From “People Who Look Like You” [“It’s easy to conflate whiteness with having an easy life”]

It’s easy to conflate whiteness with having an easy life, so you sometimes mistake the tall white man’s tiredness for low stamina, especially stamina for chores. I’m dead, he tells you, too tired to sing Shania Twain with you under the covers, your anthem for making it into bed at night. Looks like we made it, look how far we’ve come my baby, you sing in the darkness for the both of you.

You easily notice all of your own contributions to the household but not his, and because white men are disproportionately more relaxed than everyone else, you want to heap more and more chores upon the tall white man, who already does a lot in the house. For this reason, you like it when he loops his arm around yours while on a walk, instead of the usual other way around.

The crux of many of your arguments is you wanting to be heard vs. the tall white man wanting to be left alone during a task, not told how to do it.

Does everything always have to be about race? you hear your dishwasher grumbling in the background.