by Nayaab Ahsan
With the recent rise in tokenizing ethnic people, White people across the nation have become fixated on learning as much as they can about their ancestry. To gain a better understanding of this movement, I talked to one White man, Stanley Hall, resident of Tracy, California, to tell us about his journey of discovering his heritage.
Stanley explained to me that he wanted to get his DNA tested by Ancestry.com because he needs to have a more accurate vision when he wants to imagine himself as ethnic.
“Ethnicity has never actually affected my life in any way. I was just curious and felt like I needed to verify my identity, even though I’ve already told everyone that I’m Irish. It turns out I’m not Irish at all! I’m actually a whole bunch of different ethnicities. I’m 42% English, 36% Dutch, 27% Swedish, 21% Scottish, 18% Serbian, 17% Polish, 13% French, 12% Italian, 11% Greek, 9% Spanish, 8.5% Soviet, and 7% Lithuanian.”
Stanley hopes to spread more awareness among other Whites about falsely advertising what ethnicity you are.
“I hope that by sharing my story, more White people like me will understand the importance of knowing your ethnic background so you won’t feel left out when minorities talk about their struggles. If we know our ancestry, we can talk about our ancestors’ struggles since the most we know about struggle is the dictionary definition.”
Other Whites hear stories like Stanley’s and feel inspired. I asked one White girl on the street to share her opinion on the new phenomenon sweeping White people across the nation.
“That is like, so amazing! My ethnic friends are always telling me about their cultures and customs, and it makes me sooo jealous! Like I want to be able to talk about my culture, but I also don’t want to deal with any systematic legal discrimination, you know? I don’t need that in my life, so being some kind of European is perfect for me. I want to be just the right amount of exotic. It’s important that I know exactly which European countries I’m from even if I can’t find any of them on a map.”
This trend shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Some Whites believe that their time would be better spent supporting minorities’ civil rights as opposed to justifying their own privileges and exoticizing ethnicity. Additionally, many people of color and woke Whites argue that this is a case of “symbolic ethnicity,” meaning Whites can arbitrarily choose when they want to celebrate their ethnicity without facing any discrimination or consequences. We brought this up with Stanley and he responded rather adversely.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?!!?? White people are human too! Are minorities the only ones allowed to be oppressed? They’re always quick to point out the struggles they face, but when Whites speak up about their struggles, we’re told check our privilege—whatever that means. Everyone needs to look up reverse racism. It is very real, and it is hurting the egos of Whites everywhere.”
This past week, Ancestry.com announced a new feature that allows users to see what religions their ancestors followed. Stanley tried out this new feature and shared his results.
“Well, most of my ancestors were Protestant and Catholic. However, they found that my great-great-great-great aunt fifty-seven times removed was Muzlum. That means I have some Islamical in me, so no one can accuse me of being Islamophobic. While we’re on the topic, though, you got to admit, there is something strange about all terrorists being Muzlum. Just pointing out the facts here.”
At this point I couldn’t stop him from speaking, so I just sat and waited for him to finish. He eventually ran out of synonyms for terrorist. Stanley wanted to leave us with these final words of wisdom:
“I hope that I can be an inspiration for other Whites to get educated about their own heritage. Hopefully this promotes a culture that supports people of all races and ethnicities because in the end, all lives matter.”
Note: This is a work of satire.
'The Olive' is Al-Bayan's very own satire column. Stay tuned for more sarcasm.