the oreo experience

Lost in Translation

Hindsight is always 20/20 and I’ve come to realize that for the last week, my coworker has been seeing me in quite the wrong light.

Forget Medea and Jason, this was a Greek tragedy!

Forget Medea and Jason, this was a Greek tragedy!

When I told her what I was going to see after work last Thursday, her eyes got gleefully big and told me that I would have a blast!

I appreciated the well wishes, but I was surprised. This is a coworker who every weekend, tells stories of embraces with strangers at trendy bars, henna tattoos and occasionally dred-locking her blonde hair. To see her be impressed with my tickets to Medea was a pleasant surprise.

Monday morning, she made clear to me what she meant.

“Did you love it,” she squealed as she burst into my office. “She’s so funny…”What’cha’ll gone do? what’cha’ll gone do? Y’all best know dat ‘ho.’ I could imitate her all day!”

Apparently, my coworker did not notice the important difference between the names “Medea,” the enchanting daughter of King Aeëtes, granddaughter of sun god Helios and wife to hero Jason, whom she helped through his trials as he fought to claim the golden fleece. And “Madea,” a woman who is really Tyler Perry in drag and who delights in being sassy, protecting her offspring through colorful language and generally making life harder for black people.

I’m not sure what about my Queen Elizabeth mousepad or the framed degree from Bryn Mawr on my wall that led her to believe that I would poison my eyes with such a thing, but I’m worried that my identity is not being made clear. Suffice to say I’m hoping to keep my office door closed, and play my Chopin a little more loudly through it.

PS. In case you’re wondering if the Medea retrospective featuring the various incarnations of her story as told by Francesco Cavalli, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Saverio Mercandante, Darius Milhaud and progressive Dutch rock band Kayak was worth the $100+ ticket. It was indeed.

Catch 22s – What’s an Oreo to Do?

210160_f520I just finished taking the Stuff White People Like Test again. It’s part of my regular Oreo maintenance and something I would recommend all Oreo hopefuls do to track their progress.(NOTE: The SWPL list online varies slightly from the test in the book–which, of course, is a proud part of my home library).

Don’t worry if you start out with an initial score in the 60s or 70s, you’re still half way there. Not all of us can get a 97% like yours truly.

And some anglo-tastic things do take getting used to. When I first started eating expensive sandwiches, for example, my common sense really wanted to kick in and tell me to save my $17 dollars for something more impressive than chicken salad on a brioche. But I was using the word ‘brioche’ in a sentence, so I kind of had to go for it.

gentrification2

Likewise, gentrification has its obvious downsides and I do feel bad when I see the trail of tears that is the working class hoping that the move inland will treat them better. But how else am I going to ensure that I stand out in the neighborhood?

Some things, however, were just easy. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy non-motorized boating, Portland, Oregon or trying too hard. 

The full list of Stuff White People Like serves as a very handy guide for Oreos, but there are some things on the list that cause problems. For example, White People like The Wire, Dave Chappelle and…it hurts to type this…having black friends. 

So what’s an Oreo to do? If a person of color says that they like The Wire, Dave Chappelle or having black friends, they are considered typical, crass and unfriendly, respectively. The ruling class expects us to like these things because they look like us. So in order to maintain Oreodom, we have to lose any affinity for them. But in order to achieve 100% on the SWPL test, one has to admit to liking them.

The dilemma makes your head hurt almost as much as relaxer cream stings the scalp.

The truth is that it’s precisely these kinds of things that are keeping me from scoring 100% on the test.

david-sedaris_l

The best I can offer you is this: When discussing these subject,  choose your words carefully, and tread lightly. Very lightly–outside and inside. And when in doubt, pull our your Criteron Collection edition of Song of the South and a David Sedaris story and you’ll win them back.

Obama Problems – Education

Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan

Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan

President Obama agreed with Education Secretary Arne Duncan, this week when he said the American school year should be longer so that more students will get a better chance at a better education.

 

Currently, US 4th graders ranked 11th in reading skills and below Latvia and Kazakhstan in math skills. 

 

Obama suggested that keeping students in school longer will help them become more competitive in the global economy when they are adults.

 

The students most likely to be influenced by these changes are students of color who are on average more likely to be in underperforming schools. 

 

And thus, the students most likely to be harmed by this potential legislation: budding, young Oreos.

 

When I was in school, I didn’t have a President pushing math and science at me. I found those nerdy subjects all by myself. I could have easily paid attention to the football and basketball games that I attended…in my marching band uniform. How fantastic are spats, btw!!!

LITTLE-DORRIT.300

But I snuck my calculus books into the stadium in my hatbox underneath my band cap’s bright white feather plume and I didn’t need an elected official to tell me to kill my social life like this. I did it because I cared enough to do it.

 

And because of those early efforts, I have won the right to call myself an Oreo today.

 

Imagine the tens of students like myself who would no longer be the special, noteworthy darker skinned child who bucked the trend and read on their own volition, could solve a differential equation because they liked it and joining the Academic Decathlon team because the bullying hurt so good.

 

If all students are encouraged–and especially by a President of half color–then my work would be in vain, my efforts would be for naught, and my Dickens Fair Society would no longer be a color-free, safe haven.

 

C’mon, Mr. President. You know you love Little Dorrit reenactments. Don’t take those away from me. 

 

 

Crack and AIDS Didn’t Work

…so now they’re trying to kill us off with Type 2 diabetes.

bg_adsYes, food giant McDonald’s has taken on the plight of the person of color and is proving their commitment to the race with a huge web campaign. With rotating banner ads touting basketball, gospel music, Essence Magazine and food that has been “southern fried,” Ray Kroc’s legacy is apparently, keeping it real.

But since nothing will make a person of color hate themselves more than having this website dedicated to them, Oreo numbers should be up in no time. I will ready the coronation boots and see you in Vermont!

And don’t think they missed the chance to show us the truth and remind us what we are all striving for. Check out this list of work opportunities with the company. Notice that only the person sans color is capable of going “beyond management.” It’s moments like this that keep the goal in mind keep our hope alive.

And they love Asians, too! I’ll let you find where they teach users to say “Let’s go do some karaoke.”

Self Loathing for Humans and Non Humans Alike

district_nineIf you haven’t seen District 9, please run to the theater and see it immediately! Not only is the acting phenominal, the script amazing, the effects work outstanding, the phone promo done by yours truly (call 1-866-666-6001 to hear OreoWriter keep humans safe!) but the movie presents a wonderful example of why being an Oreo is so important.

You might worry that a movie that is clearly in part a segregation and apartheid allegory would miss its opportunity to show us how important it is to despise that which we cannot help, but the powers that be did not let us down.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE, DO NOT READ ON UNTIL DOING SO.

REALLY, NORMALLY, I’D SAY GO AHEAD AND SPOIL IT, BUT THIS MOVIE IS ALL KINDS OF AMAZING, SO COME BACK WHEN YOU’VE SEEN IT. WE’LL STILL BE HERE.

 

district-9-trailer

 

 

All right, here we go.

So. Do you know who the scariest people in the movie were? Not the aliens, they were clearly misunderstood. Not Multinational United, the cruel company who tortures innocents. Not Tanya’s father, the frighteningly cold businessman. And not the nameless mercinary who shot to kill on sight.

The scariest people were the blacks who lived in the District 9 ghetto with the aliens. These dark skinned folks lived in garbage, weilded machetes–much scarier than cool alien guns and more primitive than sleek human weapons, were dim enough to believe in specific sorts of witchcraft and were morally bankrupt enough to enforce further enslavement on their fellow subjugated.

Now, before you say that OreoWriter is reading too much into this set of facts, consider this:

When all the melanin-heavy were killed at once…the theater exploded into applause and laughter. What a relief!

I can only hope that they were not simply celebrating the fact that an enemy was squashed.That in their response was at least a hint of inherent discomfort with the victims. And I’ve got a good chance of being right, because when bombs went off at MNU, there was no laughter. When the nameless mercinary got ripped limb from limb, there was no applause. But when the black folks were destroyed en masse, there was so much hubbub that the audience almost missed reacting to the leader getting his head exploded.

I’m not saying that I need validation where ever I can get it. I am saying that it feels good to be reminded by a sold out theater that one’s hard work and shared fears are not in vain. For when this momentous scene happened, I cheered myself (Internally, of course. Making audible comments during a movie would ruin years of Oreo work) because there on screen was a perfect physical representation of what I am working so very hard to do. 

So go see the movie. The acting is phenominal, the script is amazing, the effects work is outstanding, the phone promo’s done by yours truly (call 1-866-666-6001 to hear OreoWriter keep humans safe!) and there’s this hilarious and moving scene in Act III. You’re going to love it.