(ThyBlackMan.com) It is official, the WYASWS (Why You Act So White Syndrome) virus has mutated into a new strain and is now starting to infect a subset of the general DWHC (Decent, White, Heterosexual, Christian) population at large. Just as with AIDS, this disease can no longer be dismissively ignored as simply “that Black [or Gay]” disease (as if all or even most Blacks or Gays were ever affected by it). Nope. It’s now like the zombie virus on AMC’s The Walking Dead.
I first encountered WYASWS in central Florida in the 1980s. I had a Black friend who had been both a great athlete and straight-A student, but started coasting and neglecting classes once we got to high school. This was explained to me by another Black friend of mine at our high school reunion years (well, not that many years) later as the onset symptoms of WYASWS. Learning standard English, doing well in math and science, being interested in history was all “White stuff”. The attitude was “Oh, I understand why the Man wants me to go to school and learn standard English, math, and his history. He wants 
to remake me in his image. Schools are full of White teachers and some White teacher is going to try to indoctrinate me. The Man wants everybody in America to go to school so he can turn them into White people.”
Knowledge – it’s a White thing. We know how well that turned out. Yet even knowing that is no innoculation against the disease because now we have the viral mutation: Knowledge – it’s a Black Presidential, Snobby, Liberal, Arrogant thing. God help you if you try to encourage everyone to strive for a college education.
The other reaction though, is to simply try to influence by example, as Confucius taught. Knowing how to speak standard English didn’t make me White (believe me, it didn’t). Going to college didn’t make me a worse person. It made me smarter. Enough so, so that I can recognize that I, too, was infected with WYASBS. Had I caught onto it early enough, maybe I could be playing point guard for the Knicks, instead of that other guy.
