Sync and corrections by explosiveskull www.addic7ed.com
And the weather, I mean,
I think it's gonna hold off, but...
Wanna get started? People are gonna be coming in.
Okay, cool.
For a long time, I didn't want to get married.
- Whoo! - Yay!
I felt like I couldn't create a new family
until I came to terms with what happened to my own.
I come from a long line of New York Jews.
I'm the great granddaughter of Eastern European immigrants
who brought their culture and traditions to Brooklyn.
The daughter of a nice Jewish girl
and a nice Jewish boy.
I grew up in a world of synagogue,
Hebrew school, bar mitzvahs.
My family knew who they were.
And they defined who I was.
So it never occurred to me that I was passing.
I wasn't pretending to be something I wasn't.
I actually grew up believing I was white.
See, we're real Jews.
Ha, ha. This proves it.
I'll show you. These are my grandparents.
This is Uncle Lou.
And he's the one I'm named after.
Lou Lacey.
He died at my mother's wedding.
He had a heart attack in the bathroom
and somehow know that they got him out.
She didn't know he had died
until she got back from her honeymoon.
Even though he died at her wedding.
So that's who I'm named after.
Give him a rock.
Sometimes I wonder who I would be,
if none of this had ever happened.
If I was still this nice, white Jewish girl.
from Woodstock, New York.
What would've been different in my life.
When Lacey was a little girl,
we lived a comfortable life.
We lived, almost,
a picture perfect kind of life for a while.
So when Lacey decided she was going to tell the story,
I was a little nervous about it.
Lacey, I cannot start without you.
Coming.
It's not too bad.
I'm waiting.
Oh!
Wait until you see what I just found.
- What? - My wedding shoes.
What's in there? Anything I don't wanna know about?
Look at the size of these feet.
How did that happen? Ha, ha.
Put your feet in.
Lacey, there is no way on Earth...
Let's try the left foot.
Oh, happy times
They would never...
- Did you love them? - I loved them.
How did you feel on your wedding day?
I felt excited.
- Did you? - Mm-hm.
Tell me more.
I started going out with daddy
when I was 16 years old.
Daddy was the man I was supposed to be with.
Daddy was the person I grew up with.
Daddy was all that.
So tell me about meeting mommy.
I was, uh, supervisor of the Lake and Day camp.
And I had this bevy of gorgeous young teenage girls
under my supervision.
Including mommy.
So I just started dating them one at a time.
And then when I got to mommy we stuck together.
Grandma decided
that this guy would be the perfect match for me.
Grandma loved his brown eyes and his eyelashes.
When we went back to Brooklyn
after the summer was over,
it turns out she lived in the neighborhood
maybe half a mile away.
We just started going out.
But it was fun. We had fun.
It was nearby, it was a neighborhood romance.
Everybody saw a stable and long-lasting couple.
I was programmed to marry him.
What do you mean?
He was the path.
I went to a city school.
I became a teacher.
I got married to a nice Jewish guy.
That's the way it was.
It's just I've been...
That's what I'm doing, I'm getting married.
And I'm getting married to this guy.
You just didn't think outside the box.
We didn't.
And sometimes it was easier that way.
1972, Robert and I moved to upstate New York.
It was just Robert and me until 1977.
Then Lacey was born.
My mother was in labor for 36 hours
before the doctor finally performed a caesarean.
I saw you first.
And there you are.
I was so absolutely happy.
You know, I was an uncle.
I do remember seeing you for the first time.
Up at the hospital, in the nursery.
And I remember your dad being very proud
of the beautiful baby he had.
And I remember
you had a kind of, uh, yellowish tinge.
You did look a little different.
But, uh, you know, it was just how you looked.
One day I went to nursery school
and there was this little blond kid
who seemed obsessed with how I looked.
And he said to me, "Show me the color of your gums."
And I just showed him my gums, I was like:
That's the earliest memory I have of feeling different.
It was embarrassing to be singled out.
And it made me feel ugly.
When I told my parents what had happened
my father pulled out an old photo album
and told me I took after his great grandfather
who was Sicilian.
And I saw pictures and I said,
"Oh, Lacey looks like Robert's grandfather."
I just sort of believed what we were told,
that somewhere, I don't know, in your family history
there was some explanation for it.
You know, the picture of the...
Sort of like, large looking, ha, ha...
I don't even know what we were told he was.
I believed it.
I believed I was white.
We had a reason right there, in our family tree,
of why I looked the way I did.
Ready? She can hit.
Go.
Watch it, here he comes. Get him, get him.
Get him! Get him!
So even though I knew
that there was something different about me
I didn't want to admit it.
I'd find ways to reassure myself.
I would tell myself
my dad gets really tan in the summer time,
my mom's hair is really curly just like mine.
And I would find ways to make it seem like,
you know what, I really was just like my parents.
Show us how you can stand on your side.
- What? - Show us that trick.
Oh, great.
- Ha, ha. - Oh, that's terrific.
How do you do that?
Try to hold the camera steady.
So it looks like I'm not too drunk.
Over there you have Peggy in her sweat clothes.
My new motto:
Late to bed, early to rise makes a woman extremely ugly.
- Ha, ha. - Ha, ha.
The diary my parents gave me on my 11th birthday
makes it pretty clear I was feeling insecure.
And school only made it worse.
All the girls in my class have long straight hair.
I didn't. And I hated it.
I couldn't do anything about my skin,
but my hair was a different story.
Does this look good?
Yes, it does.
I'm just making it a little flatter.
Let's see a little happiness. Here we go.
- Walk this way. - Oh, my gosh.
Oh, that's sweet. I'm so proud of her.
So proud of her, you have no idea.
Today's the day. We did it.
Except for that one conversation
about my great grandfather,
my parents and I never talked about it again.
This is a movie camera, Marty.
It's a movie camera. I didn't know that.
I have never stood so still. Okay.
Tell Marty to stop cutting.
At my bar mitzvah,
a member of the synagogue
came up to me and my mother and said,
"It's so nice to have an Ethiopian Jew
in our presence."
My mother said nothing.
So I corrected the woman
and explained that I wasn't Ethiopian.
But when she walked away,
I remember feeling alone.
I haven't been in Woodstock for so long.
- Hi. - Ha, ha.
Everything is exactly the same here.
I mean, these guys were here when I was in high school.
These two are really feeling it too.
This is authentic...
Woodstock is a pretty liberal community.
But there weren't that many black people in Woodstock.
Lacey's friends when she was a child,
those were all white kids.
There were no black kids in my elementary school. None.
It was a white world where race didn't exist for us.
It wasn't really talked about.
So I didn't really think anything about race.
Lacey is getting ready for her prom.
Fussing as ever.
One, two, three.
Big smile, big smile.
But when I got to high school,
it wasn't so easy to ignore.
This is one cafeteria.
And there, in that room...
And this is another.
This room is like stuck in 1996 and it cannot get out.
It looks exactly the same.
I went to high school in Kingston.
One town over from Woodstock and much more diverse.
Like in high schools everywhere,
the kids found ways to segregate themselves.
Jocks together, artsy types together.
Cheerleaders together.
High school was really the first time in my life
that I even crossed path with black people.
In the hallways, the black kids would stare at me
when I walked past them.
It was weird.
At first I actually thought
they looked at all white people that way.
But then I realized, it was me.
The black girls would stop me in the hallway
and say, "What are you?"
You know, I was offending them.
And I would just tell them that I was white.
That I was...
You know, looks like my great grandfather was dark skinned.
I would tell them I was Jewish.
And the black girls in school would be like,
"Well, you have to work some stuff out
if you think that, you know, you're completely white.
People definitely asked you.
Are you black or white? Why are you trying to be white?
What those girls didn't seem to understand was,
I wasn't trying to be white, I was white.
Everyone in my life had always let me think so.
I remember specific situations where I'll be like,
"Oh, I'm gonna hang out with my friend Lacey."
And they would be like, "Oh, Lacey, is she adopted?"
And my friend's being like, "I mean, clearly she's black."
And I would be like, "No, no, no, she's white."
I always looked at you like...
You looked black, ha, ha, right?
But not that you were, I guess.
You know, it's like you were my best friend.
You looked like you were black, but I knew both of your parents.
I knew, you know...
To me, you're just like a Jewish kid who...
I don't know.
Clearly you weren't the same as us.
But it was, uh, like a touchy subject.
Like...
I don't know, like...
Something that was never really comfortable.
I don't know if people knew it, or sensed it, or whatever.
It just seems like this 600-pound-gorilla in the room
and to kind of just refuse to see it.
If you look too closely at it,
it didn't make any sense.
So we didn't look.
We found ways to see what we wanted to believe.
Meanwhile, at home,
my parents' marriage started to unravel.
At times, they seemed like peas in a pod.
Other times, I remember feeling uncomfortable.
They would argue and argue openly.
Their relationship was better than most
on the surface.
I don't think I found out that she wasn't all that happy
until years later.
We did get along for a while
and then we didn't anymore and...
And became not married.
I think what I remember the most clearly
around that time
was how your mother
seemed literally to go to pieces.
She really fell apart.
When my father packed up and left,
like most kids, I thought the whole thing was my fault.
But I was afraid to ask.
My father was mad at my mother and mad at the world.
And it even seems like he was mad at me.
- Daddy? - What?
When I was little we had always been really close.
Now I felt abandoned and rejected by him.
Any time I tried to talk to him about it,
he either freaked out or ignored me.
And I didn't understand why.
You know, I had such a strong sense,
when my parents were together, of who I was.
I was their daughter, and when they split up,
I didn't really feel like I knew who I was.
Then I met Matt.
Hi.
- How are you? - I'm good.
- This is a cool place. - Thank you.
Can I see the rest of your apartment?
Uh, yes.
That is the sometimes office that is getting rearranged.
Matt's father is black.
And his mother is white.
In high school, when we went out,
people would ask if we were brother and sister.
And for the first time
I started to doubt my parent's story
about my dark-skinned Italian ancestor.
I have such a profound memory
of looking at your family pictures
and being like,
"Come on, this is..."
Like, you had the pictures coming back from Jamaica...
With the braids.
And you get so dark.
But how absurd it read to me,
even as, you know, 16 years old or something like that.
I wasn't like a man of the world or anything.
Your family...?
Your cousins and stuff, and everyone was...?
Even the adults?
They heard the story and they went with it.
White people will think anything.
- Ha, ha. - Crazy things.
I know life can go for a long time.
You'd just be like, "Wow."
You know, because for me,
I was relatively subconscious at that time.
I think that's how race goes...
It became clear that there was this denial.
I remember being so struck by it.
By the weight of...
...that type, those types of secrets
and it was a couple of years before we even talked about it.
Hello.
Matt really wanted me to think about it.
He hounded me about it.
He pushed me.
And I pushed back.
"I can deal with this now," I would say.
My parents were in the middle of a divorce.
But deep down, his questions were getting to me.
When it came time to apply to college,
I decided I wanted to go to Georgetown.
On their application I had to check a box.
And the only box I had ever known was white.
I didn't know what any of the others even meant for me.
So I just didn't check anything.
Georgetown required you to send in a picture,
and based off a photograph,
I was admitted to college as a black student.
That moment when Georgetown said you're black,
it was a moment that...
It was like they gave me permission
to start entertaining the idea myself.
So when I got invited
to the Black Student Alliance meeting, I went.
And I kept on going.
All through college and on until law school.
My name is Samuel, I'm from Ethiopia.
I'm Isiah. I'm, uh, 32.
My name is Jelani Jefferson.
I'm from New Orleans.
My name's Lacey Schwartz
and I'm from Woodstock, New York.
I graduated from the University of Alabama in Birmingham.
And just like that
I was welcomed to the black community.
Just because of one photo.
Not unlike the photo of my great grandfather,
who 18 years earlier had made me white.
It all seemed a little too easy.
But at that point, I was ready to try on a new identity.
There are different narratives of racial identity
and people come with different assumptions
about what is to be a black person.
The university was like Race 101.
A crash course for a white person
on what it means to be black.
I have always taken it for granted
that what I've accomplished
was seen as a product of my own hard work.
But I soon realized that my black friends felt
they had to work harder to prove they deserve their success.
White people don't spend a whole lot of time
thinking about their whiteness.
But for black people, blackness is everywhere.
It was in the comics my friends referenced.
The music being blasted in their dorm rooms.
And the smack they were talking while playing cards.
There were moments in the beginning
where I would walk into all these black spaces.
And I would think, how am I gonna fit in?
Or what it's gonna be like?
You know, would I dance in the right way?
And would I say the right things?
But they didn't know all about the fact
that I had grown up and only known other white kids.
As it turned out, hanging out with black people
have put a lot of my insecurities to rest.
The dark skin I always worried about,
was light skin to them.
And my bad hair became good hair.
My black friends looked at me and saw another black person.
Feeling like an outsider was something they could relate to.
And it didn't seem like a coincidence to me.
For the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged.
And somehow I just knew that black was who I was.
Of course that meant
that there was something my parents weren't telling me.
And I had no idea how to ask them about it.
That's when I went to therapy.
I was taking a film class at the time,
and decided to tape my sessions.
So I don't know where you want to begin.
Well, I don't know.
Because it's an unspoken thing.
Like there's a part of me that...
I feel like it's a charade.
One of the reasons
why you wanted to come and see me was that I've had...
Not an expertise in secrets, but I did specialize in that.
Secrets create problems.
I do lose focus but... I feel like an outsider.
I can't really tolerate, like,
putting myself to the side anymore.
I feel like things are becoming so difficult.
I feel just like...
- I am physically exhausted. - Exhausting.
But I am here
to help you have this conversation.
That you think you're getting some answers.
I came home from my freshman year in college
and I decided that I was gonna ask my mother
why I looked the way I did.
Lacey came to me and said, "We have to talk."
It was like, "Oh, no."
I'm scared.
She initially didn't wanted to talk to me about it.
She told me she couldn't do it at that time.
She had to do something else first.
My reaction was,
"Please make her be quiet, make her stop for a while."
And I told her I had to talk about it.
I wanted to talk about why I looked the way I did.
Lacey would ask, "How come you never talked to me about it?
How come nobody ever talked to me about it?"
And I said to her, "Mommy, you have to tell me."
"How come nobody saw that I was different?
How come nobody thought enough to come to me
and say I know the truth."
And for whatever reason, I decided that was the moment.
She was pinning me.
She wasn't letting me go.
So she sat me down and she said,
"The truth is, I had an affair with Rodney.
And there's a good chance
that he's your biological father."
I had known Rodney for as long as I can remember.
My mom had met him when she was 21
and working at a city playground back in Brooklyn.
Rodney was the king of that park.
And when someone wrote a book about it,
he became a kind of celebrity.
Forty-year-old Rodney Parker
has helped a few realize their dreams of becoming pros.
He does promotional work in city parks
for a sneaker company
but on the side works as a freelance scout.
Apparently for no pay.
Jim McMillian, forward of the New York Knicks,
is his most noted discovery.
Players I help are basically the underground players,
the players that nobody really looks at.
The kid that's playing in the playground
who might have more skill than the other kid
playing in the playground.
As a child, as far as I knew,
Rodney was a ticket scalper.
So he usually showed up
when my mom and I would go into the city
for a show or a concert.
A couple of times, he even got me and my mom
and my dad, tickets to a Knicks game.
I thought he was, uh, a close friend of your mom's.
I knew about the park.
And I knew when I was desperate for a ticket,
like to the Dylan 25 year reunion at the Garden,
Rodney was the man.
You remember meeting Rodney for the first time?
Tell me about meeting Rodney for the first time.
Your mom and I had gone to the city to...
Shopping.
And we were crossing 34th street and your mom said,
"Oh, there's my friend Rodney."
Now, of course, afterwards I knew
that every time we ever ran into Rodney
it wasn't like, "There's my friend Rodney."
It was that she had been talking to him and she said,
"We would be on 34th street at 2:07."
But at that moment it seemed very co...
"Oh, there's my friend Rodney."
I remember driving home that day on the FDR
and asking your mom,
"Did you have an affair with Rodney?"
And she said no.
But when I met Rodney
I said to myself,
"Okay, I get it."
That's really who Lacey looks like.
I really didn't know what to think.
There was a large part of me that was really relieved.
That felt like I finally knew the truth.
But then I didn't know what else to say.
It really is the power of denial.
How the hell did you not...?
Or, not you.
But how did anybody, sort of, not acknowledge this.
How do you have a daughter with another man
who clearly doesn't look like anybody in the family.
She has the remarkable ability to look away from things
and therefore, they don't happen.
They don't exist, they are not real.
I remember sitting at the table,
at some family function with Rodney and your mother.
And it being so apparent that this was your father.
For my eyes, you know, I mean, it just seems so clear.
And I remember your father talking about
how he had drank a lot the night before
and Rodney couldn't believe that he went out for a run
that morning.
- I'm like... - Ha-ha-ha.
Dude, that's what you couldn't believe?
That was so weird. Ha, ha.
That was as bad as blatantly throwing it in people's faces
as you could do, and having people look away.
My mom had been lying to me and everyone else
for my entire life.
It seemed pretty obvious to me
the affair had to be a factor in my parent's divorce.
I was so angry with her I could barely speak to her.
I couldn't wait to get back to school.
Now that I knew that I had a black parent,
that I was actually black,
I wasn't sure what to do
with the part of myself that was white.
- Hi. - Hi.
- Ha, ha. - Happy birthday.
- Hi. - Hi.
Do you want it up...?
I really like steam my hair like once a year.
It works and it's good for bangs.
Oh, really? More money for travel.
Yeah, I know, I know.
- Um... - Let me ask you a question.
Is being biracial, half black, half white,
a category of being black?
- Like I think of it... - Definitely.
- Yeah. - I think of it that way.
Like everybody is black.
Is being mixed is a category of being black,
being mixed to me is not a category of being white.
It's so funny, because you know the whole one drop rule, right?
It's like one drop of black blood you're black.
So there's all these people
who we accept...
Like Tiger and his cabalasian self, you know.
We're like, "Yeah, we're claiming that."
And so it's just...
It is an inclusive...
It's beyond race to me.
Even when I was in India recently.
It's kind of brown people, you know,
because after there were no black people
the Indian girl looked cool.
I was like, "Hey, girl."
Ha, ha. Some brown in the building.
It's a common connection with, um...
Sort of being the underdog in some way,
not being accepted.
And really walking into a room of people, like, I accept you.
For me, you know, I grew up my whole life
with people constantly asking me why I look the way I did.
And maybe I identified as being black.
So, because I...
Wanted to be part of the black community.
- Yeah. - Being black feels good for me.
Because it's being true to yourself.
I mean, it's being true to who you are
because it's such a hodgepodge of people.
You can be Lacey from Woodstock.
You know, from the parents of Peggy Schwartz.
It's like, "Okay."
I think there's power
in identifying yourself as white.
I mean, as making white folks accept you
as part of being white.
Mm-hm.
So can we get ready for my party please?
- Sure, yes. - Ha-ha-ha.
Being true to myself
meant being both white and black.
When it came to my family,
I kept the black part under wraps.
In my parents' world...
Hallelujah, praise o ye servants of the eternal.
Praise ye the name of the eternal.
...I was still a nice Jewish girl.
With two white Jewish parents.
After Lacey and I acknowledged Lacey's parentage.
It still wasn't discussed between Robert and Lacey,
and it wasn't discussed between Robert and me.
So I still was on egg shells
and Lacey was on egg shells also.
Oh, my God, I'm so sorry.
Dad, I didn't do it on purpose.
Sorry, Lucy.
I didn't know what my father did,
or didn't know.
I only knew that being black
was connected to breaking his heart.
It felt really scary.
Like, what would happen if I talked about it?
And I was afraid of not being a part
of the world that I have grown up with anymore.
Hello. Ha, ha.
Hi.
Are they related?
They have the same father.
Do they know it?
I kept my white world
and my black world segregated.
But I needed to keep exploring who I was.
So I tried to get to know Rodney on my own.
After college, I was living in New York.
So was he.
We spent some weekend afternoons together.
One of my main kids right here. Chris Andrew.
I wonder if I would share a bond with him
as a black person,
that I didn't share with my white family.
But I didn't feel it.
And as much as I tried,
the time I spent with him didn't change that.
At one point he introduced me
to his other children.
He had seven by a few different women.
Kristin was the youngest and closest to my age.
She had also grown up as an only child.
Now, suddenly, we were sisters.
So like to finally have a sister,
I was like, "Yeah, I can see the resemblance."
I guess for me was, um, you know...
And we spent some time together
and I just didn't feel the connection.
To her, or to Rodney.
It wasn't her. It was just...
They were strangers to me.
So do you wear your hair curly mostly?
- Like almost solely. - Yeah.
I didn't know where I belonged.
Rodney was not my father.
And my real father had no idea who I actually was.
Then, shortly before my 30th birthday,
my mother called and told me that Rodney had died.
Hi.
- How are you? - Morris.
- Hello. - This is my daughter Lacey.
- Hi. - Hey, Lacey, how you doing?
I'm fine. How are you?
- Hi. - You don't know me.
- I'm Albert King. - Hi, nice to meet you.
He was a great man.
It's so nice to meet you.
- My name is Robert. - Hi.
I've got many memories of your dad.
- Here's my card... - Thank you.
You're one of Rodney's daughters also?
Yeah.
You're not the one I drove down to Manhattan?
- That played the piano? - No.
I need a scorecard to keep track...
- Scorecard? - Ha-ha-ha.
I need an encyclopedia.
This is so strange.
I sat with Rodney's other children
in the front row.
But I felt out of place.
I recite this poem to my black brothers.
It says I wanna be my own man...
Behind me was my mother
and some other family members who have come to support her.
If any of them knew that Rodney was my biological father,
none of them had ever said so to me.
Rodney is survived by his daughters,
Suzette Michelle Parker, Kristin Marissa Parker
and Lacey Schwartz, son Rodney James Parker...
When I was announced
as one of his children during the service,
I knew that there was no going back.
That everyone in my white family then knew that I was black.
- How are you? - It's weird.
It's weird.
Are you sure?
- Are you hanging in there? - Yeah.
It's just weird.
My cousins were there.
My friends that were there.
And it was a very uncomfortable situation.
Lacey knew that her family
would be watching her and seeing how she reacted.
But nobody discussed it openly.
The funeral was the last straw.
But my family seemed fine to pretend about who I was.
But I was done letting them.
I remember the very first time
that I ever put two and two together.
When I started realizing that you were kind of changing.
Not certainly who you associated yourself with or...
Not associated yourself with,
but how you viewed yourself or...
And I think that's kind of when I started thinking
that race was gonna play a bigger role.
Do you feel it necessary to say to yourself,
I've made a decision, I am a white woman.
Or I am a black woman.
Or I am a combination of each or is it...?
Yeah, I think of myself as, like, somebody who's biracial
and half of my race is black.
I think of myself, like I'm a category of black.
I don't identify as being white.
Okay, that's fair.
I mean, do you think of me as black?
Today I think is the first time
that you and I have ever spoken those words to each other.
To say like do I think of you as black...
Like, what does that mean?
- I mean, how do you view me? - As my cousin.
I was naive to any concept of...
For lack of a better descriptor, race.
I never really viewed you as white or black or anything.
And I could never really
with something that I even thought about.
Well, I think of you as black
because I think you think of yourself as black.
I think mostly I think of you as Lacey.
My father and I have never talked about, in anyway,
my paternity, my race...
- Anything. - How bizarre is that?
You know, I mean, really?
I'm worried about who I'm talking to.
How do I say to him,
I need to talk to you.
A good thing that I promised myself
because I would never have children.
And they will be on, like, the New York State Freeway,
on the way up, and say,
"Like, remember, grandpa doesn't know mommy's black."
Dad, I really wanna talk to you.
When I...
I think there's a lot to talk about
and I think that...
You know...
I would say...
God...
I mean, it's two conversations...
There are certain things I need to get out of the way.
There are certain things
I would like to talk to you about.
But there's a difference between saying what I like to do
and what I need to do.
And one of the things that I realized
that I need to say...
...is I need to openly acknowledge to you...
...that I identify as a black woman.
What a surprise.
But I've never said that to you, Dad.
Well, you didn't have to.
- And the reason... - I see the books you read.
I see the relationships you have.
I see the music you like.
I see the, uh...
The entertainment realm that appeals to you.
Okay. What else is new?
I knew that.
In the end I just felt dismissed by him.
Like, he didn't...
Like maybe he was ashamed of me.
Like he didn't want to...
He wasn't willing to go there with me.
And I felt like I so desperately needed to understand.
And so I decided I had to really talk to my mother.
Hey.
The operative word in "we have to unload" is we.
Okay.
- All right. - Okay.
I think that's all from the back, right?
- I think we're done. - Mom.
When you got married, you got married in what year?
1968.
In 1968, and then you lived where?
Uh, Forest Hills.
Did you know Rodney before that or after that?
I met Rodney when I got a job in the Parks Department.
What year did you get a job in Parks Department?
1968.
The same year you got married.
Yes.
Because then I wasn't born until '77.
Right.
When were you first with him?
Mother, just tell me.
1968.
Before or after you got married?
Before.
Oh, my God. Ha, ha.
When did you tell daddy
that you've been having an affair with Rodney?
I never did.
Did daddy know?
Yes.
You know about the time when his wife attacked me?
What?
This is what happened.
There was Rodney, and there was his wife.
And his wife and I were kind of friendly.
But obviously she found out that there was...
Whatever else was happening.
So Rodney's wife came to visit me
and she and I were sitting in the car
and all of a sudden she takes out a razor blade.
- Oh! - She takes out a razor blade.
Can you see this?
Can you see this going up here?
Here. See that?
No way.
- I didn't know this story. - And...
This was before I was born?
Yeah.
Well, anyway, so she takes out a razor blade.
And this is gonna burn.
And she goes to slash me in the face.
So I go like this.
So...
Now, the police come and they arrest her.
So...
Of course, I...
Did you tell daddy Rodney's wife tried to slash me?
Yes.
Did daddy already know you were having an affair with Rodney?
No.
Until you got slashed?
He basically said to me then,
"You know, whatever has happened,
let's put it aside and let's go about our business."
And that was the last conversation we had
about that.
Fact is, if the man with whom I had an affair
had not been black, none of this would've come out.
A lifetime of lies had torn my family apart.
I hope that talking about the truth
could put it back together.
First saved message.
Hi, Lacey. It's dad.
Um, been giving some thought about our conversation.
And, uh...
It's not a good time for me to talk to you.
So, um, not wanting to introduce
new sources of stress and complications.
So we have to pick a time
when I feel, uh, more calm
and peaceful about my life.
Right now, I'm pretty stressed out.
I haven't shared things with you, so...
Talk to you later, bye.
The more my father pushed me away,
the more I press my mother for details.
- This is it. - That one?
As I remember walking on the street.
There it is.
So this is where I worked.
This is were... This is it?
This is it.
What was this neighborhood like then?
It was just the way it is now.
It's exactly what it was like.
This was a black neighborhood.
- Yeah. - Apparently it still is.
- What I'm saying... - Ha-ha-ha.
When you first started working here,
were you like, "What am I doing here?"
I had no clue what I was doing.
I was 21 years old, and I was white and Jewish,
and I was in charge of this playground.
See, right up there? That's where Rodney lived.
- Oh, he lived right here? - He lived right there.
See the top floor?
Here's the thing about Rodney.
It was very appealing to know that there was somebody
who I could snap my fingers and he would come running.
- So after I was born... - Mm-hm.
When did you think you realized that I was Rodney's daughter.
Well, let's back up.
We know the infamous...
Daddy and the grandfather.
Daddy and the Sicilian grandfather.
- Yes. - You know that.
I wanted to believe that so badly,
that I probably latched on to that.
So I was able to kind of not think about it.
And then Rodney would say,
"Look at that kid, she looks just like me."
And I would say, "No, she doesn't."
It took me years to say to him, "Yeah, you're right, she does."
And it wasn't because I was lying.
I mean, I didn't see it, really.
And then, maybe once I started seeing it,
I chose to ignore it.
But he would talk about it and...
So when I finally got to the point
that I had to be honest with myself,
I couldn't deny it,
I would say, "Robert is her father.
Robert is her father, Robert is the person that raised her,
Robert is the person that was there with her everyday.
Robert is the person who attends school functions.
Robert is her father."
So why did you stay with daddy?
The reason was,
I had an extremely sexual relationship with Rodney,
but there were things missing.
- Like... - The fact is...
That daddy was interesting, daddy was funny.
Daddy was a person
who made a decent amount of money.
That's the reason I stayed with daddy.
How much do you think the fact that Rodney
was not a real option for you had to do with him being black?
I think it had nothing to do with it whatsoever.
Nothing? How can it have nothing to do with it?
I don't know, you asked me this before.
- Think about it! - I can't.
You're asking me, I'm telling you the truth.
It had nothing to do with it whatsoever.
You know, the fact is,
that whatever happened with you and daddy,
and that inability to talk about things,
that is what I carry on.
So much of what I did was connected to who I was,
and nobody talked about who I was.
I can't talk to daddy about who I am.
I can't talk to daddy about who I am until...
You know, it's not like being black is everything.
But it's part of who I am.
And if I can't share all of who I am with him...
And why can't I share all of who I am with him?
Because you had an affair.
Because nobody talks about everything.
Because it was all secrets.
I think your dad was in great agony.
Some of which he shared with me, some of which he didn't.
When you were 16,
he said something to me that was very poignant.
He said, "My whole life was a lie."
He said, "I lived a lie."
Right.
I think, you know, your father saw you everyday
as living proof
that your mom had betrayed the marriage.
He was this center of this huge secret
that was circling around him.
It was a big thing that happened to him.
Maybe he was never able to separate
that act happening to him from you.
I know that there is something that was lost between us.
When we each found out
that I wasn't his biological child.
How do I get past that?
Good morning, Father. Give me a hug.
Ain't that...?
It's no secret that mommy had an affair.
She ever tell you she did?
She never talked to me even about that.
And da-da-da-da...
And life goes on.
Our merry way of poor communication
and chaos and...
I mean, don't you think she should have told me?
Yeah.
But my question for you is, once you and mommy got divorced,
why did you never talk to me
about not being my biological father?
About what?
About not being my biological father. Why...?
Because it was mommy's business.
I didn't have a clue.
I would always tell people,
"Oh, yeah, my grandfather's Italian.
He passed his looks on to you."
And I believed it.
I didn't tell you because I didn't fucking know
until you turned 16.
Talk about betrayal. It's the ultimate.
Cheat on your husband. Okay, that's pretty bad.
Don't tell him that you're having
somebody else's child for 16 years?
Or forever for that matter.
She still hasn't told me but we all know.
Talk about the ultimate betrayal.
Just think about that.
You had no idea how things were.
- You're right, I didn't. - Ahem.
You're right.
Maybe you and mommy had a relationship
where you didn't talk about things.
But I'm not that person.
And there is absolutely no question for either of us
who you are to me as my father
and who I am to you as your daughter.
I think it has been difficult for me
to acknowledge certain aspects of my life
because it implicated things that we didn't talk about.
And I have not shared with you
certain aspects of my life.
And, like, going forward, I want to change that.
Okay. Well, time will tell.
Let that play out.
After I finally talked to my father,
I realized, in my mind, I had this visual
that we were all going to heal together.
And we're all gonna move forward with our lives.
But in the end, I couldn't heal my parents.
I couldn't change what had happened to them.
I couldn't make them feel differently about it.
I needed to accept them for who they were.
Just like I wanted them to accept who I was.
Mom, you really wanna go through
all those boxes tonight?
We have a whole other box to do.
Yeah, maybe we should skip it.
Let's go.
Here are your engagement...
This is definitely daddy's handwriting.
Look at this. This is what he wrote.
"I never really read too carefully any card,
but this card says just what you mean to me.
I love you, Peggy Susan."
God, were daddy and I corny.
Or at least I was.
I loved daddy then.
- What is this? - This was my wedding dress.
Oh, my God.
That must have been my bouquet.
My God. Lacey, look.
This was our engagement announcement.
Because we got engaged on May 6.
I think we separated on May 8.
Whoa. Ha, ha.
If I could have done my life differently,
would I have had a committed marriage.
Yes, I would have taken care of my marriage or gotten out.
But if I had done that, I wouldn't have had you.
So there are a lot of things I would have done differently,
but in the end, not really.
But the dangerous thing is,
when you have a marriage that's troubled,
and you have somebody else,
you never take care of your problems
because you don't have to.
Because you can just ignore it and go about your business
and this other person will make you feel really wonderful.
But sometimes you do things that are just of the moment.
And you're not...
It's not like you're being hedonistic
or being mean or being horrible.
It's just at the moment
and you're not really aware
of the consequences.
But before I was your mother, I was a person.
And I was a girl, and I was a woman...
And I was me.
And I think that's the most honest explanation
I could give you.
But that's the truth.
That looks beautiful.
- Walk around here. - Over here.
I've spent the first half of my life
being defined by the world my parents have created for me.
In the second half,
I was defined by their secrets and lies.
But the truth is on the table now.
And I was ready to find my future for myself.
This is a celebration of love.
It's a celebration that brings two individuals
from different cultural experiences
and different religious experiences.
And so love allows them to come together
and fall in love with each other
and had transcended the external accidents
of race or color.
I put a lot of thought
into the issue of changing my last name.
As a kid I never really liked Schwartz.
But now, after everything, it seemed perfect for me.
A clearly Jewish name that literally means black.
Sync and corrections by explosiveskull www.addic7ed.com