Occasionally emails get sent around my workplace looking for volunteers for random things. Today the staff was forwarded an email asking for volunteers that went something like this:

We Need You to Volunteer!

Below is a list and brief description of the individuals in … v…. who need to be photographed.

Participants can be … students, faculty, staff, or outside the … school community.

We will supply the participants with copies of the photos, a [law] book, a complimentary Starbuck’s gift card, and lots of thank you’s.

Male – Around 30-35 years old, blondish hair, muscular physique

female - Around 21-23 (young looking) brunette or black hair [2^nd wife]

son – 6-8 years old, son of Bruno’s first marriage

daughter - 11-12 years old, daughter of Bruno’s first marriage

I usually don’t get involved in my work community, but there was a starbucks card, and I am a sucker for free stuff. but something caused me to pause a moment. I decided to make sure that I would be “eligible” to sign up. meaning was it just for white peeps or could a racially ambiguous/Latina/non-white person also sign up.

I emailed the sender

Is there a preferred ethnicity or race for these participants?

To which the sender responded:

Unfortunately, yes, to be true to the actual case, there is. As you can probably tell from reading the description in the textbook, these were White folks!!!

A) I have never read a legal text book and she did not attatch the afore mentioned “description in the textbook” for our information.

B) I understand that one would want to be true to the case, but can we say Angelina Jolie? Ok I understand this isn’t big Hollywood, I understand that these are just people who need to portray someone photographically, but in that case why not include a picture of the family so that people can see if they would be a good match. What if a person brings their “white” kid, and its a red head freckly kid, and the real kid had blond hair or brown hair?

C) And lastly the “…these are White Folks!!!” uuhhh and I was supposed to know this inherently how? There are people of other races and ethnicities that have blond hair. I have dark hair and have often surprised people when I tell them my real age. I think what has bothered me the most about this is those exclimation marks. Really did she need three of them? I guess she is kindof high strung. Besides I am White. I am Guatemalan AND White. I should have forwarded her a picture of my mother as my credentials. (see mom I told you I could never say I was White and have someone believe me.)

My only response to this at that moment in time was a very short. “thanks” but in my head I had so many other things I want to say. Like for instance, if you needed caucasian people to portray a caucasian family why not put that in your descripton. If it were a person of any other racial background it would have been stated explicitly. This assumption that no indicator of race means that person in question is white is such a good example of this idea in our society that White = default, and anything else needs explaining. What about if Jane Smith signed up via email and she got the job (so to speak) and showed up and was of Korean descent?

The other thing that bothered me was my inability to say something that was not reactionary, but would indicate to the sender that they needed to consider the assumptions they were makeing and maybe describe what he/she needed in better detail to begin with. My guess is that this person would say oh I am not racist and would genuinely believe it, but its the unexamined actions that we do, the ways we use language with unexamined assumptions that can lead to awkward, and sometimes offensive interactions. But all I said was “thanks” like I was just going along with these assumptions when really it sets me off.

homework for myself: Work on making sure I know my own biases and being more proactive about making people aware of the power of unexamined racism and assumptions that we all make that may be reinforcing discriminatory structures in our society.