Oreos Are Just Cookies - Stephen Holts

Stephen Holts

“Oreos Are Just Cookies”

            “You’re so white!” One student would always say.

            “Yeah! Why don’t you act black?” Another would always chime in.

            “Or at least sound black!” Ever since fifth grade I’ve been subject to insulting remarks like those. But around sixth or seventh grade people started getting original.

            “Yo, you a Oreo. Black on the outside, but white on the inside.”

            I didn’t understand. How did I go from a person to a cookie? Asking questions like that led me to the most important one I’d ever ask. What exactly makes me white? It surely wasn’t my skin. Not to say that I’m especially dark skinned, but I’m dark enough to be incontestably African American, but I digress.

            My peers’ reaction to the question were all the same.

            “You just act and sound white. You’re black. You’re supposed to act and sound black.”

            After hearing this, I asked myself a question that I regretted not asking anyone. What does black sound and act like? What does white act and sound like? Maybe if I asked people this question, they’d realize how stupid they were being. I answered my own question. By observing my white peers and my black peers, I managed to compile a list of qualifications to be black, white, or an Oreo.

            If you’re black, you’re loud. You have a compulsive need to be the center of attention. You’re obnoxious, and if someone doesn’t agree with what you’re saying or doing, you’ll get in their face and scream at them. That’s what black sounds like. If you’re black and male, you’re good at sports. You’re at home with hip-hop. You know every word to every song on the last Lil’ Wayne mixtape, and you yourself can rap like no one’s business. You’re muscular and know how to fight. And because you know how to fight, you won’t back down from one. If someone gives you the faintest reason to, you’ll fight. You don’t need words. Violence are your words. Your words are for bragging after you’ve won the fight. Blacks don’t read. Blacks don’t play tennis. blacks don’t go to prep schools.

            If you’re white, you speak English like you came up with the language yourself. If you’re white you use big words. If you’re white you have the power of calling on any word in the English language and using them to impress whoever you want. Nothing means more to you than education. You’ll ask questions when in class, you’ll listen attentively, and do whatever your teacher tells you too. Rock and Pop are the only genres on your iPod. If you do have a rap song, you white it up by rapping in your high-pitched non-threatening white voice. Fighting isn’t for you if you’re white. You’ll avoid any confrontation that has the slightest possibility of leading to violence. However, you are undefeated in fights, because you use your words to either talk your way out of a fight, or you simply confuse your opponent, leading them to think you’re not worth it. You possess the power of manipulation, and can get what you want without doing anything yourself. You just stand back and watch your puppets do your bidding.

            Oreos are the scum of the Earth. They look one way, but they don’t act the way they look. They’re hypocrites who can’t accept that they’re born one way, and must stay true to that way until they die. They’re hated because they don’t follow the rules of society. Oreos don’t follow the rules blacks must follow. Instead, they follow the rules that whites are made to follow. Oreos speak proper English, don’t have a strict preference for rap, and avoid fights if at all possible. When pressed into a fight, like whites, they’ll talk their way out. They have very vast vocabularies and aren’t afraid to show it. Oreos love reading, and nothing pleases an Oreo more than discussing theories of books with people. Oreos aren’t the only skin traitors, there is also such a thing as an Uh-Oh Oreo.

Uh-Oh Oreos are white on the outside and black on the inside Uh-oh Oreos listen to rap, wear baggy clothes and speak fluent slang. Even though they’re white, they will call other people white if they act like it. They think like blacks and nothing disgusts them more than a traitor that acts different than they look. Which is funny, because they themselves are traitors. Uh-Oh Oreos follow all the rules that blacks are supposed to. They listen to the “right” music, they’re aggressive, and they’re “ignorant”. Any type of Oreo is a traitor because they don’t follow society’s rules of skin.

After defining society’s rules of skin, I realized why I was hated. I was different. Many people followed the rules of race, but I wasn’t one of those followers. I disturbed the racial balance everywhere I went, and to get everything back in balance, the followers of society’s rules had to make me feel bad about myself. They had to make me hate myself enough to change myself.

Through all of the pressure to change myself, I learned two important lessons. The first was that I am who I am, and no one is going to change that. The second is that society’s rules and expectancies of race are only real to the people that follow them. Giona Auzaldúa once said, “I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language I cannot take pride in myself.” I couldn’t agree more. Oreos are just cookies.