Face Tattoo as a Corporeal Marker: by The Village Idiots

For our group’s corporeal marker, we decided to draw on face tattoos and wear them around.  Specifically, we each wore a teardrop tattoo, which is symbolic on the streets for having killed someone, or having spent time in prison.  We figured that by doing this, we could comment on the disproportionate ways in which we interact with people of certain races and classes.  We had a difficult time deciding what we wanted to do because it seemed like everything could be seen as offensive. We decided to do something simple but also noticeable. We wore our face tattoos in several places on and off campus including work, class, Alden, Court Street, Walmart, and Joann Fabrics.  The process yielded interesting results.

Evan’s “Individual journal”

For me, this social experiment was certainly an interesting one.  Having grown up with a permanent mark on the right side of my face, I felt a sense of affinity with the idea of gauging people’s reactions to a face that looks unconventional. As a child, I never noticed other kids with moles on their faces, and that bothered me. Although I was young, I still distinctly remember the mole on my face as being my first insecurity.  I only found respite from feeling insecure while I at home, where I knew my family was not judging me for my physical appearance.

In light of this ‘face tattoo’ experiment, I was reminded of the days when I viewed the mole on my face as bad.  A friend who lives on West Green painted the fake teardrops onto the corner of my left eye.  Within her dorm, I felt comfortable wearing the mark, because the premise for wearing it had been established beforehand.  She didn’t treat me or look at me any differently after painting my face, and I began to forget that the mark was even there.  It was not uncomfortable on my skin, and I could not see it without looking in a mirror, so the fact that it was on my face began to fade into the back of my mind.  I left her dorm shortly thereafter, and began to walk through campus to get home.  Within minutes of leaving her dorm, I noticed people taking long, puzzled looks at me, and I began to feel awkward. I pulled out my phone to use the front-facing camera so that I could remind myself of what I looked like with the mark, but my phone died.  At this point, I had no choice but to walk home without any way to disengage from the situation in front of me.  The walk took about 20 minutes.  I walked past Baker Center, Clippinger, Morton, and the Nelson Dining hall.  Throughout the walk, I experienced stares, confused looks, and people who were deliberately avoiding eye contact.  Over space, the reactions of individuals varied.  Students living in the dorms I walked by would stare for uncomfortably long periods of time.  While walking on the main path that connects Baker Center to Clippinger and South Green, both students and university staff made intentional efforts to avoid eye contact.  The farther I walked, the greater my anticipation grew to be back in the confines of my own home space, where I knew I would not receive judgement for my appearance.  Finally, I began to get close to home.  While walking past the mailroom of my apartment complex, a River Park employee did a silent, subtle double take when we crossed paths.  He was a large, older, bearded man, with a stern look on his face. His silence spoke magnitudes.  If only I could have heard the thoughts in his mind.  Did he associate the mark on my face with my race?  Did he think I belong there? Did my presence make him uncomfortable?  All the possibilities were rushing through my head, and although I was just steps from walking into my home space, my face tattoo made me feel out of place, or as if I had entered a spatial boundary in which I did not belong.

At home, I repeatedly forgot that I was wearing the face tattoo, until I eventually looked into a mirror and was reminded again.  Since I live alone, I felt absolutely no judgement about the mark on my face.  While at home, I reflected on my initial trial of wearing the face tattoo in public.  My expectations in terms of reactions from strangers were roughly what ended up happening.  Some people stared, while others briefly acknowledged and awkwardly stared at the concrete.  

Afterward, I met with the rest of my face tattoo group in Alden.  Wearing my face tattoos around my classmates made me feel better about the situation.  Conversely to when I felt like an outsider due to the mole on my face, I now suddenly felt that I belonged to a group, because we looked the same, and were together in the same place.  At this point in the experiment, I was no longer seen as a black kid by himself with a face tattoo.  Now, I could be grouped in with three other people – the four of us collectively varying across race and gender. We exchanged our personal experiences, and noticed that the odd treatment was continuing.  Someone in the booth next to us was curious enough to strike up a conversation.  She explained that she saw my mark first, and assumed it was a birthmark; She didn’t want to ask me because she thought it might be rude.  However, once she noticed the marks on Vanessa, Helaine, and Sophia’s faces, she broke the silence on her confusedness.  As a group, we explained to her the purpose of our project, and we thanked her for her engagement.

Ultimately, I gained a lot from this experience.  It forced me to exist within a framework that perpetuates negative stereotypes about African Americans from the lenses of both race and class, while at the same time introducing a foreign symbol into the spatial boundary of our campus.  While many college students are unfamiliar with the meaning of a teardrop tattoo, there are certainly multitudes of people in prisons and impoverished communities who are very aware of what the tattoo signifies.

Sophia’s “Individual Journal”    

1. I first wore my corporeal marker to was my job at Jefferson Market. I work as a barista at the front entrance so I am the first face you see when you enter and we are supposed to greet people when they arrive and wish them a good day when we leave. The shift I work is not usually that busy and I work with the same people every shift. As soon as I got to work I could tell people started noticing the fake tattoo on my face. I walked to the back to clock in and no one said anything but I could tell people I did not know were staring at me, I really noticed a spatial boundary here. I do not really like being the center of attention so I felt a little embarrassed but I tried not to notice. Once I got to the café portion, I could hear my coworkers snicker and then they asked what I was doing. I think this created a lack of a boundary because they knew me well enough to ask what I was doing. The tattoo was not super large but I drew a teardrop under my eye so it was definitely noticeable. I explained that I was doing a project for class and I was supposed to take account of others reactions. The day went on as normal but once my boss noticed that I had something drawn on my face she did not respond as kindly as my other coworkers. She immediately asked what I had on my face, what it was for, and then asked me to take it off. Her reasoning was that no one would take me seriously and that it would make the marketplace look bad. I thought it was interesting that she responded so severely because this is supposed to be a place for students to work, regardless of their appearance. Culinary service jobs are some of the easiest positions to acquire on campus and it made me wonder what her response would have been when I was first applying.

2. The second notable place I wore my corporeal marker was to Joann Fabrics on east State Street. I was only there to buy an orange sweatshirt for my Halloween costume and I could not find any. At retail stores, I usually feel bombarded by the employees constantly asking if they can help me find anything but this time I was not asked once. There were not that many employees on the floor but by the few that were, I did not receive any help. I was somewhat alright with this because I did feel slightly uncomfortable but I ended up spending a lot of time in the store because I was not helped by any employees. The store was not super busy and the people that were in there were college kids. I did get a few weird looks from people and I could tell that people were staring but I tried not to make a big deal out of it. The employee who ended up checking me out was a younger woman and her reaction seemed normal enough but she definitely chuckled when I first came up to the counter. Joann’s is a store that I associate with older women and perhaps if I had an older employee checking me out the reaction would have been different.

3. When I was by myself wearing our corporeal marker I felt slightly out of place, but not many people even commented on it. There is a certain stigma associated with teardrop tattoos and face tattoos in general. I feel like most people who noticed did not assume I was in a gang or that I had committed any serious crimes. This is most likely because of my race and gender, teardrop tattoos are usually present with other groups of people rather than small white women. Some people who I knew commented on it because they knew it was something different but I did not expect strangers to ask. When we were working in a group however, more people stopped and stared for longer. One girl who was sitting behind us even asked us about it. She said she first thought it was a birthmark but then once she realized we all had it she decided to ask about it. She even said “I assumed none of you killed someone”. This could be related to our class because while we may not outwardly be wealthy, we all are privileged enough to attend university.

Helaine’s “Individual Journal”

1. While walking down the street after leaving my apartment, one of my neighbors stared at me for longer than I expected, then he pointed at me and said to the guy standing next to him, “Is that a teardrop tattoo?” Then they both looked at me, and that’s when I just said “It’s for a project, long story.” They still seemed more confused than anything else. I felt odd because it is rare for me to stand out and I usually blend in with everyone around me. While walking along the street, there was a little kid who pointed at me loudly asked his mom what was on my face. Everyone’s eyes lingered on me for longer than normal, and I do not like people staring at me, so it made me feel a little uncomfortable. I also saw one of my friends and she jokingly asked me if I had killed someone. This made me become more aware of how noticeable the tattoo really was because I thought that some people may have just been glancing in my general direction and not just looking at the teardrop. Simply walking down the street became a new experience because I normally do not feel at all out of place, but this tattoo negatively set me apart from everyone else in Athens, which is something I have never really experienced.

2.The other time that really stood out was when I was in Walmart and I noticed that multiple people were giving me rather strange looks. There was one woman who gave me more of an intimidating look and then deliberately turned around and walked away from me. However, I was under the impression that she was more annoyed at the teardrop tattoo, as if she thought I was trying to be edgy by drawing a gang symbol on my face. A lot of the people there were other students and they did not seem to have any reaction to my tattoo at all, and it’s likely that if there were more families or older people present, it’s possible that I could have been subjected to a more alienation. I was moving around Walmart rather quickly, and I was just buying gatorade and crackers, so I’m not sure if any other people noticed or even cared. Walmart is also known for attracting odd types of people, so there were people there who looked even more out of place than I did with a fake teardrop tattoo.  

Teardrop tattoos are commonly associated with people who commit crimes and can pose a threat to the safety of others. Although, I did receive many strange looks and double takes during the time I had this teardrop, I never really got the sense that anybody felt threatened by me. If anything, they appeared to be either perplexed or annoyed. I feel like this mild reaction was precipitated by a combination of my gender, race, age, and location. As a physically small female, it’s uncommon for anyone to feel inherently unsafe around me, men can intimidate women, but women don’t tend to intimidate men or other women. My race is also not perceived and portrayed as being associated with crime and gang-related activity. All of this took place in a relatively safe area. Athens is a college town and I’m sure that many people assumed I was a student. Due to the cost of college, this tends to indicate that I’m from a middle class family. These factors probably led to other people perceiving me as not posing any type of threat.

Vanessa’s “Individual Journal”

One place I wore my corporeal marker was to my job at the Office of Sustainability. I definitely felt out of place in an office setting, especially since they want us to dress more professionally there. My bosses had more of a reaction to my face tattoo than the grad students in the office. I was honestly surprised at my boss, Annie Laurie’s, reaction. She pulled me aside and asked about my emotional well-being. She knows that people get tear drop face tattoos to represent they witnessed or committed a murder. She didn’t think I killed someone, but she was worried I witnessed something awful. She wanted to make sure I was emotionally okay. The 2 grad students didn’t say much except for that they thought it was weird and they knew it had to be for a project.

Another place I wore the marker was walking to and from class. I ran into some of my friends and I could tell they were staring at my face tattoo the whole time, but didn’t want to hurt my feelings by saying anything. My friend Hannah finally said, “When did you get a freckle under your eye?” She knew it wasn’t a freckle but that was her way of asking about it. Although my friends still talked to me, there was a spatial boundary. They were reserved while talking to me. Even something as minor as a mark on my face that was out of the norm cause them to feel uneasy and not know how to approach me or have a conversation about the marker. Even though they tried to ignore it, they couldn’t help but to stare and be distracted by it.

iii. When I was with my group, people were staring at us, but once they realized we all had face tattoos they were quick to come up to us and ask about it. Since it is unlikely any of us are gang affiliated, people weren’t threatened, just confused. However, when I was alone people just stared at me. Even if people were talking to me for an extended amount of time and noticed the marker they didn’t want to ask about it. I had to bring it up to them in order for them to start talking about their thoughts and feelings towards it. Being in a group probably made people more comfortable to ask because they didn’t feel like they were singling me out.

Collective Thoughts and Reflections

iv. As a group, we talked about if we were marked with something we couldn’t change or choose, and concluded we would navigate public spaces much differently. We would be more aware of where we were going and what was accepted behavior in that space. For example, we all felt more uncomfortable wearing the marker in class than we did going to out on Court Street or Walmart. McDowell states, “… The ways in which bodies are presented to and seen by others vary according to the spaces and places in which they find themselves” (34.) Having visible tattoos is more acceptable when you are at a bar or in the general public, but class is a place of higher education. There is a certain level of professionalism we need to uphold while there and tattoos directly conflict with professionalism. We all thought the marker effected how the community and even our friends interacted with us, mostly because they were confused. However, people to act differently when they are faced with something that isn’t “normal.”

v. The corporeal marker we choose to wear is often used to identify murderers and gang members. However, since we are college kids in Athens, Ohio it is extremely unlikely any of us committed a murder or are part of a gang. If we were to wear this marker in an area that has heavy crime and gang activity, it is possible that we would be subjected to harassment and legal consequences. Some members of the community might avoid us and others may threaten us with violence. If our markers were in a more realistic setting and we were associated with a gang, our mobility could be restricted due to territorial disputes between other gangs. We would also be subjected to the harsh judgment from law enforcement and employers. The place we did this experiment has a lot to do with how it was perceived. Forest explains that, “Place continues to have normative importance, that is, it continues to play a role in the moral evolution in ways of life” (135.) This supports the idea that certain places are associated with different types of feeling and behaviors and the people who live there are perceived to embody these concepts and morals.