April 14, 2018    Race

Four Different Types of White People in New York City

  1. New Yorkers: Because they’ve been here for awhile, they end up wearing only the clothes readily available in New York; so they blend in whether they are fashionable or not. Even the ways they walk, talk, and interact with others flow naturally with the way city works. They have become part of the ecosystem of New York.
  2. American Tourists (ATs): As tourists, they have no incentive to blend in, so they come here wearing what they wear at home. Bright pastel colors, for instance, make it abundantly clear that they don’t live here. Because these tourists are common in New York, in a way, they blend in. It’s like the way we don’t notice homeless people.
  3. European Tourists (ETs): Their fashion blends in better than that of the American tourists, but we notice the difference because many items they wear are not available here. Also, since they are speaking foreign languages, we hear the difference. But again, we New Yorkers are used to seeing foreign tourists too, so they do not draw our attention.
  4. Unidentified Foreigners from Outer-space (UFOs): These white people are creepy. At first glance, we might not notice them because they are wearing things that are not immediately foreign (they probably bought them at the malls of other states like Pennsylvania, thinking that they look New York). We begin to feel something is off because of the way they talk. They are speaking American English, so they are not from Europe. They do not have Southern accents, so they are not American tourists either. But they speak in a way that most New Yorkers find obnoxious. These white people are typically young and often seen in trendy places. We can sense that they are proud of the way they look, yet they look strange. Something is off. It’s as if they are invaders from outer space trying to pass off as ordinary humans. Because these white people are so creepy, we keep looking at them contemptuously and think, “What the fuck is wrong with these people?”