Shiny White Suburban

“Go not far enough, and find yourself guilty of complacency, complicity, a political slumping into the cushions of your time. Go too far, and find yourself saying that you didn’t care that a white child had been eaten by an alligator.” ~Patricia Lockwood

A white woman in a white Suburban with chrome rims is bumping “Still DRE.” She’s flying down Main Street, her grip on the steering wheel so tight her rings make indents the undersides of her fingers. Thirty minutes ago, she left a meeting with a local school board member, which she’d requested to share details of her daughter’s transfer out of the public middle school. But the interaction was so enraging the white woman left with a burst blood vessel in her left eye and the conviction that she just barely dodged a massive stroke.

To decompress, she sped to the closest gas station, and on her hands and knees, stretched under the seats of her SUV with a powerful vacuum hose, sucking up flotsam from the floor. Once the floors were clean, she drove the Suburban through the car wash, screaming through the commercial dryers, then stepped out with a microfiber cloth to rub away any leftover drips. Cleaning always helped. A slimming way to dump cortisol while burning calories, her mother had taught her. It was true.

“The school isn’t safe,” she’d said to board member, a woman in her 60s, who’d politely folded her hands and asked why, like she didn’t know.

The white woman puffed up momentarily. Shifted in her seat a few times, then took a big breath and a slip of paper from her purse.

Yes, there’s been a surge of violence, the board member acknowledged. Yes, students have been caught with weapons. But no guns. Oh, that gun? Yesterday? That was at the high school, and the gun was in a student’s car, which was parked in the lot. So, not technically in the school. Yes, there was a fight involving forty students in the east wing a month ago. But there were no guns, just aluminum bats and 2x4s. Yes, it was coordinated. Yes, some students were badly hurt. Yes, we are dealing with a blood feud. Yes, we believe in transparency. No, we will not share details with the public. Details are weaponized by bigots and trolls. The Far Right. And unhinged parents.

The school board member concluded the meeting with an unhelpful suggestion. Show up to board meetings. Avoid blaming your political allies. Suggestions should be palatable, no gristle or bone. Understand and accept that change takes years. So long, in fact, your daughter will be unlikely to see it. With that, the school board member closed her notebook and scurried out the door.

The woman’s left hand is numb, her foot pressed hard on the gas. A cop flashes his blues and she groans, taps the brakes. Lowers the music and eyes the rearview. At the red light, she checks her lipstick, which is feathered at the corners again. She makes a mental note to pick up her prescription retinol cream and turns the volume back up, G-funk blasting from her sparkling Suburban.

After a full-body shiver, the white woman sighs and bounces her shoulders. It’s not all bad! In fact, she’s on her way to pick her daughter up from the new Catholic school where she’s been a student for two weeks. She finally transferred her daughter out of the public school after discovering she was caught within the crosshairs of a violent bully.

Just turned twelve, it had been her daughter’s first year at the public middle school. Every morning in September, she sprang out of bed and rushed through her morning routine to get to school before the first bell. It’s going to be a great year, she gushed over breakfast, her mouth full of orthodontic metal. She’d gotten a lead role in the school play! Made the cheer team! Got elected for student council! Trailing perfume, she’d rush out the front door, letting it slam behind her.

But by early October, it was clear that the middle school was more of a gladiator pit than a place for learning algebra, first round of elimination over Snapchat. Kids encouraged kids they didn’t like to commit suicide, circulated rumors that hardened like cement in fledgling hearts. There were fights every day after the bell, phones pinging with the footage. Over dinner, her daughter showed a video of a group of kids swarming a boy curled on the ground, kicking his body as if it were a soccer ball. Another video of a teacher getting hit with a metal chair, a girl on the bus being viciously attacked from behind. A Student Resource Officer pinning a girl to the ground after she released pepper spray into the school vestibule, packed with students rushing to leave at the last bell.

Her daughter’s bully was 15 - still in 8th grade - and dragging a behavioral intervention plan packed with recommendations that hadn’t worked. She’d been warned already this year - one more fight and she’d be expelled. Since school lunch was her most reliable meal of the day, the bully figured out a way to keep her belly full of cafeteria pizza while fucking with dumb bitches from her phone. Sniped pictures of her daughter appeared on SnapChat: IF YOU SEE THIS GIRL FADE HER

I don’t even know who that is, her daughter sobbed, pointing at a growing list of tweens swearing fealty, promising they’d beat her ass if they bumped into her.

But everyone felt bad for the bully! Something was clearly going on. The youngest of a notoriously troubled family, she must have seen awful things! Generational trauma, people concluded. She could barely be blamed for her behavior. In fact, on more than one occasion, the white woman was asked if she’d considered inviting the bully to her house. Lunch, perhaps, a bounce on the trampoline? A visit might help the bully humanize her daughter, no?

The first time it was suggested, the woman blushed pink with Christian shame for not having already thought of this. But shame quickly gave way to the sanctimony of the proposal, the Stockholm-y ick. Not a chance, she answered, unable to hide the acid in her voice.

Hurt people hurt people. The white woman repeated this like a mantra when she found herself fantasizing about grabbing this little bitch by the hair and digging her acrylics into the back of her neck. “Mama bear mode” is what she answered, when her friends asked how she was dealing, then laughing to assure her rancor was tucked out of view. She was upset, but not venomously so, she lied. Though the bully has a long history of violent behavior, she’s only fifteen! At that age, everyone deserves a chance? Amiright?

At that point, the phrase restorative justice was tossed around, and everyone felt better as long as no one asked what was just, or restored. In fact, in almost every conversation about the increased violence and plummeting test scores at the middle school, well-meaning adults wrung their hands with worry about the school-to-prison pipeline while kids were sent to the hospital, concussed, and teachers fled to other districts. “Don’t get me going,” said a friend who’d worked in elementary for over two decades, drunk on mimosas. “I finally got an admin position after 15 years of busting ass and now I spend half of my days in a protective suit stuck in a room with kids that kick me until they collapse from exhaustion.”

“A protective suit?” the white woman asked, staring.

“You heard me,” her friend said. “It’s basically a twin mattress, so I don’t feel anything. They call it deescalation,” she slurred.

So, since no one wanted the bullies to end up in prison, they got snacks. Calming music. Humans to kick. And when boredom crept in after a couple of donuts and a worksheet on the benefits of breathing, back to the classroom they went. This was not called recidivism, since that was a term too damning for youth. Instead, in every conversation about the violence at the public schools, the white woman felt obliged to mention her family’s class and racial privilege, because without doing so, her story would fail harder than the school’s statewide ranking, which couldn’t get much worse.

“I know, I know, blame systems not individuals,” the white woman said to the public school principal when meeting to discuss her daughter’s transfer out of there. The principal narrowed her eyes when the white woman slipped and complained how unfair it was that a student with a history of violence had turned school into a dangerous place for her kid. Using the word “trauma” at least a dozen times, the principal lectured her about the many challenges faced by the district. When the white woman asked whether being threatened at school could be considered a form of trauma, the principal differentiated between big T and little t. What her daughter experienced was little t trauma. She was coming to school fed and washed, no? Basic needs met?

The white woman swallowed hard, ujjayi’d. Noting this show of restraint, the principal offered an olive branch. “Listen,” she said, leaning forward, dropping into a whisper, “Our hands are tied.” The principal was about to say more, but the walkie-talkie attached to her belt squawked with an emergency. A rapidly-escalating situation near the south stairwell sent her rushing out the door without a goodbye.

“You probably have a black pussy,” the bully said to the woman’s daughter, a week before grabbing her by the shirt, fist cocked. The white lady did not know how to explain this one to her kid. When she tried, the conversation sputtered and her daughter begged her to stop. “I’m taking you of there,” the white woman said, which induced a meltdown.

“I’ll get my ass beat eventually,” her daughter pleaded, “and then she’ll move on to someone else. Please don’t make me leave my friends.”

The white woman lost sleep. Perhaps surviving this gladiator pit was how her daughter would gain the tools she’d need to deal with all the scumbags she’d encounter in life? Perhaps this was how she’d molt the last layer of childhood? Maybe this would finally force her to reach inward, find her own venom? Being sweet was dangerous, the woman concluded. Or was this totally insane, trading sweetness for a thicker skin?

“Welcome to the experience of being a poor woman of color,” a friend said to her over a bottle of chardonnay. The white woman suspected she knew what this friend was trying to get at, and part of her always wanted to slap this friend, an avid enthusiast of the Trauma Olympics. Annoyed, she switched the subject and complimented her friend’s new hair color. “Looks nice,” she said, applying lip gloss, “almost natural.”

Besides, for the past five years at her workplace, the woman had shared a lunch table with a small group of women, none of whom were white. Two of the women made double what she did. The other two, she suspected, much less. They’re a good cross section of their city, they joked, capable of solving any problem since they’re all moms. And when she spilled her worries over lunch, the oldest of the group set her fork down and shook a finger in her face. “Get your baby out of there.” 

“Thank you,” the white lady sighed, relieved she’d been given official permission to make the obvious choice. 

“Ain’t nothing stopping you from teaching your girl how to throw a punch,” the woman added, dabbing the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “When I was a kid, my daddy gave me a switchblade, but I wasn’t allowed to wear slacks so I kept in my bra.” 

The white lady went home that night and showed her daughter how to throw a right hook, which she learned from two years of Billy Blank’s Tae Bo. She held up a cushion from the couch and her daughter balked. She did not want to hurt anyone, ever.

“C’mon!” the woman hollered from behind the cushion, “smash it!”

Her daughter said no, she would not.

“I’m so lucky to have the resources to consider an alternative,” the white lady whispered to a friend while unrolling her yoga mat, since the alternative was accompanied by tuition. Though the strain of this experience had triggered migraines no visit to Sephora could hide from her collapsed face, the woman’s friend agreed with her. She was very, very fortunate. 

“I’m teaching my daughter how to fight,” she told her friend, sipping a latte after yoga.

“You mean you’re teaching her self-defense,” her friend corrected, lifting an overly-manicured brow.

The majority of the white woman’s friends were white liberals, and when her daughter was young, she too had vowed to support public schools by sending her kid to them. Supporting local schools was a basic civic duty, her left-leaning friends argued, though a few of them sent their kids to private school - a detail far too impolite to mention.

But then, her daughter came home from school and crumpled into her arms, recounting how the bully chased her down the hallway, barking like a dog. Her daughter ran into the bathroom and locked herself in a stall, tucking her feet onto the toilet seat to hide. The worst of it, she sobbed, was that the thought of being trapped in a tiny bathroom stall with this delulu had caused a panic attack. She’d rather have her ass beat in front of the entire school, her daughter cried, eyelids rabbit-pink.

The white woman moved quickly and quietly, and got her baby out of there. 

The memory of that horrible day makes her heart skip a beat, so she takes a big breath. This can’t ruin her day. She tunes back into Dre. Man, those lyrics are sweet, she thinks, and cranks the volume.  

Still fuck with the beats, 

still not loving police, 

still rock my khakis 

with a cuff and a crease. 

To be clear. The white lady was never a fan of defunding the police! She imagines a world without law enforcement as an orgy of gunshot wounds, motor vehicle accidents, and hypodermic needles. Occasionally, a demented man, grinning and holding a knife to her throat while she sleeps (because she is white, she lacks a certain type of imagination, she’s been told). But then, Snoop sticky-ickies, and man, oh man, does the white lady miss snapping her fingers to 90’s hip hop and shaking her ass until she’s wet with sweat. And though the song has lifted her mood, the white woman can’t ignore how ugly the world is at times, so she is also feeling her feels. Feeling feels is something that’s totally okay to do, proved by the Millennials. Everyone should hold space at all times - for themselves, their friends, even perfect strangers - to feel everything.

Right now, it’s certainty and sorrow, and they’re combining as pressure under her tits. She suspects a fart would release the feeling, but withholds out of politeness even though she’s alone in her car. The repressed fart sends a cramp into her thigh before transforming into a surge of rage, and she grips the wheel and steps on the gas. She’s fucking sick of things! Now she’s stuck recalling the last public school board meeting, attended from her phone since in-person meetings smell like cigarettes. Though she’d already transferred her daughter to the Catholic school, she felt obligated to attend. To share her experience. To help!

But the first public comment was so depressing. A twitchy, gray-faced man gripped by paranoia accused school board members of stalking him, haphazardly pulling scraps of paper from a bag and shouting about 5G. The board remained grimly silent until the timer dinged, a sound that seemed to deflate the man like a balloon. Shuffling away from the podium, he sat down and closed his eyes, appearing to instantly fall asleep. If hope was scant to begin with, now it was gone.

“Heartbreaking” the white woman reported back to her friends, though the more accurate word was “galling.” Thinking of the twitchy man threatens to overpower her Dre vibes, so the white woman “yes, ands” with such commitment she almost swerves off the road. She rights the vehicle and adjusts her oversized sunglasses, cracks the window to temper a hot flash. Don’t be weak, she says aloud, since shame is practical.

But shame doesn’t work this time, and she can’t seem to stop thinking about the school board meeting. The next public comment was even worse! A person with a patchy beard and black lipstick spoke into the mic like they were making a TikTok, with so much vocal fry you could toss a piece of battered fish in their direction and crisp it. 

“Y’all look like nice enough people,” they said with a wan smile. “But you don’t look like the students in my classroom, and that’s a fact.” Running a hand through oiled hair, they leaned into the mic and moaned, “Do better.”

The white woman raised a dinner plate into the air, threatening to smash it. “Is this person serious,” she spat in the direction of her husband, her left eye twitching. “Are they implying that it’s the job of these exhausted, underpaid board members to find their own replacements?! For positions they were elected for?!”

“I need to ask an obvious question before addressing your excellent point,” her husband said, amused and kicked back in his chair. “Why the hell does this person sound like they’re making a porn?”

Unable to waste another second of her life and concerned about a hypertensive incident, the white woman handed the dinner plate to her husband and beelined it for the master bath. After a hot shower, she decided, she’d exfoliate her feet with a strange but effective tool marketed to her on Facebook. Pop a Valium, hit the sack.

Almost running a red light, the white woman slams the brakes. Ujjayi’s. The hood of her newly washed Suburban catches the sun, temporarily blinding her, and her cortisol is tempered with serotonin, since nothing pleases her more than clean surfaces.

No stress, no seeds, no stems, no sticks!

Some of that real sticky-icky-icky

Ooh wee! Put it in the air!

Well, you's a fool, D-R, ha-ha

The song is on repeat, but she lets it play. 

Unfortunately, the white woman can’t smoke weed anymore because it causes panic attacks. But she used to! The thought of puffing on a fat joint causes the planet between her legs to spin, slow revolutions radiating big heat. A memory swirls to the surface - the first time she kissed a woman, breath hot with whiskey, hair skunked by a blunt they’d shared. Dre was playing in the background, she remembers. The other woman had been watching her Crip Walk before she pulled her close, by the belt.

The white woman slows to turn into the new school, shifts into park, and texts her daughter that she’s arrived. She sits in a line of trucks and SUVs, half of them displaying MAGA stickers on rear windows. A black Ford has a mounted flag of Trump holding a rocket launcher, his exposed arms ripped even though everyone knows he’s got flapjacks. The white woman directs her mind away from the absurdity and chooses positivity. Just last week, when picking up her daughter after her first day, she could see the relief on her face when she climbed into the passenger seat. “It’s weird,” her daughter said, watching the students stream out the front doors. “I’m not even scared.”

It was an offhand observation, but the white woman felt it like a stab to the gut. The faces of her daughter’s friends, still at the public middle school, spun like numbers on a roulette wheel. She prayed to God that none of them get hurt, because at this point, what else but pray could the white woman do? 

She switches to the next song on the playlist, Tha Shiznit, and lowers the volume since hard-hitting bass seems inappropriate for the parking lot of a Catholic school. Reconsiders, and turns it back up, just a little. The white woman thinks again about the school board meeting, the twitchy, paranoid man, the person with the patchy beard who moaned into the mic like they were fucking someone while being filmed. She thinks of the school board member, her daughter’s bully.

She realizes what it is she feels in her heart and gives it ample space. There are other things too. Self-righteousness. Defensiveness. She tips her head back to feel the sun on her neck, and there’s a moment of yummy nothingness before a thought worms its way to the surface, and she sits up, vexed. Ugh, it’s insufferable when white people say ‘de nada’ when thanked, as if they’re très cool.

She turns up Tha Shiznit, just enough to rattle the sunroof. Her daughter will be out any second.