Dear White People…

Dear White People, this last year was pretty rough, but I hope that we can duck our heads and briskly walk away like we do every time homeless people ask us for loose change.

I was ready to approach these next few months with an abundance of post-WWII level optimism until MTV released a terribly racist video about white guys. Namely, what white guys are doing wrong.

Because that’s what you want, right? Some pasty white millennials and some urban, hip-hop guy wearing a cat t-shirt telling you what they think you should be doing with your lives.

And I make fun of the cat tee shirt knowing full well that I have not one, but TWO cats-in-space themed tee shirts, because of the many things I am, I’m also an unrepentant hypocrite.

White people, you’re great and you do great things. From tacos to rock and roll to the light bulb, you steal all the best stuff. So I don’t know why you need these yankee hipsters telling you how to live your life when you’ve got me to do it for you.

“But Nik, you accurate barometer for social climate,” you say. “If we’re so great then what’s the problem?”

I’m so glad you asked. Here are a few things white people need to fix…

Dear White People…

Stop Complaining:

White people, you’re the worst complainers I’ve ever been around. We all tend to live in our own bubbles, so it was a shock to me when I got a job working a loading dock and driving a truck.

There was me and maybe two other white guys and about thirty African American and Hispanic guys. The job sucked.

It was cold, middle of the night, exhausting work for no benefits. You know how we knew the job was cold, in the middle of the night, and exhausting with no benefits?

Because the white guys wouldn’t shut up about it!

From your job, to politics, to last season of The Walking Dead, white people bitch about everything.

And though I recognized it, I was no better. I used to thank my coworkers of color for letting me vent. And they were nice enough to listen and laugh it off because they knew what a bunch of whiners we were.

I used to come home and tell my wife how much I hated working with white people. I still do.

Give me a crew of Mexicans any day. They bring home-cooked food and beer literally everywhere they go.

What a wonderful people.

Toughen Up Your Kids:

Hate to break it to you, white people. Lil’ Brooke and Declan are not special snowflakes. They’re whiny little shits and it’s your fault.

I live in very white, middle class town that thinks way too highly of itself. When my son was smaller we used to take him to McDonalds to play in that hamster cage thing they’ve built, and if any other mom brought her fragile, indigo children to play, that was the end.

If my son even looked at their frail, organic-fed, self-expressing spawn, the weakness water would flow. I started to wonder if it might be my kid with the problem. Nope.

We hit up the mostly Hispanic McDonalds by my mother-in-law’s house and it was like Disney World. Go in there any day of the week and you’ll find about a dozen little chubby kids knocking each other around in the secret society of awesome.

Nobody’s crying. Nobody’s tattling.

These Hispanic communities just raise tougher kids.

Being delicate, and expressing you self-worth doesn’t help a damn bit in the real world. The real world wasn’t built by sensitive people.

The real world was built by people who could take a punch to the head and laugh it off…or slaughter your countrymen.

Honestly, history has proven it’s a bit of a gamble when you punch somebody in the head, I wouldn’t recommend it, but I think my point has more or less been made.

Stop Speaking for Minorities:

When a black woman wants to tell me the troubles that she’s had to face in her life, I’ll listen. She knows what she’s talking about.

I am not saying don’t be a white ally. You should.

When a white, upper middle-class, twenty year old, Poli-Sci major from Berkeley or some other ivy league wants to tell me about the troubles that some fictional caricature of black America has to face, you can cram it up your drum circle.

White people, the world doesn’t care what you have to say about folks you’ve never met and know nothing about besides what vague images you might have picked up listening to a Mos Def record.

Watching Boyz In The Hood does not make you Al Sharpton. Heck, even Al Sharpton is so rich and so removed from the people he claims to advocate that I don’t believe most African American’s care what even he has to say.

But there I go speaking for minorities.

My bad, white people, that one’s on me.

Dear black people and all people of color, I am sorry.