For the last three months, I’ve been in this paper every Wednesday, screaming about white T-shirts and a large, somewhat strange assortment of props. I’ve talked about abortion, foreign-language policies, cell phones and, let’s not forget, Uggs.
While the topics I have chosen do not necessarily appear to relate to one another, they were all chosen to fit into the overall theme I’ve been trying to express this semester. The White T-shirt Experiment has been, for me, both an overarching way of choosing topics and an interactive way of relating to the world.
When I chose the words “White T-Shirt,” to represent my column every week, I meant it to represent a universality of sorts. I imagined the white T-shirt as an outward clothing staple that bound everyone together. A person wearing one can be anyone. A person in a white T-shirt could be a girl or a boy, a nerd or a beauty, a scene kid or a mainstreamer. If they are removed from their context, they are subject to the judgment their situation (and their “prop”) implies about them.
When the prop is a passport, the person with it is treated like a foreigner, regardless of her story. If the prop is a pair of Uggs, she is treated like an Ugg-wearer, even if the shoes were a gift. If the prop is a pair of Chuck Taylor Converse on the carpet of a Planned Parenthood, she might be treated like a whore. These props and these situations are meant to highlight how little a person is actually regarded when they are involved.
The White T-Shirt is anonymity. It is the template on which props are exhibited. The thing about it though, is that everyone has one. Everyone is similar in that capacity; it’s a matter of what is put over it, or around it or on the feet that determines who the person is. Or who the person appears to be.
In this respect, this column has been my prop this semester. Part of being a columnist is that the only things people know about you are the ones they assume through your writing. Although I have incorporated anecdotes from my life in my columns, I have tried to make them about the bigger picture, not about me. However, I only have my own experiences to relate. And my own opinions.
I have tried to explore, by donning on top of my white T-shirt, various props to gauge the reactions of such moves, to put myself in the shoes of the people who wear them every day. I have tried to be anonymous otherwise.
When I chose the Amherst lanyard, I was able to see what it was like to be a student there, and to find out how students feel about other issues – including their opinions about our fine institution. When I chose gym shorts, I was able to see the strange misgivings about being healthy.
But the most important thing is that, once it was over, I removed the prop.
While I own all of the items I have described throughout the weeks, I do not consider myself to be represented by any one of them individually. I would not paint myself as a cell phone plastered to an ear, or as a pair of gym shorts.
After being approached by a fellow student in class, who asked me if my intention was to point out the bad guys I ran into, I began to think that perhaps I was being unclear about the purpose I wanted this column to serve. So now, I wish to clarify those instances where I may not have been clear enough.
In the very first column, I looked at the stigma attached to walking into a Planned Parenthood, not because I sought to judge the people who do, but because I wanted to see what it was like to be the one being judged. I wanted, through my column, to put myself in the anonymous and unknown shoes of any girl in that facility.
When I wrote about France and foreign languages, I did not want to be a 21-year-old girl visiting her boyfriend for a week. I wanted to be any American traveling in another country so I could compare it to the ways other foreigners are treated when they come here.
In columns that address education, including those about trans fats, religious education, the more recent look at today’s game show, birth control and feminism, I was not seeking to elevate myself above the “uneducated.” Instead, I was trying to use my space to point out a need for education. Should things be banned instead of taught? Never. However, putting myself into the shoes of a woman unhappy with her period, for example, gave me an outlet to explore why there are options besides education, and why it is important to understand these viewpoints before trying to fight against them. Would this woman rather the Food and Drug Administration ban an oral contraceptive that seems so right for her, or would she rather learn how her body and her menstrual cycle really work so she can decide her own plan of action?
This space has also served as an experiment in and of itself. For me, my highlighted prop atop my white T-shirt has been my Daily Free Press column.
Writing this column, I too could have been anyone. I have a story that I chose to mostly leave out of my writing every week. I chose to write for the Free Press, which also has a stigma. That is what is known about me. That, and the fact that I have side-bangs, which can be seen in my picture. People might recognize me, but they probably don’t know me.
Instead of pulling up newspaper articles that point to what happens when identities are presumed and people judged, like I usually do, I want to talk frankly about my experience as a columnist.
Every week, I tried my best to relate another case in which a person was misrepresented by something so simple it could be called a prop: an ID, a Bible, a pair of shoes. Every week I put myself in these situations to explore the reactions they elicited. Of course, I never lied about any detail I shared about my life.
I admit, there are things I could have done differently, grammatical mistakes or incorrect phrases I could have avoided. But by the end, I learned the most important thing about having this prop is to acknowledge that I chose it. I chose to write and therefore I accept my anonymity and whatever may come with it.
My advice for future columnists is simple: Keep in mind that when your column is the only thing that speaks for you, it will become your prop. Your column will be the way you are known, in the same ways sometimes that the Ugg can seem to represent who a person is. But at the end of the day, it’s your prop, and you’re more than just it.
Sarah Chandonnet, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at [email protected].