The Airing of Grievances: The Wrong Man for the Job

From a young age there were many careers I knew my albinism precluded me from performing. There isn't much demand for legally blind brain surgeons, for example. Or microbiologists. Crafting dollhouse miniatures wasn't going to be a hobby which eventually became a career for me. I didn't see flying jets or working with microchips in my future. While my albinism would obviously hinder my ability to perform these jobs, there were unexpected ways my albinism limited my career choices. In the spirit of Festivus, here is an airing of those grievances.

In sixth grade I was really interested in comedy and wrote a paper about stand-up in Washington DC, the closest city to where I grew up in Northern Virginia. For research, I went to a performance with my Mom and sister. My Mom had gotten the tickets and was really excited for me to see the show because one of the comedians on the bill had cerebral palsy and she wanted me to see having a disability didn't mean a person couldn't be a successful comedian. (Sidebar: upon finishing that sentence I instantly regretted every negative thought I've ever had about my Mother). I sat near the front so I could see better. One of the opening comedians decided to do some crowd work. Maybe it had been a long week and he needed some easy laughs or maybe he was just an asshole. Whatever the reasons, the dude picked me, an 11 year-old fat kid with albinism, as the person to make the subject of his fun. He asked who I was and what I did – real groundbreaking material. I said I went to school. He asked, “What do they teach you there, how to be whiter/” The audience laughed at me. I replied, “Actually it's a school for the gifted and talented,” thinking I could fall back on my smarts. The audience chuckled at my remark, but not as hard as they'd laughed at ME. The dickhead comedian - whose name I can't remember or I already would've found and heckled - moved on and I felt terrible. The whole room was laughing at me, but not in a way I wanted or controlled. An already shy kid, I was scared off doing stand-up or comedic performance for the rest of my life.

In seventh grade I was excited because I supposedly had one of the best mathematics teachers in all of the County. To this point in my life, math was my strongest subject and I'd imagined I'd use it in my career eventually, as much as I thought about a career in seventh grade. (See: The Eggshell Egghead) Math was great because my poor eyesight was rarely a problem. Back then a lot of the books I needed to read for class were still not available in large print, so English and reading were actually exceptionally difficult. (See Large Print Books Vs. Kindle). But in math, the size of the print rarely mattered. As long as I could see the numbers I could get the right answer. Nonetheless, in spite of having “one of the best mathematics teachers in the County” my progress in mathematics ground to a screeching halt in seventh grade for two major reasons. First, the teacher wrote illegibly and very, very small when he wrote on the board. At the time, I used a monocular telescope to see things teachers wrote but even with this accommodation, I could barely make out his chicken scratch. I absolutely could have done more to help myself. I could've worked harder. I could've harped on the teacher more often about the smallness of his writing. I could've stayed late. I could have done a lot of things were it not for the second thing keeping me from progressing in math. In seventh grade in Virginia, we switched schools. So, my best friends from elementary school, who had no problem being buddies with the albino kid in sixth grade, suddenly had a whole new group of girls to try to impress. Hanging out with me wasn't cool and that year a few of my closest friends hung me out to dry. This rejection lead to daily migraines and severe depression at the uniqueness of my fate; but, time has taught me getting shitty treatment from seventh graders is actually pretty standard. As I grew older, I made new friends who didn't have albinism and I learned even they had a hard time in middle school. Maybe I should thank the assholes who ditched me or invited me to their parties just to make fun of me in front of their new friends. At least their rejection allowed me to have a conventionally painful developmental experience. It's probably why I'm so fucking well-adjusted today. What heroes they were for giving me the privilege of adversity! But they didn't feel like heroes at the time. They just felt like a bunch of jerks. And I felt like an idiotic piece of garbage who nobody would ever love, which I guess is just another way of saying I was in Seventh Grade. Math being a cumulative subject, these setbacks impacted my progress for the rest of my life. I'm still insanely good at math but I'll never add up to my full potential and in some ways my albinism is responsible.

Once I got to high school, all I cared about was money because I foolishly thought it brought happiness and friendship, so my career aspirations were on Wall Street for a long, long time. Then I went to college to study business and the classes were insanely easy. Plus, I realized all my classmates were the same superficial douches who had rejected me in seventh grade. I was more interested in pursuing writing, so I changed my major to English, which one could argue diminished my career prospects as much as my albinism. The Christmas after I graduated UVA, I still hadn't found steady work and my Mom was honestly suggesting I try my hand at being a mall Santa. (Sidebar: upon finishing that sentence I instantly regretted regretting every negative thought I've ever had about my Mother). Pursuing a career in the arts proved frustrating for a person who likes making money. About 18 months after September 11, 2001 when I was living in New York, wholly out of love, unable to sell either of the novels I'd written and with my writing career and personal life in worse shape than the Twin Towers, the US was invading Iraq and I figured the Army could use my services. So I went to an Army Recruiting Office in Manhattan. I was in great shape, college-educated and thought myself an ideal candidate for Officer Training School. But I was told my eyesight was too poor to serve in any capacity. I got blind drunk that night because I felt so useless but I realize now, had I gone into the Army at that time, I would've probably been one of those guys who offs himself in Basic. I'm probably not front lines material, so it's entirely possible my albinism saved my life in this instance.



For a a couple years after the failed attempt in the Army I worked for my Dad, which sounds like a Ben Folds song and made about as much sense as volunteering for the Army in a time of war. My Dad owns and runs a very successful landscape maintenance company in Northern Virginia, one of the biggest markets for commercial landscape maintenance in the country. They mow lawns, do flower installations and tree planting. They do snow removal in the winter and generally work to maintain the aesthetic of their properties, though neither my Dad nor anyone in any of his offices or on any of his many crews colloquially throws around the word “aesthetic.” (Or ''colloquially” for that matter). As he's the kind of guy who loves being outside, being active and focuses on appearance, this work is ideal for my Father. His career in landscape maintenance has been lucrative and rewarding for him. However, while I respect his entrepreneurial spirit, work ethic and I'm incredibly proud my Dad has built a multi-million dollar company up from nothing, the work is completely wrong for me as a person with albinism. Driving around looking at the performance of crews, assessing the visual appeal of flowerbeds isn't exactly ideal work for a person who is legally blind. Running a mowing crew, blowing leaves or digging a ditch in the hot sun isn't the kind of work a pale-skinned man who is easily sunburned ought to be performing. I did HR, administrative tasks, marketing and accounting in my time there, but it was not intellectually or creatively rewarding. Maybe it's arrogant to think a job needs to be those things, but I'm of the belief that if I'm going to spend 40-60 hours a week working on something, I ought to get more out of it than just a paycheck.



So, I went to graduate school and pursued work as a Screenwriter. In my career as a Screenwriter, my albinism has not been a factor which has limited my success, the erratic nature and competitiveness of the field has done that. The biggest frustration associated with being a person with albinism who is also a Screenwriter is that, despite the liberal and inclusive nature of Hollywood, my albinism isn't worth anything in the entertainment industry. See, there are many programs which seek to bring diverse and disabled writers to the fore. As a person who is both legally blind and has a condition which occurs in 1 in 10,000 Americans, one might assume I counted as both disabled and diverse because objectively speaking I am absolutely both. However, as far as these diverse hiring initiatives are concerned, I don't count as either. I even wrote a dynamite feature film script in which there are magical albino characters, hoping the many meetings I took off the script would spark a conversation about my albinism as diversity. But nobody I met with was smart enough to know I had albinism, they just thought I was from Norway. It seems my albinism can get me publicly ridiculed in a room full of strangers, make driving difficult (See: Driver/ Driver), prevent me from serving my country and keep me out of the family business, but in the one instance in which this burden I've carried my whole goddamn life might be able to help me, it's utterly worthless. Then again, maybe I should count my blessings, remember my happiness and success are no one's responsibility but my own and accept the fact no human being can participate in society without feeling at least a little marginalized.

Hungover on a Thursday on an LA City bus, I was doing some soul searching related to these Screenwriting frustrations when the opportunity to teach college presented itself in the form of an email from a former classmate and friend who needed me to over one Screenwriting course. I took the chance, expecting to only teach for three months. I've now been here over five years. As a Screenwriting and Media Studies Professor, I have found a profession in which my albinism is rarely, if ever, a setback. My only professorial grievances related to my albinism are that my disability and diversity don't count in academia the same way they don't count in Hollywood and I'm often confused with another professor who is 20 years older than me. But, on the whole, I'm not derided any more than your average college professor. And I always make sure to write really big on the board.

Further Reading: My Hollywood Romance