I See White

I see White with my White eyes, my pale and deadened eyes.

I see my Whiteness with those eyes, that alabaster key, opening gates I never see.

I see the not-me with White eyes, the Other that startles with difference-from-me.

I ghost along with my White eyes, eyes that stare, glossed and still, at all that is all White.

White is me, and White I see, and all I see is White.

Whiteness

I've been working on a proposal for my seminar paper in my Critical Race Theory class, and decided that I would like to research the rhetorical signification of "fair" skin among nineteenth-century (upper-class) white women. Yes, that is "fair" as in "fairest of them all." Surprisingly, this connection (although evident to me due to the domination of my home life with Disney films and other animated media) was suggested by my professor, someone I am quite sure does not share my level of exposure to children's media. But, despite my fears that grounding my work in a fairy tale might cause me to lose ethos among my peers and instructors, I think I'll give it a try.

Although it is hard now not to think of the ridiculous singing girl that Disney made her out to be, I have gone back to the original Grimm tale, "Little Snow White," to glean connections to my current topic. The older tale is far more graphic and nasty than other versions I've seen, which I like. But the title character, Snow White, is sort of this disturbing non-person, the figure to whom everything is done, the eternal victim. Her only defense and asset appears to be her beauty, which ingratiates her with the dwarfs and stays the woodsman's hand. But her beauty is also the root cause of all her troubles, because the Queen's jealousy over being knocked out of the top "fairest" category goes murderous in a hurry.

My question is: Why would you want a child with white skin anyway? White as snow, really? That seems a bit extreme. But then again, if the culture from which this story emerges prizes pale white skin above all other physical attributes, the woman with the whitest skin should reign, figuratively and literally, at the top of the hierarchy of female power. She would have her pick of the richest, most powerful husband, garner admiration and status among her peers, and top it all off with an inner purity (as evidenced by her complexion) that would virtually guarantee her angel status both before and after death. The price for all these advantages, however, is quite high: she must simply become the palest, most silent shadow of a person possible. Although, like Snow White, she may be forgiven certain feminine foibles (such as a tendency to naively assume all people are good, to desire beautiful things, and to ignore warnings given for her safety), otherwise she should be the palest of the pale - intellectually, physically, spiritually, emotionally. No flush of anger or rash of passion should mar those porcelain cheeks.

Startlingly, everything I've just discussed can be found explicitly detailed in etiquette books of the nineteenth century. This, my friends, is our legacy, our history, and the misguided idealizations of women that hold us back, hedge us in, and force us to fight the same battles, over and over, without ever winning out in the end.

Registration, Part II

Kindergarten registration, continued. Yep, I'm still trying to get that finished up, and here's why:

Thursday, our neighborhood school held its annual "Kindergarten Round-up" (not sure why they think it's appealing to compare our children to cattle, but it is public education, so who knows?). Kindergarteners and their parents were invited to the school to register, meet the teachers and take a short tour of the classrooms.

Well, except this event happened to be held on the one evening a week that I have a graduate seminar and can't be there. This was not a problem, the Voice on the phone told me when I called. Just bring in the enrollment form and some documentation and we can register your little guy any time.

So, I rushed through my morning routine today, planning a quick stop at the school on my way to campus. I walked in, enrollment form completed and in hand, all documents gathered and ready to go. Things were going well...until the individual "handling" the registration came back and told me that because my son was missing an immunization on his health record, they were not going to be able to register him. At first, I think I just stared at her in dumb disbelief. I think I then tried mumbling something about the child needing proof of immunizations upon starting school, not upon registration. As my son would not be starting school until August, I thought I had plenty of time. Not so, I was assured. No immunization, no registration. But you let me register my other two children without full immunizations, I countered. Well, that's because they had already gone to public school (albeit in another state).

Realizing argument was futile, I gathered my papers in a huff and stormed out, driving straight to my office to look up "Immunization Requirements" on the Arizona State Health Department web site. Sure enough, the site clearly states "attend," not "register."

So what had just happened? And why was I so angry about it? I realized that, due to several other encounters with this same school employee, I was reading this particular incident as a personal slight. I felt that this woman had placed a label on me, invisible to me but legible to everyone at the school, a label that amounted to "second-class citizen." Was it my lack of wedding ring? My seven-year-old car? Or had I inadvertently written "low-income working single mom" on my forehead before leaving the house today? I wasn't sure. But I felt it, in my core. She did not like me, and that combined with her position of power gave her the right to dictate the rules to me any way she saw fit, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Or could I? Reading the state website left me angry but vindicated, and I considered my next step. Surely, I felt, at the very least a letter of complaint was due. I called the school and asked for the employee's full name, including spelling, then politely thanked the office staff member and hung up. Not thirty minutes later, my phone buzzed in my pocket but I was unable to answer it; I was teaching. I checked the message after class was over, and surprisingly, it was from this same employee. She apologized, saying she had gotten mixed up and if I would just come back in, they could get everything straightened out.

My first thought came straight out of my frustration: Uh, no?!? I work for a living, lady. And then I wondered if my phone call to the office had caused her sudden change of heart. I hadn't said anything about the incident, nor asked to speak with the administration, nor complained in any way. But maybe I wasn't an powerless as I had originally thought.

For now, the plot thickens. I did not make it back to the school, and for now no longer want to enroll my child there. Not after today. I guess I'll see how I feel about it tomorrow.

Busing It

My chosen method of accessing ASU's Tempe campus is to park in the distant (but relatively less expensive) parking lots and then use the provided shuttle buses to close the gap between my car and my destination.

Yes, this really is what it looks like. I ride these green monsters every day!

My usual bus ride routine is to snag an empty seat and then bury my head in a book. It is part of my success strategy for grad school, to use every available bit of time to get a little more homework done. So far, it seems to be working pretty well.

But on Thursday, although I still rode the shuttle bus, I was feeling lazy and so spent my trip looking at the scenery. I was late coming in due to unexpectedly horrific traffic on the freeway, and so there were few passengers on my ride. At the first stop, a young woman moved to the front door of the bus to exit just before the bus stopped. The brakes locked and gasped, the back door opened, but as I looked on I realized that the bus driver had not opened the front door despite the student waiting at his elbow. Just as I was realizing what was transpiring in front of me, she turned and, with a look of what I interpreted as defiant resignation, sauntered slowly to the back door of the bus and exited. Her eyes met mine, briefly, as she passed, and we shared a look of commiseration that was completely unequal. How could I know what one more slight, one more act of prejudice, feels like?

I watched, and although this particular bus driver did not open the front door at the next stop either, still I had to wonder. What had I just witnessed? Was I reading into it something that was not there? Were my eyes and recent attenuation to issues of race and gender playing tricks on me?

Does it matter that the student was a women with dark brown skin and the bus driver a middle-aged white man?