The White Card Read online

  CHARLOTTE: I’ve never seen this Basquiat. It takes my breath away.

  VIRGINIA: We just acquired it. It’s all Charles looks at.

  CHARLOTTE: There’s so much to see. I’ve read about your collection in Artforum. So many artists here who have inspired me. I’m really honored to be with you tonight.

  VIRGINIA: We’re delighted that you’re here as well. Charles takes his stable of artists quite seriously. For him you’re not just an investment, he believes you’re leading a conversation with the culture.

  (Charlotte and Virginia move away to look at the Basquiat. Eric sees a piece covered by a cloth. He turns to Charles.)

  ERIC: Charles, are you acquiring art behind my back?

  CHARLES: Oh, no, no, this is something special! Someone brought it directly to me.

  ERIC: Should I be worried?

  CHARLES: You? Never. I’m surprised you’d even ask that. You’re practically a member of this family.

  ERIC: Can we see it?

  CHARLES: After Alex arrives. We acquired it with him in mind.

  ERIC: You didn’t mention Alex would be joining us.

  CHARLES: He should be here any minute. We thought he’d enjoy meeting Charlotte.

  ERIC: I wish I’d known he was coming. The last time …

  (Virginia and Charlotte approach.)

  CHARLES: No worries, man. His interests and Charlotte’s work align. They will be on the same page. Ginny wants to do an unveiling of the new piece after dinner. You know how much she loves curating our experiences. (Turning to Charlotte.) Our son Alex will be joining us. Despite the fact that the election is history now, I’m delighted to say he’s at a Trump rally.

  CHARLOTTE: You don’t mean he supports …

  VIRGINIA: Oh, no, quite the opposite. Charles meant to say protest, not rally.

  CHARLES: (laughs) My dear, don’t worry, you’re safe here. Since the election Alex is even more politically engaged than he was before. I hardly know when he has time for classes. Every day there’s another rally.

  VIRGINIA/ERIC: Protest.

  CHARLOTTE: Charles isn’t wrong. The president throws himself rallies. He threw one in Florida.

  CHARLES: College students were extremely invested in this election.

  VIRGINIA: In Bernie … I’m not sure that they voted.

  CHARLOTTE: He must have been crushed. Is he your only child?

  VIRGINIA: Is he our only child, Charles?

  CHARLES: (shooting Virginia a look) Alex has an older brother. And make no mistake, we were all crushed.

  ERIC: (cutting in) Virginia, you are looking fabulous as always. Still playing tennis?

  VIRGINIA: Pilates. These past weeks the closest I get to a court is thinking about Serena. (Turns to Charlotte.) We were just TiVoing the Australian Open when you arrived.

  CHARLES: Ginny doesn’t do real time! Bad for the stress lines.

  VIRGINIA: Steady. (To Charlotte.) Do you play?

  CHARLOTTE: Yes, I do. At the Greenvale Club.

  VIRGINIA: That’s where I play, too, but it’s getting too difficult to get a court. Too many people there now.

  CHARLES: What should I be worried about when we play?

  CHARLOTTE: Not much. I wish I could serve like Serena.

  CHARLES: Not so long ago she was unbeatable.

  CHARLOTTE: Did you know she’s pregnant?

  VIRGINIA: Yes, we were just discussing that. She’s really matured. A couple of years ago she went back to Indian Wells despite what happened there … Charles, you remember, we were there, the usual racial slurs … the sisters boycotted it for years. (Turning to Charlotte.) Isn’t that right?

  CHARLOTTE: Objecting to racism means you’re childish?

  ERIC: Similar things were said about Colin Kaepernick.

  CHARLES: I’m not sure about his method. Kneeling during the national anthem is unnecessarily provocative. But he’s right about the injustice. Anyone for more champagne?

  ERIC: I won’t twist your arm. Charlotte, we’re so excited about your new work. Why don’t you tell us what you’re doing?

  CHARLOTTE: Well, I like to think of myself as a bit of an archaeologist. I’ve always been interested in what gets lost … who gets left out of the picture.

  VIRGINIA: Lost?

  CHARLOTTE: Made invisible. The writer Teju Cole says, “We need to think with our eyes.”

  VIRGINIA: I’m still reading the book by that other fabulous black author … Ta Ta …

  ERIC: Ta-Neheezi Coates.

  CHARLOTTE: Ta-Nehisi …

  ERIC: Isn’t that what I said?

  VIRGINIA: That’s it … Ta-Nehisi. The World between Us. I’m sure you’ve read it.

  CHARLOTTE: Yes, Between the World and Me. I love when Coates says he wants his son to know that no matter what happens he always has people.

  CHARLES: Speaking of people, I enjoyed the piece he wrote called “My Obama.”

  CHARLOTTE: I loved that. “My Black President” I think it was called.

  VIRGINIA: You’re both wrong. The piece is called “My President Was Black.”

  CHARLES: Charlotte, dear, what were you saying about Teju Cole’s work?

  CHARLOTTE: Only that I’m intrigued by his interest in how we think about the unseen … how we make what’s unseen visible. I guess you could say Coates is doing the same thing.

  VIRGINIA: Is that the ambition you have for yourself? I mean, for your work?

  CHARLOTTE: Ambition? I do want people to experience what black people are feeling, or if that’s unreasonable, at the very least, to recognize what it means to live precariously.

  VIRGINIA: (genuine feeling) What kinds of feelings am I not feeling?

  CHARLES: That’s why your work is so important to people like us.

  CHARLOTTE: Inasmuch as the work makes visible things that white people might not have to negotiate in the day-to-day, it might seem that way …

  VIRGINIA: But what kinds of feelings?

  CHARLOTTE: Mourning for dead strangers with whom I share only one thing.

  VIRGINIA: I feel terrible for all those mothers who lost their sons.

  CHARLES: And daughters, Ginny. I think Charlotte means race as the shared attribute.

  CHARLOTTE: I did. But the work doesn’t exist from a single perspective. All those dead men, women, and children have mothers and fathers. It’s true.

  ERIC: Her creative process involves staging her pictures.

  CHARLOTTE: I’m trying to bring into focus events that are immediately forgotten. I realized the only way to capture passing moments was to restage and photograph. You know Jeff Wall’s approach?

  ERIC: I’ve always been interested in Wall’s decision to reenact moments that he’s missed. His photographs portray what he calls existing “unfreedoms.”

  CHARLES: “Unfreedoms”?

  ERIC: Reactions that happen before you have time to think—

  VIRGINIA: Our son Alex uses the term microaggression. Is that the same thing?

  CHARLOTTE: I don’t know exactly what Wall was thinking. Clutching your purse or crossing the street when a black man approaches comes to mind as something people do.

  ERIC: Still, he rarely deals with race.

  CHARLOTTE: Racism, you mean. There’s his Invisible Man piece.

  ERIC: I can only think of his image Mimic, where a guy points to his eyes as he walks by an Asian man. I’d say your current work differs in significant ways.

  CHARLOTTE: My early work really wasn’t procedurally that different, to be honest.

  ERIC: That’s true. Charlotte started by staging small inadvertent aggressions that are overlooked or repressed in our day-to-day life.

  CHARLOTTE: For example, once I was in the subway and I watched a middle-aged white guy so intent on where he was going he didn’t see he’d knocked over my cousin’s daughter. We were all heading back from a tennis match at Flushing Meadows actually.

  ERIC: She restaged it and was able to catch the moment the child hit the ground.r />
  VIRGINIA: You had someone knock down a child so you could take a picture?

  CHARLOTTE: Yes, I mean, no. The child was an actor.

  VIRGINIA: So, yes.

  ERIC: She’s fine. She practiced falling.

  CHARLOTTE: But that’s not what … my point is it’s difficult to see the violence, the ownership of public space, all of that.

  VIRGINIA: So, the reenactments depend on your interpretation of the moment. But how much are you creating the moment rather than reflecting it?

  CHARLES: That’s what all great art grapples with.

  CHARLOTTE: Any moment can be made ordinary, but when you’re in the moment you know precisely what’s happening.

  VIRGINIA: Just the other day a beautiful woman held the door open for me and a line of white men just flooded through. I wondered why she didn’t just let it slam in their faces. You could have definitely taken a picture of that, Charlotte.

  CHARLOTTE: By beautiful do you mean black?

  VIRGINIA: She was black but she was beautiful.

  (Alex enters the room.)

  VIRGINIA: Alex!

  CHARLES: You’re finally here.

  ALEX: This was as soon as I could get here.

  CHARLES: We want to hear about the rally …

  CHARLES: Protest, but let’s start you off with a glass of champagne.

  VIRGINIA: You know Eric. This is our new friend Charlotte. (Alex walks over to Charlotte and hugs her to her surprise.) Sweetie, so what happened today? How are your Black Lives Matter friends holding up?

  ERIC: (jokingly) Isn’t that a terrorist group?

  ALEX: Don’t joke, last year there was actually a petition circling to have BLM classified as terrorists. This administration has decided to focus on what they’re calling “black-identity extremists” instead of white homegrown terrorists.

  CHARLOTTE: Do you think the protests are helping?

  ALEX: I don’t ask myself that question. I show up. This afternoon we gathered on Madison to protest the Muslim ban. More white women than usual, probably because of the Women’s March. Everything was pretty chill. The police were sympathetic.

  ERIC: Thanks to Alex we’re constantly made aware of the injustices affecting the lives of people of color, immigrants, Arabs, Palestinians, the undocumented, the queer community, especially trans people, the incarcerated … Did I forget anyone?

  VIRGINIA: Alex is really making us think about our own privilege. It’s not that I didn’t think about it before, of course, but … well, I really didn’t think about it before! (Everyone laughs except Alex.) You know even Charles didn’t think about it, and he has spent his life fighting for other people’s civil rights.

  CHARLES: Alex reminds us daily that everything matters, including the art we collect. This is the reason we’re especially glad you’re here, Charlotte. We realize the cultural impact that your art can have.

  ERIC: Hear, hear! But what makes Charlotte’s art great is its excellence. Exquisite craft, married to a profound knowing—

  CHARLOTTE: (interrupts) You should always talk about my work after a few glasses of champagne.

  CHARLES: Eric is dead serious. We want artists whose work engages the issues at their very core. Engagement must be central to their artistic practice. They can’t be distracted.

  VIRGINIA: Why don’t you let Charlotte have dinner before you launch into your foundation speeches.

  CHARLES: Ginny’s commitment does not supersede the dinner bell.

  VIRGINIA: That’s right. I’m committed to the people I see in front of me first.

  CHARLOTTE: Alex, how long have you been involved with BLM?

  ALEX: Well, I signed up after I heard Alicia Garza speak about Trayvon Martin’s murder. I’m also a member of SURJ. You must know it.

  CHARLOTTE: No, I hadn’t heard of it. I’m no activist.

  ALEX: BLM, SURJ … we’re all co-organizing around what’s going on.

  VIRGINIA: You haven’t mentioned SURJ to me.

  ALEX: SURJ, Showing Up for Racial Justice, is for organizing white people. Many want to mobilize but don’t know what to do. We mean to move seven million whites—that’s three point five percent of the population—forward on racial justice issues.

  ERIC: How’s that working out for you?

  CHARLOTTE: That’s an impressive goal, Alex.

  VIRGINIA: Honestly, I feel Alex is a superhero.

  ALEX: Mom, I try to engage with you nonjudgmentally, but you’re making it impossible. This isn’t about me. We’ve talked about this before.

  VIRGINIA: Don’t lean against the artwork, dear.

  CHARLES: Eric says the new work is even more powerful and complex. What can you tell us about it?

  CHARLOTTE: I’m staging the aftermath of the Charleston crime shootings. I’m thinking more about how art can provoke connection and recognition by reenacting moments of violence that are lost to history entirely.

  ERIC: She’s staging the actual crime scene.

  VIRGINIA: Crime scene?

  CHARLOTTE: Yes, that crime scene has never been seen, unlike all of the images from Ferguson that were tragically so public.

  VIRGINIA: Doesn’t it depress you? I can’t imagine thinking about violence twenty-four/seven.

  CHARLES: (ignoring Virginia) How did you get access to the images?

  ERIC: She attended Dylann Roof’s trial.

  VIRGINIA: Oh.

  ALEX: Roof’s trial was supposed to be in July during the Republican convention, but it was moved until after the election. I found that interesting.

  CHARLOTTE: That was interesting.

  ERIC: In any case when Roof murdered nine people in Bible study no images were released to the public.

  VIRGINIA: Wasn’t that to protect the families? It’s not a racial thing.

  ALEX: Mom, everything is political. Publishing pictures of Vietnam helped end the war. Why do you think the Bush White House withheld images from Iraq?

  VIRGINIA: But those were wars.

  ALEX: These are wars. Ask Muslims, queers, blacks, immigrants. Did you see the military-grade equipment they hauled out during Ferguson? Come on.

  VIRGINIA: There really weren’t any public images from Charleston?

  CHARLOTTE: Not of the crime scene.

  VIRGINIA: I ask Charles this all the time, why would you want to subject an audience to these horrors? I think evidence is important, but why do we need to see endless videos on television, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, every place we look …

  ALEX: Innocent people of color are every place, even if you’re trying not to look.

  CHARLES: Actually, Virginia, it depends on how you look at it. Think back to the death of Emmett Till in 1955. His own mother wanted the photographs of his open casket to be shown. It energized the civil rights movement.

  ALEX: (cuts in) A fourteen-year-old black kid—murdered for whistling at a white woman.

  ERIC: Didn’t I just read in the Times that the accuser lied about what happened?

  ALEX: No fucking way.

  VIRGINIA: Watch the language.

  CHARLOTTE: Are you surprised?

  ERIC: Old-age confession sort of thing … straightening out the accounts before Judgment Day.

  CHARLES: You must think photography could have that same impact now.

  CHARLOTTE: I don’t know. It seems like our American pastimes are sports and forgetting. We assimilate; we appropriate; we move on.

  VIRGINIA: But haven’t social media changed our general amnesia? I have watched so many killed. I can call up their dying moments on any device in my possession. The phrase “I can’t breathe” will never detach itself from Freddie Garner.

  ALEX: Freddie? No, Eric Garner. Freddie Gray and Eric Garner, already they’ve just become one body for you.

  CHARLES: But, Charlotte, you don’t see your work influencing the political conversation?

  CHARLOTTE: I’m realistic. The work’s not on the street, it’s in galleries.

  ERIC: Like a lot of g
reat art. Think of Goya’s The Disasters of War, showing the conflict between Napoleon’s empire and Spain. Or Turner’s Slave Ship. Their power is in the execution and mastery, that’s what creates the beauty in their works and yours, Charlotte.

  CHARLOTTE: Why, thank you.

  ALEX: Not if you’re black. The work gets reduced to sociology and dismissed as not art.

  CHARLOTTE: Well, yes, that’s also true. No one talks about how Edward Hopper’s nostalgia both reflects and advocates for small-town white America. But he’s just seen as a great American artist. No one asks if he wanted to make America great again.

  VIRGINIA: I’ve always liked Hopper. It’s curious when people use a contemporary perspective to judge the past. I think emphasizing our differences gets, well, in the way. When Alex joined Black Lives Matter some of the members objected because he was white. Alex went thinking and hoping he could be part of a helpful solution. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?

  ALEX: I understood why they were suspicious.

  VIRGINIA: But why can’t all people be helpful? What’s our purpose then? Are we supposed to do nothing?

  CHARLOTTE: What were their objections?

  ALEX: Oh, it was nothing.

  VIRGINIA: Not nothing … a student leader got up and said lots of you think you’re here helping the cause, but what you’re doing is just going to make you feel better and help you sleep at night. Alex said someone even said, they need allies not masters. He was judged for just showing up. What’s wrong with helping and feeling good about that?

  ALEX: Mom, why do I tell you anything?

  VIRGINIA: It infuriated me.

  ALEX: It didn’t matter.

  CHARLOTTE: Sounds to me like someone was expressing anxiety about white benevolence. I doubt it was about Alex specifically.

  ALEX: I wasn’t the one upset.

  VIRGINIA: Well, I would’ve lost motivation for supporting them.

  ERIC: It does seem wrongheaded. How do they expect to get allies if they alienate the very people who have come to help?

  CHARLES: Perhaps anyone who would be alienated by such comments is not a very useful ally. (Charles and Charlotte eye each other.)

  VIRGINIA: What?

  CHARLOTTE: The black students were likely responding to a long history of white savior rhetoric.

  VIRGINIA: They have displaced anger if they can’t see the difference between those on their side and the real racists.