The White Card Read online

  CHARLES: That body is a portal to the inhumanity.

  CHARLOTTE: (under her breath) We’re not going to get anywhere with this kind of … this kind of American sentimentality.

  CHARLES: How is this sentimentality? This piece will remind everyone who comes into this house what’s happening out there.

  CHARLOTTE: Feeling bad by looking at black lines enclosing a white space doesn’t come close to experiencing the dread of knowing you could be killed for simply being black.

  ERIC: Not to state the obvious, but we’re not black. And I think that is what is important about your work. It gives the viewer a point of entry.

  CHARLOTTE: But we’re not looking at my work. This generic public record is just that, generic, impersonal. Don’t you understand people were shot in Bible study? Nine bodies bleeding to death on a tile floor is the same as this?

  ERIC: Hold on, Charlotte. You are acting as if this is a personal assault on you. It’s not as if you run the risk of being shot by police …

  CHARLOTTE: If you think I am protected from ending up like the Sandra Blands of the world—the black woman who purportedly hanged herself …

  VIRGINIA: We know who Sandra Bland is …

  ERIC: I would have thought this piece is exactly the intent of your work, to make people feel with their eyes the violence done to African Americans.

  CHARLES: I agree with Eric, this representation is no different from your work.

  CHARLOTTE: Any police report of my death would erase me as much as this autopsy report erases Michael Brown.

  CHARLES: I can’t see this (gestures toward the sculpture) without thinking of Michael Brown. It’s a memorial to him in our home.

  ALEX: It’s art in our house.

  CHARLES: I know you’re always saying the other pieces I collect aestheticize black experience, but you can’t say that about this.

  CHARLOTTE: If you think what I’m doing is no different than this then I fail.

  VIRGINIA: But Charlotte, we want to buy your work too. We don’t have to choose between autopsies and black art.

  ALEX: You people are more than clueless.

  CHARLOTTE: Oh my god.

  ALEX: This just exposes your internalized racism. It’s how you perform your white supremacy.

  CHARLOTTE: Is this what I’m doing? Is this who I am?

  ALEX: This is upper-class terrorism.

  ERIC: This isn’t one of your protests, Alex. You should check your privilege.

  VIRGINIA: Why can’t we all just get along?

  ALEX: It doesn’t matter what you say or what you do, you are just as blind and corrupted as every other white person. I can’t believe you thought I would like this?

  VIRGINIA: Aren’t you always talking about the gated bubble we live in?

  CHARLES: How can we get any closer to Brown’s reality than this?

  ALEX: You can get closer to actual living people, but you wouldn’t know anything about that.

  CHARLES: If only you knew how hard we tried with your brother.

  ALEX: You belong in one of your prisons. Why don’t you stay there for a year and then see if you’d buy this.

  VIRGINIA: Alex, you’re just being childish now.

  ERIC: This is what comes from all the time he spends with his one-dimensional, sophomoric activist friends.

  ALEX: You don’t know a fucking thing about me.

  CHARLES: I am waiting for the day you grow up!

  ALEX: Fuck you, Dad!

  (Charlotte lies down in front of the autopsy piece, filling in for the missing body.)

  VIRGINIA: What’s the matter with you, Alex?!

  ERIC: This is the problem of mixing business with Alex’s insufferable politics.

  VIRGINIA: Fine, you hate it, but we bought it because we care, about you, about your brother, about Michael Brown.

  ALEX: So now you care about Tim?

  CHARLES: Don’t use that tone with your mother. This is your doing, Ginny. First Tim and now look at Alex, no respect for what we’ve done, for who we are. My whole life has been about making the world better.

  VIRGINIA: Better for black people maybe.

  ALEX/CHARLES: Mom!/Ginny!

  ERIC: Charlotte?

  VIRGINIA: (smoothing her clothes) All this political injustice is important but not more important than your family.

  CHARLES: Charlotte?

  VIRGINIA: (speaking to no one) I don’t know what we could have done better. We’ve failed … Did we fail? We failed something … (Beat; she notices Charlotte.) Charlotte?

  (Virginia, Alex, Eric, and Charles all look at Charlotte lying on the floor. Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” plays. Lights shift.)

  Scene Two

  Gilles Peress, AFRICA. Rwanda. Kabgayi.

  April, 1994. Massacre site. Looters captured and killed at the Parish of Rukara church by government troops.

  Jeff Wall, Mimic

  Kerry James Marshall, Heirlooms and Accessories

  One year later. Charlotte is working in her studio. There is a knock on the door.

  CHARLOTTE: Charles Spencer.

  CHARLES: It’s been awhile.

  CHARLOTTE: Almost a year.

  CHARLES: I appreciate you taking the time to see me at such short notice.

  CHARLOTTE: I was happy to get your email this morning. I’m glad it worked out. How are Virginia and Alex?

  CHARLES: They are both fine. We are all fine.

  CHARLOTTE: Is Alex still doing his activism?

  CHARLES: Still out on the streets. You should know, he mentioned you not long ago. He got it in his head that we should have apologized for not inviting other people of color to our dinner.

  CHARLOTTE: Excuse me?

  CHARLES: It was just that he felt we put you in the situation of explaining blackness … of speaking for all people of color.

  CHARLOTTE: (laughing) Inviting more black people to explain would have spread out the work?

  CHARLES: (smiling) I see your point.

  CHARLOTTE: Alex is sweet, considerate too. In any case, Virginia did send me an apology. She said it wasn’t your usual practice to devolve into a shouting arena at the end of dinner. That was kind of her.

  CHARLES: Oh, I hadn’t realized she’d been in touch.

  CHARLOTTE: Did she TiVo the Australian Open again this year?

  CHARLES: No, Serena wasn’t playing. We watched Federer win his twentieth Grand Slam in real time. That was pretty exciting … tarnished, unfortunately, by that American from Tennessee who made the quarterfinals …

  CHARLOTTE: With his Facebook page of white supremacy likes …

  CHARLES: You know, it was a real disappointment to us that you decided to give the Charleston pieces to the Studio Museum.

  CHARLOTTE: May I take your coat and scarf?

  (She folds them over a chair.)

  CHARLES: Do you have a darkroom?

  CHARLOTTE: The last time I used one I was in school.

  CHARLES: Really?

  CHARLOTTE: I’ve always worked digitally. There is so much more freedom if you are willing to lose the romance of the darkness.

  CHARLES: Touché. I see you’re a Nikon person.

  CHARLOTTE: My mother gave me that one for high school graduation.

  CHARLES: Is this her? She’s a beauty. I’m assuming that’s your dad next to her.

  CHARLOTTE: That’s right.

  CHARLES: Are you their only child?

  CHARLOTTE: Yes, they were focused on their careers.

  CHARLES: Ah. What do they do?

  CHARLOTTE: Lawyer, doctor, except my father doesn’t have patients. He tracks the path of diseases.

  CHARLES: I thought you didn’t shoot film.

  CHARLOTTE: I don’t. It was a gift to myself. I just think the cameras with their collapsible lenses are beautiful … It’s what I collect.

  CHARLES: You have others?

  CHARLOTTE: It’s a collection of one. It’s from Berlin, 1936.

  CHARLES: You know Ernst Leitz
, who manufactured the Leica, helped get Jews out of Nazi Germany?

  CHARLOTTE: Yes. The Leica Freedom Train.

  CHARLES: Postwar, the Allies blew up photos of the emancipated Jews and the dead bodies in the camps and forced the Germans to look at them to combat anti-Semitism.

  CHARLOTTE: Did it ever occur to you it could have the opposite effect? All those bodies could have fed their anti-Semitism.

  CHARLES: You would have to be an animal to see it that way.

  CHARLOTTE: Not an animal.

  CHARLES: Whose photo is this? These corpses with the cloth covering them …

  CHARLOTTE: It’s taken by Gilles Peress.

  CHARLES: Gilles Peress? Is he a person of color?

  CHARLOTTE: What! He’s white. He’s a French Magnum photographer. Does documentary … Bosnia … Rwanda. (Pause.) Charles, why are you here? Are you shopping for more black death?

  CHARLES: You know where I went yesterday?

  CHARLOTTE: How would I know that?

  CHARLES: Eric took me to see your new show. That work was unrecognizable to me. What are you up to?

  CHARLOTTE: Up to? I take it you don’t like it?

  CHARLES: What is there to like?

  CHARLOTTE: Wow. Fortunately, the critics don’t share your opinion. Personally, I feel it’s my most relevant work to date.

  CHARLES: Relevant to what? I have no idea what to feel about it.

  CHARLOTTE: That surprises me after everything that has happened in the past year. Charlottesville, DACA, “me too,” our daily tweets, the indictments, the tax plan, “shithole countries,” the government shutdown, the shooting in Las Vegas and the high school shooting in Parkland. What else?

  CHARLES: It has been a year, hasn’t it. That’s how the show felt to me, like a reaction. I have to admit, I wondered if it was a response to our dinner.

  CHARLOTTE: No … well … actually, yes—

  CHARLES: (interrupts) So it was the autopsy piece?

  CHARLOTTE: But not because you bought it. I couldn’t get what you said out of my head.

  CHARLES: I said a lot of things. What exactly?

  CHARLOTTE: That my work was no different from that piece. Not long after our dinner, I went to the Whitney Biennial. I was standing in front of the Emmett Till painting, the one that caused all the controversy, and all I could think about was your foundation. I kept wondering about your desire to collect black death. (Speaking very slowly.) I had this image of my work being held as in the hold of a ship. All that art just packed in like the dead and dying bodies themselves.

  (Beat)

  CHARLES: Okay.

  CHARLOTTE: I don’t mean to suggest you shouldn’t celebrate the work of black artists. It’s the emphasis on black death that I needed to question for myself. What does it mean to portray black suffering as art? Just looking at the Charleston crime scene I realized what I wasn’t seeing …

  CHARLES: What weren’t you seeing?

  CHARLOTTE: You. Isn’t that funny? I realized I wasn’t seeing you.

  CHARLES: But I’m not someone to look at …

  CHARLOTTE: Aren’t you? I can’t stop thinking about those Michael Brown videos. It’s like nobody could see the white officer because a black man died.

  CHARLES: I know how much a part of this system I am, but I am not the officer with the gun.

  CHARLOTTE: But you’re locked into your imagination of blackness just like that officer was locked into his … I really believe he thought he was being attacked. He certainly wasn’t seeing the person in front of him. My god, how many bullet holes were in that autopsy piece of yours?

  CHARLES: It was horrific, but my imagination of blackness and his are completely different. All white men don’t look alike.

  CHARLOTTE: (she’s been watching him) Look, I don’t want to think of the officer as a monster or Hulk Hogan or a demon or whatever and I don’t think you’re a monster, but his obsession with black people as criminals and yours with black people as victims are cut from the same cloth. Neither is human.

  CHARLES: I just reject that. I am not someone controlled by an imagination I don’t understand.

  CHARLOTTE: Charles, we were all raised wrong. Art is not going to change laws, but it might make apparent something we didn’t see about how we all grew up. At least that’s what I hope for my own work.

  CHARLES: That’s what my foundation’s invested in. That’s the point exactly.

  CHARLOTTE: You keep wanting to focus on black victims and dead black bodies. I understand that. But maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong direction. Walk it backwards. For example, look at this.

  CHARLES: Who are these women? Soccer moms?

  CHARLOTTE: Take a closer look.

  CHARLES: They seem to be mostly white women.

  CHARLOTTE: That’s true. What else do you see?

  CHARLES: Is it a church group? There’s an American flag. Maybe a town hall meeting for … for mothers, I don’t know. Just tell me.

  CHARLOTTE: They’re women in prison. The prison you built in Ohio. I doubt you would have said soccer moms if they were black.

  CHARLES: You don’t know what I would have said because I don’t know what I would have said!

  CHARLOTTE: In any case, your imagination, like mine, like everyone’s, is a racial imagination, except you don’t really think of yourself as having a race and being shaped by the beliefs of that race.

  CHARLES: My attention to black suffering is my attempt to get my whiteness out of your … our way.

  CHARLOTTE: Or your attention to black suffering allows you not to look at your own whiteness.

  CHARLES: I understand my relationship to privilege and power.

  CHARLOTTE: Well, all your attention to your whiteness didn’t allow you to see the approaching white nationalists now in the White House.

  CHARLES: Many of us were shocked by what happened and is happening—

  CHARLOTTE: Some weren’t and still aren’t. This administration didn’t beam down into our democracy. It’s an amplification of what’s always been here.

  CHARLES: We were focused on the bodies littering the streets and filling the prisons.

  CHARLOTTE: Your prisons …

  CHARLES: And shouldn’t we have been? People were dying. Aggie Gund just sold a Lichtenstein for a hundred and fifty million to finance a criminal justice fund.

  CHARLOTTE: That’s great, but black people have always been dying. And it’s not because of “black-on-black crime.” Whites have only just noticed they themselves are doing the killing.

  CHARLES: Here we are again! I truly am trying to find a way through.

  CHARLOTTE: Charles, have you ever had the feeling you were all wrong?

  CHARLES: All wrong?

  CHARLOTTE: Completely misguided. I mean, I was making my work, but I didn’t understand what the desire for it was all about. There I was, handing over black death spectacle.

  CHARLES: “Black death spectacle”? That is just millennial rhetoric. That painting of Emmett Till only caused all that controversy because the artist was white. But I was moved by that painting, as I was moved by the painting of Philando Castile’s murdered body at that same Whitney exhibition. No one objected to that painting, presumably because the painter was black.

  CHARLOTTE: No, nobody objected to that painting because the artist has a developed craft and a deep consciousness of his history. If you recall, in the Philando Castile painting, the policeman with the gun is also present.

  CHARLES: But what moved me was that both artists were reflecting back the victim.

  CHARLOTTE: Maybe you think those artists are making those paintings for you, Charles, because the black body is in a state you’re comfortable with.

  CHARLES: I have news for you, they are making that work for me. Who the hell else is going to buy it? Not you. Do you really believe that dead and dying bodies are acceptable to me?

  CHARLOTTE: Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Philando Castile … />
  CHARLES: Okay.

  CHARLOTTE: And any convictions?

  CHARLES: But that doesn’t turn me into a … a … a … can I get a glass of water?

  (Beat.)

  CHARLES: How old are you? How old were you in … in 1998?

  CHARLOTTE: ’98? In my early twenties. Why?

  CHARLES: So, around the age Alex is now. Ginny and I had two toddlers then. On the news came the report that white supremacists dragged a black man to his death in Texas. A lynching by car. They tied him to the bumper and dragged him until his head and various other limbs detached from the trunk of his body. I had nightmares for months.

  CHARLOTTE: I was about to graduate college. My mother called me. I remember not being able to get out of bed that day.

  CHARLES: I thought all that was over. I remember being relieved the boys were young … because how to explain … I wanted them to inhabit … inherit a different world. I started doing what I could for … for …

  CHARLOTTE: For me?

  CHARLES: Fair enough, but also for me and for them, for the boys. The only thing I could think to do was find a way to prevent the forgetting. I don’t want to contribute to the silence. Our silences. By showing work that exposes racism, I think I can keep our history in the forefront. Black deaths are a part of that history.

  CHARLOTTE: But blackness can’t be reduced to suffering if that means you lose the context and the history of how we got here. Let me show you something I’ve been thinking about. You must know the artist Kerry James Marshall?

  CHARLES: I was at that Met Breuer opening, yes. It was crowded. Room after room of huge colorful paintings of black life.

  CHARLOTTE: Did you notice this piece he calls Heirlooms and Accessories? It isolates the faces of white women watching a lynching and puts them in lockets.

  CHARLES: I don’t remember seeing this.

  CHARLOTTE: I’m not surprised you didn’t notice it. When Marshall turns his attention to black suffering, he sees the ordinary complicity of white people.

  CHARLES: Are you saying the faces of the white women are more horrible than the images of the lynched men?

  CHARLOTTE: In some ways, yes. That’s only hard to accept because whiteness has been reduced to goodness in all of our psyches. I believed Dylann Roof’s crime scenes should have been made public … And now I still think that … but the closer I got to those dead bodies the more inhumane I became. I was making objects of people to give to you. This realization upended my whole practice. I want you to consider these without you taking them personally. Treat it as research, as a form of study.