February 2001

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Polar Bear in a Snowstorm

Meck Groot and Donna Bivens of the Women's Theological Center wrote this script in five voices for "Think Again--the Fourth Annual Conference on Whiteness," held June 2000 in Boston's Faneuil Hall, historic gathering place since revolutionary days and reportedly site of slave auctions.

ONE:
We are gathered together today in this ancient and honorable hall. For some, this building and this room will inspire pride for a legacy that symbolizes freedom and democracy. For others, this building and this room will inspire horror in a legacy that has resulted in the destruction of whole Peoples and the enslavement of others.

TWO:
In this room, we are surrounded by the portraits of men whose legacy we have all inherited in one way or another. For some, that legacy is awesome; for others it is awful.

Whatever our relationship or response to that legacy, we are here to look at it, to see it, to name it, to find ways to interrupt its magic which weaves spells of power and privilege for some, and hate and harm for others.

THREE:
Take a moment to look at the faces of the men that surround us. Regardless of what you think of them or how you feel about them--regardless of what you know or don't know about their lives--take a moment to consider their lives. Who are these men to you? Who are you to them?

FOUR:
We are here because we want to understand something better, because we want to do something different, because we want to interrupt racism, because we want to lend our gifts and our energy to making this country a place of radical equality.

FIVE:
We are here because we want to listen, to our hearts and bodies and most especially to each other. We want to know the stories of heartache and the stories of hope that live in this group.

ONE:
And so we begin with a story.

MECK:
In February, I went to a show at the Boston Center for the Arts called "Polar Bear in a Snow Storm." It was a show for which thirteen artists had created works of art all in white.

Now picture this: it's February in Boston. There's snow on the ground. I step into a small gallery where all the walls are white and all the works of art are white and I literally do not know what I am looking at. Or for.

The space appears to me to be empty.

The first thing my eye lands on is a large box fan high up in a corner. It has been painted white. I think, "How clever! A fan painted white. Art!" I am so relieved because I have found a bit of the polar bear in this snowstorm.

Across the room I see a bench. Also white. I think I'll sit down and take the casual approach to finding other bits of the bear. As I approach the bench, I see a small plaque on the wall beside the bench. It reads "Untitled (with Seat) / Joseph Cunningham..."

Oops! The bench it turns out is art and the fan it turns out is...a fan. The polar bear is elusive.

But I now have one clue about finding the bear: look for the plaques.

I spot another one stuck to a blank white wall called "Rua Bom Jesus, 2000" by Sebastiaan Bremer. It takes me a few minutes to find the actual painting. Under layers of white paint is something shadowy--which I can make out only because I am standing still and staring hard--I make out a structure of some kind in the background--maybe an overpass, maybe stores--and the figure of a young boy and a young girl in the foreground. Though I have no idea what the painting might be trying to communicate, I feel victorious enough for just having found it to move on.

I find more plaques and more objects of art. In "Chameleon," Jeff Perrott lined up Ralph Lauren's "Classic White"--a line of interior house paints. The strips are soft pink and yellow, muted blue and green. Nothing that looks white. I believe Jeff is telling me that there's really no such thing as white. Mmmmmm.

A piece by Virginia Platt called "Slotted" involving strips of white Venetian blinds makes me think this show should have been called Things that make you go "Mmmmmm." What is Virginia saying?

At one point, I find myself in a room where even the floor and the ceiling are white. In one corner are white chairs in various stages of flying through the wall or sinking into the floor. Called "Flung and Sinking," this piece leaves me uneasy. Is this a playful surreal fantasy or is it a portrayal of domestic violence?

In the same small room is a complex installation called "Whiter" by Isa Dean. It includes a small television monitor painted white. On the screen are black and white images of the lower portion of the face of a woman with African features. Her skin is painted white. Into her mouth a painted white hand stuffs white foods: grated cheese, marshmallows, a doughy paste, milk. There is no swallowing. Each time the mouth is full, it pushes the now slimy food out and lets it drip down the chin. Very messy. Repulsive even. Then the hand comes with more food. I assume Isa is visually describing what it feels like to be a Black woman living in a white world, getting stuffed over and over again with what one doesn't really want, working hard not to swallow.

Photo © John C. Boeckler, Bread & Puppet Museum, Glover, VT

I move out of the whiter than white room and almost lose my balance as I step back onto the gray floor. I had been in the room a while. I don't realize until I step out of it that I'd adjusted to it in some way and that leaving it means recalibrating. All that whiteness has changed my perceptions somehow. Like stepping off an escalator.

When I find Sheila Gallagher's description of "white glare" in the program booklet I realize that's what the imbalance was. White glare was a "major cause of madness in early pioneer women." The reflected light from snow on the whitewashed walls of their sod huts made pioneer women go crazy. Too much whiteness will knock you out of your senses or on your butt. You may feel like those chairs: "flung and sinking."

As I leave the show, I wonder what I would contribute to the show if I were a visual artist. As an activist I consider putting up a small plaque beside the man in the booth who is keeping an eye on people like me. I could call it "White Man in White Booth Viewing Viewers."

Weeks and even months later, the show haunts me. I had gone to find a polar bear in a snowstorm, and with the help of a program and small plaques, I managed to find parts of one.

But now I realize that I'd actually been inside a polar bear. Over time, it dawned on me that an art gallery is in itself a very white--or at least European--concept. It no longer makes sense to me to take the works of some of our most creative people and lock them up in rooms that separate creativity from daily life. Now I wonder what buildings like a "gallery" or a "museum" say about my People and our values. That's what I want to figure out.

TWO:
This conference invites you to hunt for polar bears in a snowstorm, to look at them from inside and out, bottom and top.

FIVE:
Every building in this city, every structure, has a story, and each has a value system built into it.

FOUR:
Banks, office towers, apartment complexes, police stations, schools, houses, prisons, museums, legislative offices--

THREE:
That they are built, how they are built, why they are built, what they are built over, how they are paid for.

TWO:
Nothing that we do is value-free, but it is hard to remember that when we simply accept what is around us as "the way things are."

THREE:
First, this conference is grounded in Boston, a specific city with a specific history--because white privilege, power, and benefit are never abstractions.

FIVE:
They are not just ideas; they live and breathe and reproduce. They give real people real advantages every real day.

FOUR:
And so we begin at Faneuil Hall--a real building with a history that includes planning revolutionary wars and exchanging African people for money--

FIVE:
And we move to different neighborhoods in the city, specific places with histories that show waves of red and black and yellow and brown and white peoples moving according to the whims and laws of people who have or who want white power and privilege.

ONE:
Second, this conference is grounded in an understanding that white power, privilege, and benefit are first of all about whole systems of domination and control.

FOUR:
Without dealing with those systems, there can be no transformation of the standards that are currently used to reward or to punish us.

TWO:
Without dealing with those systems, we will continue to be given a very slanted perspective on what's going on.

THREE:
Without dealing with those systems, the powerful few will continue to make decisions that jeopardize the very life of the planet.

TWO:
Without dealing with those systems, the resources of the planet will continue to flow to those who already have more than they need.

ONE:
Third, this conference is grounded in a belief that something bigger and wider and deeper and higher is moving through us. It has many names: God, the Divine, Mother, Spirit, Justice, Love.

FOUR:
Whatever we call it, it is at work; whatever we call it, it has the power to help us; whatever we call it, it can connect us to each other.

FIVE:
Whatever we call it, it gives us the means to continue long after we are tired, to move when we don't know where we're going, to sit still when we want to run, to laugh even when we hurt, to know peace of mind and heart in the midst of unspeakable brokenness.

ONE:
Fourth, this conference is grounded in our collective creativity. When we cannot wrap our minds around things, when words fail us, when the stories we have no longer help us, when analysis is not enough, when we refuse to listen.

THREE:
We need to be creative; we need fresh symbols--new stories or very old ones. We need to turn things inside out, or right side up; to put things together in ways that surprise us and take our breath away.

ONE
And so, grounded in this place and this time, knowing we are part of whole systems held by the power of love and life, armed with our collective creativity, let us begin.

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