Saturday, June 20, 2009

Stuff White People Like: #18 Awareness

Stuff White People Like:

#18 Awareness

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/23/18-awareness/

January 23, 2008

An interesting fact about white people is that they firmly believe
that all of the world's problems can be solved through
"awareness." Meaning the process of making other people aware of
problems, and then magically someone else like the government will fix it.

This belief allows them to feel that sweet self-satisfaction without
actually having to solve anything or face any difficult
challenges. Because, the only challenge of raising awareness is
people not being aware. In a worst case scenario, if you fail
someone doesn't know about the problem. End of story.

What makes this even more appealing for white people is that you can
raise "awareness" through expensive dinners, parties, marathons,
selling t-shirts, fashion shows, concerts, eating at restaurants and
bracelets. In other words, white people just have to keep doing
stuff they like, EXCEPT now they can feel better about making a difference.

Raising awareness is also awesome because once you raise awareness to
an acceptable, arbitrary level, you can just back off and say "Bam!
did my part. Now it's your turn. Fix it."

So to summarize ­ you get all the benefits of helping (self
satisfaction, telling other people) but no need for difficult
decisions or the ensuing criticism (how do you criticize
awareness?). Once again, white people find a way to score that sweet
double victory.

Popular things to be aware of: The Environment, Diseases like Cancer
and AIDS, Africa, Poverty, Anorexia, Homophobia, Middle School Field
Hockey/Lacrosse teams, Drug Rehab, and political prisoners.

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