The White Guy
A Field Guide
- Publisher
- Douglas & McIntyre
- Initial publish date
- Apr 2008
- Category
- General
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781553653028
- Publish Date
- Apr 2008
- List Price
- $22.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
Meet the species that has ruled the world for the last 3,000 years (give or take the 7th century, and the Seventies).
Who dropped not one but two nukes, killing thousands of non-white guys? Who launched the biggest religious crusade of all time? Who has done more than their share of melting the ozone layer? Who stole rock 'n' roll and won't give it back? Yup: white guys.
Stephen Hunt is, and always has been, a white guy. But then he married Melanee, a black woman from Baltimore. Now as he plays with their African-Canadian son, he has started to realize he isn't the solution-he's part of the problem. In this tell-all expos�, Hunt puts on his anthropologist's hat and looks at what makes white guys tick: how we dress (not very well, unless you dig khakis with denim shirts); how we communicate (coldly, at least with non-white guys); what we value (guns and being safe); and who we invite into our inner sanctums. His research has unearthed the 10 Whitest Songs Ever (A Whiter Shade of Pale, Play That Funky Music White Boy) and 10 Sports White Guys Still Play Better Than Anyone, If You Don't Count Tiger (golf, hockey, NASCAR and bass fishing).
About the author
Stephen Hunt has covered arts and entertainment for the Globe & Mail, Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Press, Saturday Night, the CBC, National Public Radio and Britain's FQ. He has had a number of plays produced Off Broadway, including The White Guy, purchased for television by Warner Brothers and Quincy Jones in 1999. He is arts editor for the Calgary Herald.
Editorial Reviews
"Hunt's book is more personal than Landers [Stuff White People Like], documenting his whiteness through his childhood and adolescence in Winnipeg, various career moves and eventual marriage to a US-born actress. He talks about having an identity crisis in his 20s when a successful lawyer girlfriend out-earned him, and pinpoints his increasing interest in his lawn as a true sign of his aging white man-ness."
CBC.ca
"Hunt does a reasonably entertaining job of covering the white waterfront, and some of his zingers are spot on...The White Guy adds up to a funny-but-serious portrait of the species, and enables the rest of us to run for cover or attempt to change the world, or both."
Quill & Quire
"Hunt gives us a white world ruled by bomb-droppers, poor dressers...unfeeling non-communicators and perpetrators of other cultural enormities. Often quite funny, as in lists of the 10 whitest songs (Whiter Shade of Pale), movies (Fargo) and, of course, books."
Globe & Mail