The White Card Read online

  CHARLES: (confusion in his voice) That’s me at Pace Gallery, that’s me outside the Met Gala, Virginia and I at Lincoln Center … What is this? How did you …

  CHARLOTTE: I went to openings and photographed you as I would any subject.

  CHARLES: You what?

  CHARLOTTE: A couple of months after our dinner, I was at the Lynette Yiadom-Boakye opening at the New Museum and when I saw you I approached to say hello, but you didn’t recognize me. In that moment, I felt like the artwork you collected. I was like an object you could be interested in or not depending on the day …

  CHARLES: I didn’t notice you in a crowd and you decided to stalk me?

  CHARLOTTE: I photographed you at the event and you looked straight at the camera. See. This one here … After I printed this I thought I might do a series.

  CHARLES: You had no right! I could sue you for invasion of privacy!

  CHARLOTTE: These are public events …

  CHARLES: (speaking very slowly) So your show that’s getting all the great reviews … all those images of white skin wallpapering the gallery … I knew it, I knew it … Charlotte, is that my skin? Is that why it is called Exhibit C? Do I understand this correctly?

  CHARLOTTE: Who cares whose skin it is? What difference does it make?

  CHARLES: I care. Exhibit C cares. Do you think I’m an idiot?! This is fucking insane! I’ve worked so hard. I’d think you’d be grateful.

  CHARLOTTE: Gratitude? Is that what you need from me?

  CHARLES: I took an interest in you.

  CHARLOTTE: Now I’m taking an interest in you. Come on. Jesus, Charles, what’s so wrong about talking about whiteness? And who knows more about being white than you?

  CHARLES: (very angry) You know nothing about me. You don’t know how I’ve lived my life. You have no idea what’s in my heart. (Charles grabs her by the shoulders.) What is it you think you know?!

  CHARLOTTE: What are you doing?

  CHARLES: (releasing Charlotte) Charlotte, look at me. Tell me what you see? Do you see anything beyond our history?

  CHARLOTTE: Charleston, Charlottesville, that’s what I know. Our history. The present. What do you mean beyond? Beyond what?

  CHARLES: Can you even see Charles Spencer? Tell me that you understand I am not that history. Tell me that you see me.

  CHARLOTTE: All I’ve been doing is looking at you for months. It’s like you’re Moses. Doors open for you. People step aside for you. You have so much mobility. Charles, what do you want me to say?

  CHARLES: If I am only ever a white man to you, how far will that get us?

  CHARLOTTE: What do you see when you look at me?

  CHARLES: The daylight.

  CHARLOTTE: What does that even mean?

  CHARLES: You of all people should understand that. You and I are out in the world and it’s as if there’s a fault line that runs the entirety of our lives between us. On your terms there’s no way for me to get to you on the other side.

  CHARLOTTE: If that were only true. Despite all the segregation, the tragedy is we are on the same side. We’ve always been here together, shipwrecked here together.

  CHARLES: You’re right; we’re here together.

  CHARLOTTE: Wrecked together, solitary, here together …

  CHARLES: But the feeling is the feeling of a gap.

  CHARLOTTE: The gap, Charles, is caused because you refuse the role you actually play.

  CHARLES: I don’t need you to show me me.

  CHARLOTTE: Me, me, me. You don’t need me to show you anything. That’s probably the first honest thing you’ve said.

  CHARLES: Fuck you, Charlotte.

  CHARLOTTE: I’m already fucked. You know, I have to admit, I thought you were different from all the others, but in the end … for you I’m just this annoyance that won’t conform to your good works.

  CHARLES: You’re acting as if I think of you as some kind of project.

  CHARLOTTE: Well, don’t you?

  CHARLES: I do believe I can help.

  CHARLOTTE: If you actually want to help, why don’t you make you your project?

  CHARLES: What about me? My money? My power? My mobility, as you say?

  CHARLOTTE: I mean the mass murder and devastation that comes with you being you.

  CHARLES: Me being me? Mass murder, devastation. It’s hard not to hear that as a completely irrational attack.

  CHARLOTTE: Racism exists outside of reason. Black people have never been human.

  CHARLES: That is so hopeless.

  CHARLOTTE: Go further into that hopelessness, and then we can begin to really see each other.

  CHARLES: You’re right to keep me a part of it. My whiteness. It needs to be faced.

  CHARLOTTE: (she faces Charles) At its deepest level, yes.

  CHARLES: It’s just skin and yet I know it’s power too.

  CHARLOTTE: Dehumanizing power.

  CHARLES: What is skin? I’ve heard dust is mostly skin (touching the table)—is this my skin? Yours?

  CHARLOTTE: Charles—

  CHARLES: We’re shedding skin all the time—thousands of cells a minute. But it renews itself. I’ve never actually looked at my skin.

  How many cells is it? How porous is it? How many layers are there? Where is it darkest? Where lightest? (He begins to unbutton his shirt.) All my skin is holding me together. Good lord, all this skin shields me. It protects me from … from being you.

  It’s like the badge of the police. (He removes his shirt and turns his back to her.) I’m ready. (Beat.)

  Charlotte, you can shoot me now. (He stands there with his back to her and arms at his side. Silence.)

  (Leonard Cohen’s “Different Sides” begins to play. Charlotte ties her smock around her waist and, taking off her shoes, steps onto a crate, binding her hands with his scarf. She stares at Charles’s back. Charles turns around. His horror and confusion are apparent. There is the click and flash of a camera.)

  THE END

  ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

  Robert Rauschenberg. White Painting [three panel], 1951. Oil on canvas. 72 × 108 inches (182.9 × 274.3 cm). San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Purchase through a gift of Phyllis Wattis. © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. RRF Registration #51.005.

  Robert Longo. Untitled (Ferguson Police, August 13, 2014), Diptych, 2014. Charcoal on mounted paper. 86 × 120 inches (218.4 × 304.8 cm).

  Glenn Ligon. Hands, 1996. Silkscreen on unstretched canvas. 82 × 144 inches. © Glenn Ligon. Courtesy of the artist; Luhring Augustine, New York; Regen Projects, Los Angeles; and Thomas Dane Gallery, London.

  Jean-Michel Basquiat. The Death of Michael Stewart, 1983. Acrylic and marker on wood. 63.5 × 77.5 cm. Collection of Nina Clemente.

  Gilles Peress. AFRICA. Rwanda. Kabgayi. April, 1994. Massacre site. Looters captured and killed at the Parish of Rukara church by government troops. © Gilles Peress/Magnum Photos.

  Jeff Wall. Mimic, 1982. Transparency in lightbox. 198 × 228.6 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

  Kerry James Marshall, Heirlooms and Accessories, 2003. Ink-jet prints on paper in wooden artist’s frames with rhinestones, three parts: 57 × 54 inches each (162 inches total width). Ed. 2/3. Courtesy of the artist and Koplin Del Rio Gallery.

  CLAUDIA RANKINE is the author of five books, including Citizen: An American Lyric, which was a New York Times best seller and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Forward Prize, and many other awards. In 2016, Rankine co-founded the Racial Imaginary Institute (TRII). She is a MacArthur Fellow and the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale University.

  claudiarankine.com

  The text of The White Card is set in Adobe Garamond Pro.

  Book design by Rachel Holscher.

  Composition by Bookmobile Design and Digital Publisher Services, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

  Manufactured by Versa Press on acid-free, 30 percent postconsumer wastepaper.

  Rankine, The White Card