney Sandwich – White on the outside, pink on the inside.

People who fit this description: Communists…(those still exist, right, KCB?)

Tamale – Corny on the outside, warm and wonderful on the inside.

People who fit this description: Those who know enough about BSG and Earth 2 to be nerds, little enough about complimentary colors to present as 5s, but enough about the impersonality of strangers to be a true and genuine friend.

Bell Peppers – Lovely and vibrant on the outside, hollow on the inside.

People who fit this description: Male gym rats and beautiful women with daddy issues.

 

Milano – The Oreo’s opposite.

 

 

 

This is an inexhaustive list, so feel free to make suggestions. A little labelling goes a long way.