Conquistadores

Whiteness teaches white people that whiteness doesn’t exist. Among all the rules, codes, and products of whiteness, its greatest trick is to remain invisible to those privileged enough to reside inside it. It is always centered, always operating, woven through nearly every aspect of our contemporary social fabric. Educational institutions are no exception.

I wipe the flecks of silver onto my jeans, and tuck my nose and mouth into my shirt to avoid the fumes. Usually, I desperately avoid spray paint and its noxious odors, but this is important. Holding the helmet at arms length, I douse the helmet in a final shower of silver and lay it down beside the others. I am surprised when I find it looks good. We have been working on them for weeks, first coating balloons in several layers of papier-mâché, and then painstakingly bending cardboard around the bottom edge for the brim, and another piece on top to create the fin, a feature of the helmets I never quite understood. For the final realistic touch, we took dry peas that had been cut in half and glued them in lines along the brim and fin. I had been skeptical then, but after the paint the peas really do look like tiny screws. I pull my nose from beneath my shirt and admire our crafts; twenty-six glistening Spanish Conquistador helmets in a line on the blacktop, their excess paint trickling into tiny pools around their brims. Our unit on the discovery of the Americas is nearly over.