Racism is about Power, not Blood and Pee
So stop announcing that bodily fluids are the same color like we stupid
I loved, loved, LOVED Hidden Figures…except that damn White Savior bathroom scene where Kevin Costner’s character (Kevin Costner who LOVES to play the white savior) knocks down the Colored Bathroom sign with a crow bar and announces, “Here at NASA, we all pee the same color.”
It was an annoying scene that even as it played out in front of me had me wondering if it had actually happened or if it was being used for dramatic effect because white audiences love that shit — when white folk (especially white men) on the silver screen stand up and do the right (usually superficial) thing. This is especially true in movies like this where knocking down a bathroom sign like that might actually mean something in the context of legal racial segregation, and it gets white people thinking, “Yeah, I’d do that…that’d be me. Good White Guy.” I’m supposed to believe that the majority of white folk today who won’t speak up in the staff meeting when a person of color’s idea is stolen or who critique protesters for making a mess after marches, would actually challenge legal segregation through overt property damage in the ’50's? Child, hush.
And here’s the thing: there’s actually no shortage of white people doing meaningful things throughout history on behalf of other oppressed people. Their stories are relevant because I think white people today should have historic and contemporary role models for what white solidarity and being a powerful co-conspirator looks like. It doesn’t make sense to silence those stories and make up artificial ones.
To top off that bathroom scene, I thought his oh-so-clever comment about peeing the same color was predictable, corny, and smacked of, “we’re all the same on the inside, so why can’t we just get along?” White supremacy patriarchy, that’s why. No, seriously: stop telling me that we all bleed red when most of y’all don’t realize that, despite scientist’s objections, the Red Cross segregated its blood through WWII and some white soldiers were willing to die rather than risk receiving Negro blood. Stop telling me our blood is the same color as though racism is about what our blood looks like as opposed to the reality that institutional outcomes for people of color are often determined by how their skin color, not their blood, urine, spit or any other bodily fluid, is perceived. No one’s arguing that our blood is different. We are arguing that the world cares less when that same-colored blood is spilled.
Incidentally, that moment that moved so many white hearts in the audience (and some black and brown ones, too; that internalized racial inferiority is a powerful beast) never took place in real life. Nor was Katherine Johnson present in the Mission Control room when John Glenn made his orbit around the globe, safely because of her calculations. That means, no, a white man didn’t run out in the last minute and snatch her into an elite white space just in time to keep her from feeling sad and dejected and used yet again.
It was a shame, too, to feel so irritated right after such a brilliant scene delivered by Taraji P. Henson. Henson’s character had just delivered a scathing rebuke of her superior and her colleagues to explain why she goes missing for 40 minutes a day because she can’t find a Colored Bathroom in the building in which she now works. (She takes her work with her and does it in the stall.)
This public shaming is the only thing that compels Costner’s character to remove the “Colored” label from the coffee machine, something that appears the day following Henson’s arrival to her new post. His character then proceeds to take down the big sign above the Colored restroom, but I’m a little suspicious of his intent: is he suddenly swayed by the blatant racism before him? His character is portrayed as being rather aloof given the pressure he’s under to compete with Russia’s space program, but it’s possible.
But could it be because he doesn’t like that his employee isn’t always where he conveniently needs her to be given the work that they do? The film makes it clear multiple times that the science and the math changes so quickly that calculations are outdated within hours of information briefings with the government, so it’d make sense that Costner’s character is more motivated by the need to access Henson’s character. Therefore convenience, not compassion, drives him to remove that sign. It’s difficult to tell based on how he is portrayed, and frankly, his motivation is understandable, but then just write the story like that. It might help to know if Johnson actually received a pearl necklace from her boss? (Just kidding, that doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.)
As Dexter Thomas highlights in the above hyperlinked article, Katherine Johnson confirms in an interview, and in interviews for the book on which the movie was based, that she actually used white bathrooms on the regular when she needed to relieve herself. I happen to think that’s a more compelling narrative than having the white man swoop in and dismantle a sign as though he’s dismantling a system, but I also don’t need white people to tell me their version of history in order to be stirred in a meaningful way. I’m perfectly content and fulfilled with people of color acting as our own heroes.
