For the majority of December, I spent second period every day with Waled, an eight-year-old from Syria, whose favorite color is red. Waled was not a student in my Drawing and Painting class, but over the course of the month, I came to know the young boy whose portrait I was drawing.
Photos of Waled and 21 other Syrian children were sent to IHS by the Memory Project, which works with art teachers and students to create portraits of children who are victims of poverty, abuse, war, or other traumas. Each student in Drawing and Painting classes received a photo of a Syrian child living in a refugee camp. Our task was to draw the child, producing a portrait to send back to him or her. The portraits become a treasure for many of the children who have few physical possessions or photos of themselves.
The project shed light not only on the issues that are affecting Syria but on the perceptions many Americans hold. Prior to starting the project, students researched the predominant language and religion of the area, the history of the conflict in Syria, and where exactly Syria is located. Because in most classes we rarely have time to stray from the curriculum to discuss current events, it was a unique opportunity for an alternative, informative project. By better understanding the situation the children are in, stronger relationships betweens the students and Syrian children were formed. We were pouring our energy for 40 minutes a day into making a gift for a child, so the more connections we could make, the more meaningful we felt it would be for us as an experience and for the children as the recipients.
But as I drew Waled, working primarily with oil pastels, I began to notice a trend of whitewashing amongst drawings in the class. In class we had been instructed to use one of the lightest peach tones as our primary color on the faces. Though it is likely that we perceive Syrians as darker, despite a significant amount of variation in pigmentation, the images we were given were mostly olive-skinned, and we seemed to be instinctively drawing them much lighter. During the summer, there was controversy over the Snapchat “beauty” filters lightening skin tones. I struggled to achieve the skin tone that was truest to Waled’s own, but I struggled far more with the fact that the class was being instructed to use the lightest oil pastel possible, pure white excluded. In film, whitewashing refers to the casting of typically non-white roles with white actors. By not focusing on portraying correct skin tones for the children, ideas of assimilation were promoted, conflicting with efforts to promote cultural understanding.
It was quite meaningful to be able to create something that had such potential to impact a child, but it also drew attention to some of the less obvious ways in which different cultures perceive each other. I realized going into the project that there would be things about Syria that I may not be familiar with. I did not think about whitewashing though, until it was happening, and perhaps this is the problem. It is subliminal examples like this that showcase the inadvertent ways through which white privilege can affect perceptions.
