Stuff white Minnesotans like
If you had to pick one state that best exemplifies the full flowering of American whiteness, you’d be hard-pressed to find a place more pasty and culturally typeable than the Twin Cities. Comfy co-ops dot street corners in every sector. “Gentrification” isn’t a dirty word synonymous with economic segregation, but another way of saying, “We now have a Dunn Bros.!” White folks of all ages play broomball, a sport that combines two deeply white pastimes: soccer and running around on ice. Singer-songwriters like Jeremy Messersmith and Chris Koza—which one is which, again?—are beloved for their Uptown eyewear and harmless indie sounds.
Blogger-turned-author Christian Lander (see our interview here) has earned widespread pop-culture kudos for his satirical, racially reflexive collection entitled Stuff White People Like. On the occasion of his Jan. 26 Twin Cities appearance at the U of M to promote the book, Decider thought it fitting to prepare our own localized list of stuff that Caucasians in the Land O' Lakes can't live without. (If we've missed something, post it in the comments. If we've pissed you off, well, see item #10.)
1. Bibelot Shops
For some white people, a home can never have enough “things” in it. Those poor, empty nooks in renovated Craftsman bungalows look so naked without a serenity bud vase or a mouse-and-acorn candleholder accent. Enter the Bibelot Shop, a knick-knack mini-chain packed with imported tchotchkes, lavender eye pillows, and other gifts for the white person who truly has everything.
For some white people, a home can never have enough “things” in it. Those poor, empty nooks in renovated Craftsman bungalows look so naked without a serenity bud vase or a mouse-and-acorn candleholder accent. Enter the Bibelot Shop, a knick-knack mini-chain packed with imported tchotchkes, lavender eye pillows, and other gifts for the white person who truly has everything.
2. Mark Wheat
Take a twee indie record collection, a British expat who's spent time at beloved alt-radio stations like Radio K and REV 105, plus a heavy dose of music geekery accented with a shaved head and Euro-posh glasses. Voila: It's Mark Wheat, on-air mainstay at MPR's 89.3 The Current. If this guy isn't white enough for you, might we suggest a move to Finland?
Take a twee indie record collection, a British expat who's spent time at beloved alt-radio stations like Radio K and REV 105, plus a heavy dose of music geekery accented with a shaved head and Euro-posh glasses. Voila: It's Mark Wheat, on-air mainstay at MPR's 89.3 The Current. If this guy isn't white enough for you, might we suggest a move to Finland?
3. Uptown Art Fair
The annual Uptown Art Fair—where prices seem to run about 30 percent higher than at other local art fairs—finds gobs of white Twin Citians shelling out cash for things like chunky hand-knit shalls, glorified garden gnomes, and questionable paintings in every genre. It's also a rare place where white people don’t mind using portable toilets while sober.
The annual Uptown Art Fair—where prices seem to run about 30 percent higher than at other local art fairs—finds gobs of white Twin Citians shelling out cash for things like chunky hand-knit shalls, glorified garden gnomes, and questionable paintings in every genre. It's also a rare place where white people don’t mind using portable toilets while sober.
4. Garrison Keillor
Renowned archetype of the white, affluent, wry, educated Midwestern male, Garrison Keillor is the grandpa many Minnesotans wish they had. His long-running radio show A Prairie Home Companion is built around talking directly to white Minnesotans about their own penchant for Minnesotan whiteness. How totally meta can white stuff get?
Renowned archetype of the white, affluent, wry, educated Midwestern male, Garrison Keillor is the grandpa many Minnesotans wish they had. His long-running radio show A Prairie Home Companion is built around talking directly to white Minnesotans about their own penchant for Minnesotan whiteness. How totally meta can white stuff get?
5. Wearing Shorts When It’s Above 30 Degrees
If there’s snow on the ground and you see a white Minnesotans wearing shorts, you can be pretty sure it’s reached the proven short-wearing threshold of 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Minnesotans can’t wait to free their alabaster gams from the denim, cotton leggings, and Zubaz that keep them confined like inmates for half the year.
If there’s snow on the ground and you see a white Minnesotans wearing shorts, you can be pretty sure it’s reached the proven short-wearing threshold of 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Minnesotans can’t wait to free their alabaster gams from the denim, cotton leggings, and Zubaz that keep them confined like inmates for half the year.
6. Protesting The Layoff Of T.D. Mischke
You see a pattern here? White Minnesotans love their white radio personalities. And while the aforementioned Wheat and Keillor rank higher here, KSTP host T.D. Mischke saw his stock rise sharply when he was unceremoniously canned last December. Pink-slipped Ford workers and municipal layoffs are bad, but the dumping of this folksy fave really got local white folks in a righteous huff.
You see a pattern here? White Minnesotans love their white radio personalities. And while the aforementioned Wheat and Keillor rank higher here, KSTP host T.D. Mischke saw his stock rise sharply when he was unceremoniously canned last December. Pink-slipped Ford workers and municipal layoffs are bad, but the dumping of this folksy fave really got local white folks in a righteous huff.
7. Dissing Wisconsin
We're not just talking about blue-collar Vikings-versus-Packers bravado here. Even the most staunchly tolerant St. Paul liberal can find something not-so-nice to say about our neighboring state. Whether it's rock bands, craft beers, or the property tax matrix, white Minnesotans are always ready to claim superiority over the looming cheesehead menace.
We're not just talking about blue-collar Vikings-versus-Packers bravado here. Even the most staunchly tolerant St. Paul liberal can find something not-so-nice to say about our neighboring state. Whether it's rock bands, craft beers, or the property tax matrix, white Minnesotans are always ready to claim superiority over the looming cheesehead menace.
8. Fixed-gear Bicycles
As Lander himself notes: "The combination of rare bicycles and expensive parts makes it easy for white people to judge other white people on the quality and originality of their bicycles." What gives these trendy contraptions a special place in white Minnesotan circles is that you can only ride them for six months out of the year, so you've got to be twice as annoying when you brag about riding yours to work every day.
As Lander himself notes: "The combination of rare bicycles and expensive parts makes it easy for white people to judge other white people on the quality and originality of their bicycles." What gives these trendy contraptions a special place in white Minnesotan circles is that you can only ride them for six months out of the year, so you've got to be twice as annoying when you brag about riding yours to work every day.
9. Triple Espresso
Not the beverage, but rather the local neo-vaudeville revue that refuses to die.
Not the beverage, but rather the local neo-vaudeville revue that refuses to die.
10. Thinking You're Not So Easily Classified
Here's where we let our own white penchant for meta-analysis get the better of us. Minnesotans—those in the Twin Cities, mainly—hate to be pigeonholed. We love to remind the rest of the country how different we are, stratified voting records and census data be damned. We're more enlightened, more complex, more cosmopolitan than that—just look at our proliferation of ethnic restaurants and fine-arts grant recipients. Pay no mind to our white-as-all-get-out governor, proto-cracker sports fetishes, and hidden cache of Dunn Bros. punch cards.
Here's where we let our own white penchant for meta-analysis get the better of us. Minnesotans—those in the Twin Cities, mainly—hate to be pigeonholed. We love to remind the rest of the country how different we are, stratified voting records and census data be damned. We're more enlightened, more complex, more cosmopolitan than that—just look at our proliferation of ethnic restaurants and fine-arts grant recipients. Pay no mind to our white-as-all-get-out governor, proto-cracker sports fetishes, and hidden cache of Dunn Bros. punch cards.
