User Reviews

... And calling this girl a racist. She had to ask these questions because we live in a racist society and the color of her skin does matter.

I really like the commenter who called her a racist and black people are "privileged", while revealing her own racism. Yeah, it's people like her that forces a POC to have to question the color of their skin, including the little boy who wanted to see the color of her gums, the relatives who did see the color of her skin and wondered, the friends of the family members who questioned the color of her skin.

The other issue here is the quest that we all make to know who we are. Most kids at some point in their lives feel estranged from their families. We wish we had a twin to be closer to. We wonder if our parents are really our parents (I wondered if mine were shapeshifting aliens and tried to catch them in their alien shape out of the corner of my eye), we feel different from everyone else. It's called growing up.

Obviously, again, to the racist commenter who probably doesn't think she's racist - she got permission from mother to be on camera. Mom wasn't forced. Her marriage was already broken up and her child was asking perfectly normal questions and she decided to help her child with this short piece. It would be different if mom didn't appear on camera.

Again if the society of America wasn't so darn racist, this child may not have needed this quest, but I doubt it, because every child starts to feel alien during their development and have some alienation within their family, including children of affairs, children who just don't look like anyone else in the family, children who were adopted, and especially children whose existence is surrounded by secrets. She didn't question because she's a racist. She questioned because this world is racist.

Certainly everyone else around her were swirling with questions. Racists always want everyone to shutup and question nothing. Because, as they lie and claim, talking about it creates it. No it's already there, that's why it's being talked about.

The careful and awkward family responses indicate they damned well knew and questioned her paternity. Her friend who himself is biracial pretty much nailed whites' thinking when it comes to race, say nothing, pretend it doesn't exist. While the black students around her wanted her to talk about it.

BTW, I have two black parents and she and I could be sisters. I have hair mid back to waist length and black people have always known I was black, while depending on where I and my siblings live, we've been claimed by East Indians and Hispanics. The black girls knew she was black. They just wanted to know when she would come to that realization, because we know how we are perceived in this country will become who we are. When the racists stop being racist, we can then become whoever we want to be and race will no longer be a topic.

But until then...

Oh and we had a similar situation in our family. My unmarried aunt had an affair with a white man and lied to my cousin that her second dark-skinned husband was his father. Not until his wife sought out his father (who had died), but found his uncle and extended family did my cousin finally have peace of mind. All the adults had lied to him as he was growing up. It was only we kids who told him that it was obvious that pop wasn't really his dad and he was obviously half white,

Secrets do kill the human spirit.

The discomfort the viewer feels - a bit voyeuristic - echoes the discomfort Lacey feels throughout her entire life as the odd kid out, the darker skin kid. Until it was revealed that she was the daughter of a mixed race affair, the explanation of a distant recessive gene popping up actually seemed plausible. How many of us are mixed race and don't know it? Is it really that shocking? What put me off was her insistence on confronting her parents when this clearly disturbed her father who she claims to love. Once she found out who her biological father was, there was no real point in tormenting her real father, and yet she does so relentlessly. Consider her father the innocent and wronged party whose life was destroyed by his wife's betrayal. He's clearly stressed over discussing this and Lacey's insistence on it is cruel. In the end it solved nothing.

This poor girl could have been saved years of confusion and angst if her mother had just been honest with everyone around her. Instead everyone was a victim of her own self absorption and deception, and did not seem very remorseful about her actions or how it hurt and confused everyone around her.

I think Lacy made an interesting documentary about her experience of figuring out her identity and working through the pain and confusion of what she went through. It seems like she did her best to make her mom look as good as possible considering what she had done, but the mother is still clearly the "villain". Outside of her mother, Lacy clearly had a supportive family behind her which was nice to see.

She did seem a self absorbed in how she portrayed her "new" family by reiterating how little connection she felt towards them, while showing that they felt an immediate connection with her. Lacy did not show any interviews with her biological fathers family side which I think would have shed more light on the story, and possible commonality between her and her siblings.

All together, I think this was a fascinating story that shows how destructive selfishness and secrets can hurt a family.

Lacey Schwartz is a filmmaker inspired by confusion about her own origins. Her film draws a gently curved line from her birth in 1970s New York to her wedding. Along the way she discovers her true racial, ethnic, and genetic identity. She is a strong, creative, Black Jewish woman in America, who embraces her family, culture, and community.

I watched this film on PBS's Independent Lens. Many thanks to their team for bringing another great story to my TV.

I admire Ms. Schwartz's honesty and the care she takes in showing the mile markers along her journey. Some events are obviously painful or discouraging, but Lacey's integrity and kindness keep her family bound by love and understanding. She walks a fine line between being a daughter and a filmmaker with grace.

As a child of divorce, I particularly admire Ms. Schwartz's persistence to achieve an open understanding with her now divorced parents and their extended family, including her husband's own diverse family. Her wedding certainly was a joyous event and a very effective and affecting climax to the film.

Finally, after watching this film, I got a chance to think, "This is what America can be." And that makes me happy, because we all can draw strength from this film and its maker. Happy Martin Luther King Day 2016, America.

Very interesting story but I felt a little "cringe" listening to her describe why she came to identify as black after growing up in a "white world" - because being dark in a white world made her feel ugly but being light in a dark world she felt desirable. Comments about "good hair" and her friends and family that said they didn't think of her as "black" just Lacy goes to show how disconnected white people are. They don't see you as "black" if they "know" you...then oh you're not like the rest, you're just you, like that's a compliment. Insulting. There is a lot more they need to work on there but they are off to the right start.

Here's what I have to say about this amateur documentary: what was Lacey's message, if she had one? Why should anyone care? Why should anyone watch it? Most importantly did she at least pay her parents, especially her mother, for their participation considering she forced her mother to acknowledge her mother's infidelity publicly on camera for no good reason?

Would Lacey have had a story to tell if her biological father had been white? Embedded in the film is her answer - no. She is the only one in her family totally focused on her looks, especially her skin pigmentation. My mother was olive skinned with brown eyes while my father was light skinned with blue eyes. One of my sisters and I favor our father while another sister and our brother favor our mother. When we lived in Arizona as small children my brother tanned so dark that a passerby asked my mother if he was an adopted "Indian" boy. The incident was an amusing ice breaker my mother told to family and friends at gatherings.