“On the form it does not say ‘supply a skin sample taken from your sex organs’. It says ‘check the box’. I checked the box, and now I’m a white male. It’s so easy to be what you want in America!”Photo by: Delaney Turner
June 6, 1985
Something about him just didn’t seem right…
How many numbers can your mind add up at once? For instance, his chest was just too deep for his height and weight. And his knuckles were hairless. And his fingers tapered too much. And the only hair on his face was a pair of tufts beside his ears.
We were trapped under an awning, exiled by one of those thundershowers that poets always leave out of their rhapsodies of Spring and weathermen always say are headed for Connecticut. The well-dressed young ‘man’ beside me looked like one of the black businessmen you sometimes see in Wall Street.
Except that ‘he’ was a she.
I said: “You’re a woman.”
“No,” she replied matter of factly. “I’m a man.” Her voice was deep, almost gruff.
I shook my head. “Nice try. You could fool nine out of ten. But it’s just not right.” I told her about the knuckles, the fingers, the beard. I don’t like to talk about breasts, so I gestured, saying, “And some things you just can’t hide.”
“You’re wrong. I’m male.”
I tapped my toe three times. I looked at my watch. I craned my neck out to see if the storm was letting up. It wasn’t. I said: “Listen, if you want to pretend to be a male, I won’t quarrel with you. Would you rather talk about something else?”
“But I am a male!”
“Lady, saying so doesn’t make it so. You’re female. Probably a very good looking young black female, if you’d let your hair down and put away that three-piece suit.”
“I am not a black female. I am a white male.”
When in doubt, say nothing…
“Look,” she said, “you can talk to me. It’s an unwritten rule that we white males can mutter to each other about things we’d never say out loud.”
I pulled a cigarette out of my pocket. Before I could blink, she was beside me with a book of matches. She struck the match toward herself, then reached out with both hands to cup the cigarette while she lit it.
She said: “Do you prefer to analyze it…? All right, tell me how you came to be a white male.”
Deep breath. “My mother and father are both white. They got married, made some babies, and I was one of them. Model number such and so hyphen M. Equipped with certain optional hardware that I don’t talk about in mixed company.”
She looked this way and that. “‘Nobody here but us chickens’…”
“That’s not the point. How did you get to be a white male?”
“I checked that box on the form.”
“Checked what box on what form?”
“The immigration form,” she said. “When I came to this country, they gave me a form. It said I should check the box that best described myself. So I checked ‘white male’.”
“You can’t become a white male just by checking a box on a form.”
“Well,” she mused, “you may have a point, biologically. My mother and father are both black. I was born as model number hyphen F and all that. But when I was growing up, I always heard that in America you can be anything you want. So when I came here, I became a white male.”
“But it’s just not that simple…”
“Oh, but it is! On the form it does not say ‘supply a skin sample taken from your sex organs’. It says ‘check the box’. I checked the box, and now I’m a white male. It’s so easy to be what you want in America!”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this…”
“A lot of people have that reaction….” She examined her nails; her fist was half-clenched and she looked at the nails upside down. “But you have to admit, if you want to get anywhere in business, it pays to be a white male.”
“…I suppose so.”
“You better believe it! Why, if I were female, I couldn’t play squash at the Athletic Club. I wouldn’t be invited to those late-night smokers where so much gets done. I wouldn’t be able to cajole a secretary into getting coffee for me.”
“Do you mean you actually have a job as a white male?”
She smiled. “Fast track. Rising young account executive for Stuffie and Fowle.”
“And you told them you’re a white male?”
“It was a very persuasive argument. I said, by hiring me, you get what looks like a black female, for the benefit of the Feds and other snoops. But what you actually get is just another one of the boys.”
“And they bought that?!”
She shrugged. “I got the job…” She stuffed both hands deep into the pockets of her trousers.
“Okay,” I said. “I can see how you could make it stick ninety percent of the time. You’ve got all the moves down. But you still lack that hardware designated by the hyphen M…”
“Fast track,” she said.
“‘Fast track’?”
“Fast trackers don’t have sex. It’s against the rules.” I must have looked as puzzled as I felt. “The idea is to demonstrate your total commitment to the company. Fast trackers don’t do anything besides work.”
“Is it worth it?”
“You bet it is!” Her eyes were ablaze. “Why, in five years I could be president of the company.”
I said: “Just think… If you were still a black female, you’d be the first black female president of Stuffie and Fowle…”
“If I were a black female, I could get a job on the cleaning crew at Stuffie and Fowle.”
“…you may have a point.”
“You bet I have! Given a choice, it’s much better to be a white male.” She looked out toward the street. “Looks like it’s letting up some. Buy you a drink? You look like you could use one. C’mon, I know a great place right up the block.” She grinned. “Beat ya’ at arm wrestling!”
She – he? – did, too.
