#18 Awareness
January 23, 2008 by clander
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, aribtrary 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, Midde School Field Hockey/Lacrosse teams, Drug Rehab, and political prisoners.


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[...] So I not only laughed at, but felt a kindred connection with a Stuff White People Like entry mocking the self-righteous aim of awareness.* [...]
[...] It may be naive, but I wonder wonder why people can’t just, you know, get over it the way most civilized people have gotten over being upset about homosexuality or the proper “place” of women.4 There might always be a few oddballs who refuse to see people as people, but surely these people are marginal, not mainstream?5 Right?6 The riots in France in 2005 rather suggest otherwise, but I still don’t know what is achieved by the inclusion of these essays in this context? Awareness?7 [...]
True…
http://www.beabetterproducer.com
a reminder to everyone that changing your twitter profile to Green can take down the iranian government
This is important to know and thank you. I am glad to have your approval for this.
[...] http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/23/18-awareness/ [...]
so true….. It seems like people who protest never no even what there protesting about and dont have there own version of fixing things. Just saying the word peace doesn’t count……
can you translate that?
that comment is a little too radical to be believable. really, think about what your telling people
er…uh…come again?
HAHAHAHAHA I love this
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