The White Card: A Play

We’ve all heard references to “Oh she is just playing the Female Card.” Or “That’s just the Victim’s Card.” Or dozens of variations dismissing an aggrieved person’s genuine expressions of hurt. Claudia Rankine constructs a play which illustrates how White people play “The White Card”. By so doing, she beautifully illustrates how Whites turn Blacks into “things” or “objects”, denying their real humanity.White persons who always want to do something to correct the Black situation, will hear themselves in Act 1. The objective is to bring the Black person into the White world (a version of Assimilation or “just be like us.”) And in Act 2, the character Charlotte Cummings, an emerging artist, (surely Rankine)engages in a dialogue that exposes the White Card being played by the philanthropist, who will not acknowledge his white façade (skin) creates his role of superiority and control and power.In the infamous Supreme Court decision of Brown vs Board of Education, it was accepted by the Justices that Black and White schools were essentially equal. The decision to integrate schools was for the benefit of the Blacks, so they could avail themselves of the cultural knowledge offered by the white schools. Assimilation.Rankine defines “the race problem” as Whiteness, not Blackness. She quotes, in the introduction, Teju Cole: “The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.”A theatrical creation is most often a mirror allowing the audience space and time to reflect on their own human failures and inhumanity. Rankine has created a crystal-clear mirror reflecting whiteness failures and inhumanity.

This play really digs into when white people think the are being helpful and empathetic but are actually fetishizing Black violence and death. By only concentrating and paying attention to Black people when they are victims, we dehumanize them and turn their pain into our cause. I think this is something we need to talk about more, especially in white communities that are now, more than ever before, getting involved in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Great for discussions about white privilege.

Very frank discussions about race in a play about two wealthy, liberal white art collectors and the African American artist they invite to dinner. Challenging assumptions about those who consider themselves sympathetic but have yet to truly grapple with the complex realities of privilegeI was confused about the ending, though.

Aristotle said that the aim of all theater is catharsis. This may or may not be true, but…any good play will provoke *some* sort of strong feeling: sadness, elation, laughter, anger. I don’t think boredom is part of that lineup, though.I’ve read the script and have now seen a production of Rankine’s “The White Card” and…it just provoked tedium. Tedium because I’m tired of earnest white audiences knocking themselves out to have even more earnest discussions on racial topics, while skirting issues of class, the ubiquity of racism in so many other cultures (China? Japan? Come ON!!!) and finally just the subtle bullying on the part of smug intellectuals who write plays dripping with condecenscion and navel-gazing, and who like to point fingers without realizing that perhaps they need to check their own bias just a teensy bit. It’s an easy position to be in, this always being right, this not brooking contradictions (“shut up! your resistance is just…erm….white fragility! That’s right, you’re fragile and I’m not! Nyah nyah nyah!!).Yup, agreed, racism is still going strong, and its results are so very catastrophic. Yes, white privilege exits and eats away at trust, kindness, and civil discourse…and at the end of the day we (I’m only 75% white, btw, but I still say “we”) are quite blithe about it all. Attention must be paid, and it continues to be an uphill battle.That said…ai, this play. The paper tiger characters!! A white lady who tries to be woke but ends up making blunder-y, offensive statements like some half-baked sitcom star on “And Just Like That”? The white art patron guy who made his money — natch, because all white people make their money from bad stuff—from prisons? The well-meaning but naturally un-self-aware son who has a personal axe to grind and accuses his parents of racism and intolerance to assuage his own hatred for them? I mean…SNORE! And snore some more! It’s been said, done, and dusted. Over, and over, and over, and over.Could just one character have shown some real (not formulaic!) nuance and complexity? Could we have a multi-dimensional black character who maybe isn’t quite so judgy-judgy every. freaking. moment. of. the. day?Instead of this uncompelling and kind of boring regurgitation of contemporary academic theory (that in future years will cause many a cringe and wince), I suggest some illuminated playwright turn Toni Morrison’s sublime short story “Recitatif” into a performance piece, reading, dunno (it would be difficult, but it could be done, while maintaining the basic groundbreaking premise of the story). We don’t need yet another glimpse into the privilege of the art world and its quibbly quibbles. This would have worked much better if the main character was a museum guard, btw.