White People Food
At debate tournaments, there is a colorful racial variety. I am not used to this at all, as almost everyone in my school is white, and the rest almost seem it. It is very interesting to see Asian-heavy teams from Bellevue alongside the black- and Mexican-heavy teams from Kent and Renton. Though many interpret statements like this as racist, I always find it interesting how teams from Renton have a totally different atmosphere than the ones from, say, Gig Harbor or Snoqualmie. There is one school in particular that brought a group of about 20 kids containing 3 white ones- the rest are all partly black or Mexican or something in between. They're always playing music and once turned it up and started jumping and dancing, suits and all. The chances that something like that would happen in our team are about as slim as my becoming a Mathematics professor, and it is a wonder to me that they would do something like that every time they do.
There was this black kid on one of my Oratory rounds that was walking around with a (black) friend of his. They came up to the little circle where my team was set up and started talking to us. The one I knew complimented me on my speech and then began to explain a study of sorts they'd been up to. As they'd been walking around the building, they'd noticed a bunch of different eating habits among different racial groups. They figured most of it's pretty obvious: Mexicans eat tacos and beans, Asians eat rice and sushi, blacks eat fried chicken and mashed potatoes. But they just wanted to know, what do white people eat? We were kind of confused at first, because I suppose it had never occurred to us that we might eat a certain racially-specific type of food. We just eat. After spluttering out a few nonsensical things, the second black kid said, "Don't you eat, like, spinach and granola and stuff?" My friend Hanna, who was sitting next to me at the time, brightened up as if someone had said "Jane Austen" or "Laura Ingles Wilder" and exclaimed (with the greatest joy), "I LOVE spinach!!!" The kid gave that adorable little excited head-jump, like only black people can (successfully), and said, "Oh man, didin ah tell yu so?" I replied that I had actually just eaten a granola bar and had bought a salad for lunch. They both laughed and thanked us as they walked away, saying, "Yeeuh, thet's whaat peepo food. Thet's whaat peepo food."
There was this black kid on one of my Oratory rounds that was walking around with a (black) friend of his. They came up to the little circle where my team was set up and started talking to us. The one I knew complimented me on my speech and then began to explain a study of sorts they'd been up to. As they'd been walking around the building, they'd noticed a bunch of different eating habits among different racial groups. They figured most of it's pretty obvious: Mexicans eat tacos and beans, Asians eat rice and sushi, blacks eat fried chicken and mashed potatoes. But they just wanted to know, what do white people eat? We were kind of confused at first, because I suppose it had never occurred to us that we might eat a certain racially-specific type of food. We just eat. After spluttering out a few nonsensical things, the second black kid said, "Don't you eat, like, spinach and granola and stuff?" My friend Hanna, who was sitting next to me at the time, brightened up as if someone had said "Jane Austen" or "Laura Ingles Wilder" and exclaimed (with the greatest joy), "I LOVE spinach!!!" The kid gave that adorable little excited head-jump, like only black people can (successfully), and said, "Oh man, didin ah tell yu so?" I replied that I had actually just eaten a granola bar and had bought a salad for lunch. They both laughed and thanked us as they walked away, saying, "Yeeuh, thet's whaat peepo food. Thet's whaat peepo food."
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