A lot of people have been talking about whiteness. I get where they are coming from. It’s been on my mind too.

You know the score. You are in a shop, and the sales assistant doesn’t have your size. The waitress says that they don’t have a reservation under your name. The man in the meeting tells you your idea is really shit, the worst he has ever heard. And then what does he do? He smiles with a big bunch of white teeth. Polished to the hilt, blinding whiteness. Bang, right up in your grill. And all you can do smile meekly back.

Big white pearlers in those situations normally mean trouble. People packing that much whiteness in their mouth were generally raised in such sterile environments, or have spent so much money on cosmetic dentistry, that they cannot be trusted. Their tactics are just plain dirty. You see, normally, that sort of whiteness is reversed for sincerity. It is the look you see before a hug. The look you see before you get laid. But this situation it is deployed for darkness. The whitest darkness you will ever see. A stonewall of happiness. The friendliest shutdown you ever got. It’s like they showed you the hand, but with their teeth.

But the difference is, when people show you the hand, or flip you the bird, or just plain ignore you, you know where you stand. They don’t care about you and want you gone. Fair enough. Rejection we can all handle. But the mixed messages of a giant white smile? That is harsh. You can almost hear them through their teeth. (You might want to read this bit like you are talking through your teeth, theatre of the mind, or some shit)

“You are thinking right now that I like you, but see these teeth, they will tear you the fuck apart. They will rip your face right off. You know that homeless in Miami? Yeah, you know. I will chew you to the bone. Now get out while I am still smiling.”

Yup, whiteness. How do you even start to deal with that shit?

Author

  • David Smith is a world famous artist and a British Olympic hammer thrower. He is a curler for Scotland and Manitoba. A pro wrestler fondly known as the British Bulldog. A Canadian economist and a Mormon missionary they call the Sweet Singer of Israel. He is a British historian and a bishop. David Smith is the biographer of HG Wells, a professor of physics, a composer and a music teacher at Yale. He played rugby for Samoa, England and New Zealand. He created the Melissa worm, a deadly computer virus. He is the Guardian's man in Africa, he starred in a reality TV show and shot his way to silver in the 600m military rifle prone position at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. But this isn't that David Smith. This is the blog of the other David Smith. David J Smith. The one from Durban by the Sea. The one who lives in Amsterdam. Yes, him. The David Smith who likes to write about himself in the third person. To learn about all the other David Smiths: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Smith To contact this David Smith: [email protected]

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David J Smith

David Smith is a world famous artist and a British Olympic hammer thrower. He is a curler for Scotland and Manitoba. A pro wrestler fondly known as the British Bulldog. A Canadian economist and a Mormon...

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