Buddy Holly

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 6 August 2015.



Speaking of commercials, have you seen the Honda commercial in which the family in the minivan has a singalong to "Buddy Holly" by Weezer?

It encapsulates more than anything I've ever seen, I think, what I hate about being a white person. I've been thinking about race in our story a lot, and it has an undead nature to it, as well. Is it possible that the most effective way for our story to confront problems of white privilege and racism is to keep the discussion muted and in the fringes of the story? I think that's the way whiteness tends to operate, and it seems to be the story of suburban Detroit and Henry Ford's urban planning.

I think white people tend to win a false victory over their feelings of racism by carefully controlling their exposure to non-white people and culture. That way, the white person gets to have all sorts of feelings of love and admiration for people and cultural artifacts that aren't white while never having to engage, at least for very long, in any personally challenging interpersonal or social experience.

I can listen to NWA and side with Ice Cube without having to deal with 90's Compton, for instance. I think of how metro-Detroit hipsterism works. If you are from Birmingham, you become cooler by moving to Royal Oak, but Ferndale trumps Royal Oak, Hamtramck trumps Ferndale, Corktown trumps Hamtramck, and the Cass Corridor trumps Corktown.

But at some point, you're less of a poseur if you are just an ignorant yokel from Wyandotte who just stays in Wyandotte.