Loop, Whorl and Arch

Never Done: Got fingerprinted

I must have been fingerprinted before -- maybe in high school while studying forensics? Did we study forensics in high school? Do I remember anything we learned in high school? But I digress. And so quickly after starting this post! It was definitely the first time I had prints taken electronically, and I think it was the first time I had them taken outside of the classroom. Although I was arrested in college, and charged with illegal sale of alcohol to minors, but I wasn't printed. (It's a long story, and one that seems like it should be told in relation to another Never Done activity, not this one. If we get to the end of the project and I still haven't written about it, someone should remind me and I'll do it then.) Also, another digression: how can I write a post about fingerprinting without mentioning that my bestest friend in Portland is a fingerprint ID tech for the Police bureau. She's also a wonderful artist and crafts person who doesn't feel very bonded, shall we say, with the Portland Police bureau, and doesn't always like to say where she works. So I always encourage her to say she's a print maker. It's not a lie.

So I was fingerprinted. Electronically. For the adoption process. At a place called, ridiculously, L-1 Identity Solutions. Doesn't that sound like it's straight out of a Robert Ludlum novel? Their website says "With the trust and confidence in individual identities provided by L-1, governments and businesses around the world are better protecting the public against terrorism, crime, and theft fostered by fraudulent ID." Great. Just great. I do understand why New York State wants to find out if I have a criminal record, if they re going to entrust a child to me, and I can scarcely imagine another bureaucratic situation in which I'd feel as relaxed and positive about getting fingerprinted.

But here's the thing. It wasn't all positive. Josh and I arrived at 9:30, when we had an appointment, and were greeted by a smiling young black woman. Before she got a chance to ask us anything, her boss (a white guy) asked us our last names, and when he didn't find us in the computer, he asked us if we were being printed with ink or electronically. We had no idea, so he asked to see our paperwork. We showed it to him, and he still couldn't find us in the computer, but could see that we needed electronic printing, and told us to go sit in a row of chairs. We went over, and I smiled and said good morning to an Asian woman who was sitting there waiting. (In case you are wondering, there is a reason I am identifying everyone by race.) Within 30 seconds -- literally before I had a chance to sit down, he called us over to get printed. First me, and then Josh -- with two different women -- a Latina and an African American. He told me to sit down and pointed to a chair at a desk, so I sat there. When the woman came over to print me, she asked me to move to the other chair -- I was in hers. I apologized as I moved, and she said kindly, "It's just a chair." My printing went mostly fine. The machine kept rejecting my prints, and she had to press my fingers down harder on the glass before the machine would accept them. But she got them all, handed me a receipt, and told me that was all.

But I was holding two forms that needed the signature and date of the person who printed me, and so I handed them to her, and asked her to sign them. She froze, and again showed me the receipt, and told me it was all I needed. By now, I'd seen her boss blustering around the office, annoyed and everywhere. Most noticeably, I had heard him yelling at the Asian woman who was waiting when we arrived. "Your name is not in the computer. Do you understand me? Am I not clear?" "Yes, she replied." "You don't have to talk loud just because your name is not in the computer!" In case you were wondering, he was the one talking loud. And also, remember how he treated me and Josh when we weren't in the computer? "Come on in! Have a chair! We'll be right with you!"

So when my fingerprinter told me I needed to ask him about the form, I imagined it was going to cause another blustery show. But instead, he looked at the form, and told her that yes, this was a new thing they had to do, and to please sign it.

Just then, 18 (I counted) Asian people came in. The boss got agitated started telling people to be orderly, get in line, and wait their turn. (They were actually already doing all those things.) And then he turned to me with a big smile and said, "You got here just in time." I felt pulled in two distinct directions. I wanted to leave, to get the hell away from him, to get on with my day, and to get back to work, because that is after all why I had scheduled the earliest possible appointment. At the same time, I wanted to stay, to try to be a more positive force for this group of people who I expected were about to have a much less welcoming experience than I had just had. And this, I believe is, the heart of the Mussar practice -- how do we balance out conflicting concerns? Our material concerns (get to work) with our spiritual concerns (care for others, interrupt racism)? The yetzer hore vs the yetzer tov. How often do we stop to notice these conflicting concerns? Sometimes it's super complicated to figure out, but in this situation, it didn't take me long to notice that I was probably not the best person for the job -- that there were three kind women of color who worked there, who were already treating this group of people thoughtfully and professionally. In fact, things would probably go quite weirdly if I would stick around once my appointment was over. So I gathered up my papers, and my two forms of ID, and my big down coat, and I thanked my printer, and I excused myself for breaking through the line, and I left Identity Solutions, with a little bit more trust and confidence in my own individual identity than I had going in.

And one step further through the adoption process (yet still pretty close to the beginning.)