¶ … White Lies," Natasha Trethewey writes about the race and identity conflict. Believing black to be inferior to white, the narrator of the poem lies about who she is and where she comes from. Trethewey uses the figure of speech "white lies" to refer to the relatively harmless nature of her fibbing. However, the phrase "white lies" also serves as a potent play on words. They are "white lies" because they are lies that help the narrator conform to the dominant white culture. Her "white lie" is her pretending to be white -- her ability to pass as white. In this sense, those lies were not as harmless as a young girl might believe. Her mother, ironically, washes her mouth out with "Ivory soap." Even the soap they wash with bears the mark of racial superiority, and thus becomes a political object. The symbolism of whiteness permeates Trethewey's poem, as whiteness is equated with the dominant culture.

When the narrator's friend buys the white lie, Trethewey uses a poignant phrase: "Keep quiet, quiet as kept." By keeping quiet, the narrator pretends to be white. She does not protest when her friend includes her in the white privileged clique. The phrase "quiet as kept" refers to the subordinate position of domestic slaves, who were not permitted to speak as equals with their masters. This eerie imagery is used to underscore the close connection between race and class in America. Whites are the dominant culture and the possessors of wealth and political power. Ivory soap is not just a symbolically white soap; the company itself is a white-owned company. Likewise, the narrator claims that she would lie about where her dress was from and even where her family lived. In fact, her dresses were made at home and she lived in a colorful "pink and green" house "along the tracks." In other words, she grew up a poor woman of color and it was her personal shame that led her to tell "white lies."