Think Like a White Man

Whytelaw III Dr Boule

Description

'This book rewarded me with dark, dry chuckles on every page' Reni Eddo-Lodge'Hilarious . . . This original approach to discussing race is funny, intellectual and timely' Independent'The work of a true mastermind' Benjamin ZephaniahI learned early on that, for me as a black professional, to rise through the ranks and really attain power, I needed to adopt the most ruthless of mindsets possible: the mindset of the White Man who would tear your cheek from your face before he even considered turning his one first.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Political correctness
• Humour

Informations

• Publié par: Canongate Books
• Date de parution: 16 mai 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781786894397
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The paperback edition published in Great Britain in 2020 by Canongate Books
First published in Great Britain, the USA and Canada in 2019by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
Distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West and inCanada by Publishers Group Canada
canongate.co.uk
Copyright © Nelson Abbey, 2019
The right of Nelson Abbey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Quotation from speech by Lucius Cary, 15th Viscount Falkland inThe Official Record of the Debate Initiated by Lord Gifford QC inthe House of Lords of the British Parliament on 14th March 1996Concerning the African Reparations, col. 1052.
Extract from The Huey P. Newton Reader © Huey Newton, 2002. Reprinted with permission of Seven Stories Press.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 440 3 eISBN 978 1 78689 439 7
About the Authors
Dr Boulé Whytelaw III
Dr Boulé Whytelaw III is the Distinguished Professor of White People Studies at Bishop Lamonthood University, the Deputy Vice Chair of the C(T)UWP, the Centre for (Trying to) Understand White People, and is widely acknowledged as the definitive global authority on white people.
He is the highly accomplished television-writing brain behind the hit shows Good Cops , Good White Folk and Other Wild Fantasies and Scientific Proof: The White Man’s Ice Is Indeed Colder .
Prior to an unfortunate redundancy he was a decorated banker (specialising in no-income, no-job or assets loans) and a grandee of a slew of corporate diversity schemes.
Nels Abbey
Nels Abbey is a British Nigerian (Itsekiri) writer and media executive based in London. This is his first book.
I dedicate this book to the most precious group of beings on the face of the Earth, as well as the foremost resistors of White-Manism: black women. Sistas, you’re loved, admired and worshipped by me. Forever and a day.
You’re deeply appreciated.
I also dedicate this book to my amazing white wife.
– Dr Boulé Whytelaw III
Contents
Introduction by Nels Abbey
Assumptions
Preamble
PART 1 : UNDERSTANDING THE WHITE MAN
1 Why Think Like a White Man?
2 The White Man Commandments
3 Performance + Politics = Power
4 Compassion or Progression? Decision Time
5 Shock and Awe
6 See No Racism, Hear No Racism, Speak No Racism
7 You Are Not an Activist
8 Pick Your Battles
9 White Guilt
PART 2 : OVERTHROWING THE WHITE MAN
10 It’s Not Just What You Do, It’s Who You Do It in Front Of
11 Network (i.e. Gossip and Make Fake Friends)
12 Sex Sells
13 You Need a Mentor (or Two)
14 Believe in Yourself
15 Power: How to Use, Abuse and Retain It
16 Your Power Base and Your Legacy
Epilogue: Leadership Tips
Appendix 1: Risk Assessment: Types of Black People in the Corporate World
Appendix 2: White Man Decoded: The Black Professional’s Dictionary
Credits and Acknowledgements
Introduction
Nels Abbey
D r Boulé (pronounced boo-lay ) Fabricius Whytelaw III was born Blakamoor-Tajudeeni Mamasay-Mamakusa somewhere in the early 70s (by my estimations). In order to achieve what he called ‘white success’ he changed his name to sound as white as possible (not dissimilar – as he would inform me – to Charlie Sheen, Ralph Lauren and Whoopi Goldberg). 1
After this slight relabelling, he started getting job interviews and eventually an offer that was unthinkable to a black person called ‘Blakamoor-Tajudeeni’ (this was long before brands like ‘Barack Obama’ and ‘Lupita Nyong’o’ successfully emerged). This experience made him realise that making himself as palatable to white people as possible would help propel him to ‘white success’. He felt the need to go further. Much further.
He began to study Caucasians, in his words, ‘from Austria to Australia, London to Los Angeles, Cape Town to the Caucasus Mountains, Whitehall to the White House and everywhere white in-between’. He earned a PhD in White People Studies (the first and only human I am aware of to do so) and emerged as the foremost expert on ‘the world’s toughest subject: white people’.
Clearly a Westerner born to African parents, though he was reluctant to divulge exactly where he was from, the good doctor is what many would call a ‘global citizen’, or what the British Prime Minister Theresa May would call a ‘citizen of nowhere’. His politics, his outlook on the world and his diction all reflect this.
Out of the clear blue sky, Dr Whytelaw contacted me in early 2014 to help him package and share his message on how ‘we’ – by which he meant ‘black people’ – transit from ‘civil rights to silver rights … from marching to money-making … from fighting for freedom to actual freedom’. He explained that he had the ‘blueprint to overthrow the White Man [not to be mistaken for a “white man”, he stresses] once and for all’. When I asked for brief details, he elaborated: ‘We will use the White Man’s own weapons and tools to defeat him and we will start in the whitest place possible: the corporate world.’
I pointed out the wise words of the great poet Audre Lorde: ‘the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house’. After a long and frustrated pause Dr Whytelaw responded: ‘Nigga, you sound like an idiot or, even worse, a poet. Why would we want to dismantle a house we built? We don’t want to dismantle anything, we want to throw the blue-eyed squatter out and live in it ourselves.’
On the back of the statement above, I made it clear that I despise the N-word and would rather he didn’t use it around me. His response: ‘Nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga. I’ve held back my language and repressed myself all my life. And what did it earn me? Anxiety, high blood pressure and, fair enough, a lot of money. Anyway, nigga, I will use whatever word keeps me alive, happy and wealthy.’
How he got my details remains a mystery to me. Nevertheless, after months of trying to convince me that there is no such thing as a ‘white fatwa’, he got me to agree to help bring his vision to life.
Dr Whytelaw is a fascinating person. An unhinged black man with no political filter or time for political correctness whatsoever – a degree of freedom I would normally only associate with the most comfortable of comfortable white men. A truly unique compendium of racial knowledge and insight. Charming, witty, forthright and, according to him, ‘always right’.
During moments of creative and racial disagreement he would firmly reassure me that he ‘is to white people what Warren Buffet is to stocks, what Bill Gates is to computers, what Colonel Sanders is to stealing secret recipes from black women …’ And rightly so. He is an authority, and his theories (which he would demand I label ‘facts’) are nothing short of ground-breaking.
In early February 2019, Dr Whytelaw texted me to say he was about to embark on an ‘urgent scientific field trip’ to ‘discover, research and document’ a ‘remote white tribe’. No one has heard from him since.
This book is the fruit of all the discussions, lessons and ideas which emerged from hundreds of hours of meetings with Dr Whytelaw. This is his gift to the world, even though much of the hard work was mine.
HOWEVER, PLEASE NOTE THAT ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THE OPINIONS, THOUGHTS OR ADVICE OFFERED IN THIS BOOK ARE MINE OR ANYTHING TO DO WITH ME.
I’m only in this for the money.
1 Born, respectively, Carlos Irwin Estévez, Ralph Lifshitz and Caryn Elaine Johnson.
Assumptions
T his book is written with the following assumptions about you, the reader:
1. You are classified as black:
• Meaning you were born with at least a single drop of wild black African blood in your veins which has physically manifested itself in you (e.g. brown skin, impressive genitalia, natural rhythm, a proneness to police brutality, punctuality issues, healthy distrust of people classified as white, etc.).
• You do not have a gang tattoo on your face, a catalogue of violent or pornographic YouTube videos or a lengthy criminal record owing to a former career in rap music.
• You are a professional (or you aspire to be one) and therefore have an intimate understanding of the necessity of Prozac (or aspire to such an understanding).
• You can handle the truth.
2. In the event you are not (blessed enough to be) classified as black:
• You are a voyeur of black people for personal, professional, political, perverted or policing reasons
Or
• You’re just some bored racist devil.
Preamble
Brace Yourself …
‘I’m terribly sorry. What I’m about to say is something so racist I never thought my soul could ever feel it. But I truly never wanna spend time with white people again …’
— Sinéad O’Connor
I wasn’t always the pillar of wisdom that I am today. Far from it. Once upon a time I was just like you: young, dumb and … living with Mum.
I used to believe that I would flourish if I just worked multiple times as hard as my white peers (as Mama used to say). I used to believe in a fair and equitable corporate world: almost a Disneyland of meritocracies; I used to believe that the concept of a racial caste system was something that existed only in the backwaters of India and history books. I also used to believe in Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy, Mary Poppins, Tony Blair and a slew of other dubious white characters.
Of all the tomfoolery listed above, I’m least ashamed of the last sentence (other than the Tony Blair stuff, which really was naïve: should have seen that White Man coming). I was a happy fool, a Jonestown Kool-Aid sipper; a ‘change we can believe in’-er, if you will. Then I managed to break into the corporate world …
Straight outta university, straight into a mountain of debt and uncertainty, full of determination and armed with a degree, I was ready for the world, ready for my giant leap forward. One ‘minor’ challenge: I was an ambitious black pers