Little White Lie

In this excerpt from the opening moments of the Independent Lens documentary Little White Lie, filmmaker Lacey Schwartz introduces us to her family tree, a “long line of New York Jews.” Growing up, she tells us, she’d never suspected she was anything but white.

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Little White Lie, filmmaker Lacey Schwartz looks back at her birth and childhood, through family photos and home movies. From a young age she’d begun to wonder why her skin was darker than other family and friends, and it became the one thing she wanted to change.

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Little White Lie, filmmaker Lacey Schwartz talks about how applying to college at Georgetown University made her more ready to try on a new identity for herself. She was welcomed by the black community when she joined the Black Student Alliance, and it also lead her to finally confront her mother about why she looks the way she does.

Lacey Schwartz from Little White Lie, a documentary about her racial identity, spent her childhood believing she was white. As a college student, she discovered her father was black. This follow-up video shows Schwartz, now a mother, discussing her new-found sense of herself with two close friends.