Grantham: Band-Aids are Racist

Friday, June 11, 2004

Editor's Note: This e-mail was sent to one of Shelby Grantham's English 5 classes in the fall after a discussion of why the lack of brown band-aids was emblematic of our racist society.

Dear Ones, particularly White Ones:

I am concerned to be sure no one feels paralyzingly "bashed" by my opinion about the stance behind the argument that there are no manufacturers of brown bandaids because making them for such a small percentage of the U.S. population would be unprofitable.

I see that argument, especially when it's made heatedly, as deriving at least in part from a white supremacist set of assumptions, among them that (a) monetary profit is the only valid reason to make anything for sale (see Meadows' list), (b) members of both white and non-white cultures have the same attitude about both the desirability and the profitability of making brown bandaids, (c) that attitude about desirability and profitability is the only one responsible for the unavailability of brown bandaids, (d) racism is out of bounds in this conversation, and (e) if you deny the validity of other points of view loudly and insistently enough, an audience will agree with you and you will win the argument.

My own experience as a white person is that those assumptions are deeply embedded in white culture. I am aware of feeling them all the time. My experience as a white woman operating in a white man's world is that some of those assumptions (the last in particular) are particularly deeply embedded in the minds of most of the men I have encountered (not all).

One of the tragedies of arguing from those assumptions is that we never get around to considering possible other assumptions, such as, for instance, the possibility that while white people want, manufacture, and buy white-skin-colored bandaids, people of color (of various heritages) may see having bandaids more nearly the color of their skins as a ridiculously trivial idea, akin to having "designer rice" to throw at weddings—and they may have many other assumptions about brown bandaids I haven't even begun to consider.

You all may have noticed the prevalence of white-appearing contributors to the discussion, which also made it likely that we would never seriously investigate the question I raised—What are possible explanations for the fact that, as far as I can tell, no one makes brown-skin-colored bandaids? When all or some of us white folks get caught up in yelling and trying to be "right" (a cherished value, in my experience, of white culture), and we never research or consider seriously possible answers to the question.

That keeps us white folks distracted from learning anything about the question and about people of other cultures. It keeps us locked up, once again, in our ivory-white towers.

We'll revisit the question briefly on Friday, if anyone wants to. Briefly.

Cordially,
[Shelby Grantham]

Grantham: Band-Aids are Racist

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