WHAT WHITE/BLACK/ASIAN/HISPANIC PEOPLE REALLY LIKE.

big ol' edit: I am going to take this time to point out how frequently you make racial observations (not a bad thing) Mog but how you seem to be missing the fact that the way the US views racial differences and the way the rest of the civilized world views racial differences is completely different. Congrats on having such an insular world view

Okay I'm going to tackle this from a different angle

Growing up in my city, not counting when I lived in NYC, I live in a city (Pittsburgh, and keep in mind that its a relatively large city here) where it's still very much of a WHITE PEOPLE DO THIS/BLACK PEOPLE DO THAT sort of thing. As a kid (and I recently discussed this with another Pittsburgher, who unlike me HAS gotten to travel all over the world and can definitely see this here as well), I never really understood stereotypes as it was, because as far as I saw, in Pittsburgh, most of them held true pretty steadfastly.

It wasn't until I got older and traveled myself (and Pittsburgh itself is starting to rapidly change and become more worldly in recent years) that *gasp* there are white people who enjoy cornbread and fried chicken! Black goths exist! Asian people who enjoy hip hop, what a discovery, whoa! This shit was literally unknown to me as a kid.

As a kid people enjoying things that 'other cultures' generally enjoyed was pretty alien to me because where I grew up, a white kid who liked hip hop was probably not very well recieved by his suburbite brethren (boy did that change, what, white suburban kids are the highest consumers of hip hop now?) and a black kid who enjoyed rock and Final Fantasy (me) was summarily made fun of and was told to pick up a basketball and that Tupac CD over there (and I like Tupac, but liking rock as well? WHOA. That's not very 'black'). Of course all of this changed now that I'm older and more well traveled, but of course my worldview is a bit colored by my upbringing and experiences.

All and all though, I'm a huge fan of cultures intermingling and learning from one another and all that, I'm not even entirely black myself and I know and cherish a lot of my Native American heritage. I dated (and am still close to) a Pacific Islander throughout high school and still remember the food and recipes of the stuff she made. My cousin married a white guy from Cincinatti and showed me stuff from his German heritage for a little while.

While I love and encourage cultural mish mashing, I also cherish the things that makes cultures different and distinct from one another, so I don't mind 'white people do this/black people do that' to a certain degree because that's what makes us all different and unique and all that shit. In no way its static or inherent or whatever.

Speaking of which I'm watching through old episodes of Chappelle's Show right now. The show is sometimes just silly and that's it, but Dave Chappelle is a genius at racial commentary and actually being funny while pointing out things/differences between culture and race.

Right now I am watching the Racial Draft skit! Using race/culture to discriminate, antagonize, and hate is a terrible thing and I'm sure its something a lot of us can relate to as far as being on the receiving end. I know I can. But race/culture as something to embrace, celebrate differences, and laugh at and pick apart sometimes is great.

nah bro dont

seriously