Am I a White Person?

If you are my friend, here is what a typical interaction consists of:

Mariam: Hello infidel white person!
Jack: You are as close to a non-white person I've ever gotten! Saracens aren't too bad, I guess.

Or something like this:
Mariam: When I was growing up, amongst white folk, and I was the only brown person, and my mom made me kabab sandwiches instead of turkey, it was really hard on me. Yay Pakistanis!
Abby: I'm a WASP, and I went to Lehigh, where diversity goes to die.
Sarah: I am figuratively and literally very white.

I also enjoy saying things like, "I had one white friend in college. She was a cheerleader in high school!" as if the latter fact is some affirmation that she was a normal, mainstream white person American. And so, the bottom line is this: my day consists of reaffirming white people's whiteness, and my own difference as a brown person infiltrating this hegemonic whiteness. I.e. I am so foreign, so different, so exotic, look at me, I had weird experiences with immigrant parents and strange, smelly foods.

Many people who are foreign but very assimilated spend time telling me that I am not foreign because I was born in America (Granite City, IL, which could possibly about as middle-America as you can get). People like Shlee, who is Persian, but considers himself an American, say things like: "I am not foreign. For example, my girlfriend is white." I think that's excellent that Shlee is doing well for himself in America, but if I were a white person, I would look at his dark hair and beard and think, not American! Maybe that's just me, though.

Anyway, one day, my entire identity was called into question. Last week, I stumbled onto a really cool blog called Stuff White People Like after reading about it in the New York Times. Mocking whitness was a clever idea, but then, things took a very dark and sinister turn. I realized I liked 41 out of the 95 top things white people liked.

This seemed excessive so I asked Jemily, my favorite medical school power couple. Emily cheerfully told me not to worry - the blog was mocking her, too! Easy for you to say, you are white, I thought meanly. Jack argued that these were merely "people interests." I personally thought that of course, he would think this - white males always tend to think that the their interests are the world's interests.

An identity crisis ensued. I prided myself on not being mainstream - I even stated as much on my Facebook profile. I was proud of my varied, decidedly unique interests (David Sedaris, English lit, Michael Gondry, Whole Foods, incidentally all things on said list). And I was proud of my ethnic heritage - always showing off about being Pakistani to make white people aware of their own inherent homogeneity. And ironically, this, too, was on the list. The blog made me realize not only that I wasn't very unique, but that I was almost a parody of the typical, upper-middle class, educated white person.

A mere blog made me realize a fundamental truth about myself - that I was more assimilated than I thought I was. I had white friends because I was just like them - I wasn't exactly the threatening picture of difference people often associated with foreigners (for example, Elvis, who came to the US in 1998, asked me what a "dreamboat" meant). All the white people thought they were being diverse and liberal by befriending someone from a different cultural background (extra brownie points because I was from a recently maligned religion and country), but in fact, they were just becoming bff with someone just like themselves.

In high school English, we learn about a hero's tragic flaw (or hamartia) in classic Greek tragedy - and I guess I found mine - hubris. I had such pride in my difference, my browness, standing proudly in a sea of white, and then I realized I wasn't so different after all. Because ultimately, you are a product of your environment, and hanging with all of these white folks had rubbed off on me.

--By Mariam, who went to Pakistan and had to experience the pitfalls of a "developing nation" for her summer vacations. Take that, white people!