We may all wear the mask someday
Read Time:3 Minute, 22 Second
Slaves, servants and submerged races always wear a mask, whether smiling or sullen.
Octavio Paz – The Labyrinth of Solitude
I had an online conversation with Nezua at the Unapologetic Mexican several years ago wherein we discussed a phenomenon called “playing goodboy“. In rehab therapy many years ago, a therapist ridiculed people who said things to curry favor with him, saying they were playing goodboy.
“If I just stick to the program I know you will provide me with the tools to remain clean and sober“.
“What a Good Boy you are !“.
I offered the example to Nezua of having gone to an upscale department store once, and buying some items I neither wanted nor needed – all to show the people who worked there that I wasn’t like “those people“. Nezua understood that it wasn’t defiance – my money is just as good as yours is – but rather subservience – please accept my money and we’ll both pretend I’m like you.
Playing goodboy.
Nezua countered with one of his own experiences, than I followed with one that he said was painful to read, almost as painful as reliving its memory.
Helen Rain was a small, sweet-natured woman who’d worked hard all her life, whose possessions built up over a lifetime filled small and medium sized boxes in her tiny apartment. Her knees ached from working the fields and her hands ached from factory work and those pains didn’t matter because her kitchen always smelled of the chiles and brown sugar and butter and potatoes that went into the foods she made for any visitor she had.
Childless, she loved all children and she especially loved her nephew who looked so much like his father she often called him by his father’s name. Her favorite nephew was twelve years old when the two of them walked to the American store for a few things, among them a pack of cigarettes. There was a TV commercial at the time that showed music playing when the top of a particular brand of cigarettes was lifted. Everyone on earth knew it was just a commercial. Everyone but his aunt Helen.
After making their selections and placing them on the counter, she asked the American if he had those cigarettes that play the music when you open them. After regarding her blankly for a moment, the American said he didn’t understand what she wanted. Smiling up at him, the small lady with the bandaged knees and gnarled fingers who loved music and children and her nephew best of all asked again if he had the type of cigarettes that played music when you opened the box.
He snorted, laughed and shook his head and said as if to an unruly child that it was a TV commercial, a TV commercial. Nobody thinks that stuff is real, it was a TV commercial and did she want anything else.
We have choices all the time in life. One choice might have been to tell the American not to disrespect my aunt, take her hand and walk out of the store. Another choice might have been to put my arm around her, laugh gently and say it was a pretty good commercial huh auntie, I’d believed it too. I could have been brave, I could have been compassionate. Instead I hid behind my mask and played Goodboy.
I met the American’s eyes, smiled and shook my head too. I wanted the American to know I was like him, not her. I might be the color she was, but I was like him.
Nezua commented how quickly we sell ourselves out.
Servants and slaves and submerged races wear masks all the time, even with each other. But race only adds another dimension. As resources dwindle and interlocked multinational corporate and financial entities continue to suck up the wealth of the world, as the financial disparity between the upper .01 percent and the rest of us continues along its remorseless path – the Bread and Circuses will end and we shall all don our masks.
And play goodboy.
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When you first posted this, I did not consider it one of my all time favorites. It was amoung many pieces that I happened to like.
However, after fermented in my mind for a while and after coming back to it on numerous occasions, it has risen to the rank of my favorite Oso, and has earned a spot in top ten.
It is like Sienfeld. Real life reminds me of this article over and over again.
Oso, this is very good. I think it may have spoken more to me than some, as I recognize my own masks. We have all been guilty of playing along, instead of representing who we really are. Most of us do it daily and often.
Here you show this, instead of merely telling it.
Have you ever considered taking all of these types of writings, which are written in the voice of creative non fiction, and turning them into a single story that flows coherently? If you were to do this, you would have to make them into fiction, and ideally, the end product would be around 80,000 words, at which time you would seek a literary agent.
Just a thought.
Thank you John. Your suggestion is really interesting, a Roots scenario for the human race.That’s really a great concept.
I’ve met white people who wish they were minority – black, indian, whatever. I have to tell the untarnished truth, though – I always figure I lucked out in the genetic crapshoot by being born a white female in america during the 1970’s. The only way I could have gotten luckier was to be born a white male in America during the 1980’s. I’ve never been able to figure out why people would want to be another race, particularly in this country and get treated like shit like your poor auntie did. Powerful post, Oso…powerful indeed.
ooo Bee! Are you giving away your age? I’m older than you! LOL!!
I never could fathom the phenomenon of wanting to be another race entirely, though I could understand if it was to blend in with your friends. I have always coveted Asian hair and skin, but stopped short of wishing to be them.
Isn’t it amazing how these “incidents” of life stay with you. It’s almost like water shaping the stone over a long period of time.
You may have worn the mask at that time but it’s obvious that the mask shaped you to create the wise “Oso” of today.
It’s the people that don’t even realize the mask is in place that do not gain and are to be pitied.
Beautiful post,Oso!
I too have worn that mask.
Oso, my friend, you bring back memories of times in my past when I have done the same thing. It from those experiences that we learn and grow into men and teach our children. Though there is a sadness in your story I enjoyed the sweetness of and the love in the telling of the aunt. She was obviously a well respected and loved person.
My friend I am sad to say that I would have done the same in that American store, and probably have, under one circumstance or another. Sometimes we all do things, or don’t do things that we regret. While we suspect the value of hindsight, I find its worth reflected in introspection. The fact that you remembered that day in that store and are talking about it to all of us speaks volumes. We are none of us perfect. There are times when I look back on some of the things I have done and ask myself “why?” Those times when I don’t get an answer worry me.
I agree with Gwen. There is no “false face” on you Al and I am proud to know you. Your story, with all of its messages, both great and small, makes us all think, at least it does me. Thanks.
Al, you are my Hero.
You have cystallized a lesson that sits before every human being right now. You’ve made a pretty good, rare and fine commercial. There is no false face on you.
This is a very touching story! If the young boy knew then what he knows now the response would have been different. This I am sure of 🙂
Don’t beat yourself up about it- you weren’t “selling out” your race.
Placing myself in your shoes I would have done the same as you did- and I have no “good boy” hat to wear. It was funny- and more likely your aunt was mistaken because of her age and naivete, not because of her culture or color. You and the clerk did share something in common- you both understood the commercial was just a commercial. He didn’t have to be such an ass about it (he probably makes fun of his granny too).
You have to admit the idea of opening a box of cigarettes that then plays music is pretty hilarious. (I’m imagining a tinny-sounding death march starting up. Maybe this technology could extend to other products- like a box of condoms that plays Barry White tunes.)
I spend a great deal of time around old women (and old people in general) and they are so technologically deficient sometimes that you just have to laugh. Instead of television, now it is things they see on the internet that confuse them.
Twelve year old kids aren’t the most compassionate creatures anyhow, and I’m sure you would have reacted differently had you been older. The fact that you feel that somehow you were condoning the clerk’s rudeness is not a race-specific thing, but the reaction anyone with respect for their elders and a conscience would have.
Great story, by the way.