“Be faithful to what you see, and not what you are supposed to see.”

The expression “Be faithful to what you see, and not what you are supposed to see” is a principle of attentive observation that Washington turns back on Titch as a measure of their relationship. Remembered during their later conversation, the advice exposes the distance between Titch’s words and his failure to recognize Washington as an individual rather than through the assumptions attached to his race.

The remembered lesson

Washington recalls that Titch gave him this counsel while he was drawing. Its imperative is not merely to look closely, but to resist substituting what one has been taught to expect for what is actually present. In the immediate context, drawing makes the advice a practical discipline of seeing; Washington’s recollection gives it a wider ethical charge.

Advice turned into accusation

Titch does not remember having said the words, and appears genuinely surprised when Washington repeats them. Washington answers that Titch may have spoken the principle, but never lived by it. The exchange turns a remembered lesson into a test: the speaker’s failure is not that he lacked a vocabulary for careful attention, but that his conduct contradicted it.

The failure to see Washington

Washington specifies what that contradiction meant. Titch wanted to see him, Washington says, but did not truly look at or see him; ultimately, Titch saw what every other white man saw when looking at Washington. The difference between wanting recognition and achieving it gives the expression its painful force. It is both a maxim about perception and an accusation that good intentions cannot overcome the inherited racial assumptions that shape a person’s gaze.