Little white lies are meant to be little. So little that proceeding repercussions, if any, don’t place a dent in the space-time continuum. For example, you didn’t do your homework the night before, but your teacher calls on you to read your answer and explain. You tell her you forgot it on your desk at home, so she proceeds to move on to the next person. Yes, you missed an opportunity to demonstrate how much you’ve learned from the lesson, but there wasn’t any severe damage.
Now, what happens when someone, or some people, you love lie to you for a majority of your existence? Or keep a secret from you that is so formative to your being? This sort of lying is quite common, but more so, bothersome and selfish. I came across this trailer [posted below] for Lion starring Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, and Nicole Kidman where Dev plays a young man who was raised to think he was white. YES! YES! Dev Patel white. That is like me saying, “Oh, sorry, no… I’m not black. I’m white.” ::everyone starts to lift up tables and chairs as though they are searching:: Where?! It’s very obvious he and I are not white, so quizzical to hear a grown person say that.
So it struck a cord with me after having just read an article on FADER profiling Instagram star Branden Miller, better know as Joanne the Scammer. A light-skinned black male that portrays a thieving white woman named Joanne. From [fake] credit card scams to blatant [fake] shoplifting, Branden knowingly or unknowingly pokes fun at an identity that uses their race privilege to execute and get away with crimes. While reading, my admiration for Branden changed. His story became more than that of an Insta-celeb. It was a little white lie, or lack of truth, that seemed to have altered his view on his way of life.
FADER: “At home, he keeps the curtains drawn, the AC on full-blast, and the lights low.” It continues, “He doesn’t leave often — unless it’s Friday, when he goes shopping.”
When initially read, I was taken aback by the recluse embodiment such an over-the-top and talented person practiced, until getting further into the piece and stunned by the why. He was adopted as an infant by an older white couple. Brandon was not only unaware that he was adopted, but that he also wasn’t White, until the age of 17, when a family friend [NOT EVEN A FAMILY MEMBER] informed him. It turns out that he was Black and Puerto Rican.
“I went to an all-black school, and people would say, ‘Branden, you’re black,’ or ‘Branden, you’re adopted,’” he says. “I was like, ‘No, actually I’m white.’” He laughs about it now, but remembers the discovery as traumatic. “That was tragic, I’m not going to lie. I found out I was adopted, and then I found out I was black. I was like, Oh shit, none of these people are really related to me at all! That was a fucking…” He stops for a second. “I thought I was white. I had white friends. I was a white person! I still have my moments where I’m like, Oh my God. That’s really awkward.” Once, he asked his mom why she hadn’t told him the truth. She said she was scared he’d run away.”
It continues…
“After finding out the truth about his birth parents and his race, Branden started playing around in drag. “I went to high school in drag with one of my friends and it shocked everyone,” he says. Before graduation, he dropped out. And for several months after, he dressed as a woman every day. “Creating the characters stemmed from me finding out I was adopted, and trying to run away from that,” he says. “I knew at the end of the day I wanted to be a man, but I just didn’t want to be myself. I felt like everything was a lie.”
And the heart wrenching shockers don’t end there. [Click here for FADER’s story.]
Similar to that of Lacey Schwartz, creator of the documentary Little White Lie, she too was deprived of her true identity. Lacey was raised under the guise that both her white Jewish parents were her birth parents, while she remained the not-be-discussed elephant in the room. It happens that Lacey wasn’t white, her father wasn’t her biological father, and neither her father nor she knew it. Her mother had had a nearly 10-year long affair with a man named Rodney; a man that the family, including her husband knew as a friend who could get great tickets for games and shows. Essentially, they knew him as a scalper. Can you imagine this man coming to your house for dinner to dine across from you with the only father you’ve known, your mother, other family members, even your high school boyfriend; and never knowing he was your actual father? For this charade to continue so long that everyone around you could tell that Rodney was your biological, allowing you to float in the unknown? For you, a young child going through puberty feeling so lost and confused while people referred to you as the “Ethiopian Jew” and your mum say nothing in your defense? For you to grow up thinking you are racially white, and your mother being too self-absorbed, even after your father divorced her, to tell you the truth behind whom you are?
Both of these stories are common. You hear or see or read about them, every day. Do you know what it is to strip away someone’s identity? What kind of parents, biological or adopted, could commit these sort of malicious, vile acts to their children? And it is hard being a parent. I’m not one, but I’ve been a nanny to many wonderful lives [and one demon child. He was the absolute worst. He wasn’t even 10 and could play his parents like a fiddle, re-creating symptoms to illnesses so his psychologist parents diagnosed him with something new to justify why he wants to play video games instead of going to bed. Ummm, that’s not an illness, he’s a kid manipulating you to get his way but you only see him as the perfect experiment.]. Trying to protect them so they forever remain innocent while teaching them the wonders of the world… it’s hard. But, omitting a vital part of who they are, especially when that vital part is the only way for them to be whole. It’s selfish, and those tears shed don’t convince that you feel remorse, or regret your decision. You’re just upset you got caught. Lacey’s mother even tells her, as they are discussing when the affair began, “The fact is, if the man with whom I had the affair hadn’t been black, none of this would have come out.”
Too bad he wasn’t white then?
Both pieces are insightful and heart wrenching, but most importantly informative. I’ve said this many times about adoption of a child from a different background than yours, as well as raising biological child of another background – do the research. Know the role you must play for them in society and be true to how your experiences will differ in life.
A friend in grade school was half-white, half-black. Raised by her mum, she only claimed her white race though carrying Alicia Keys complexion in winter, darkening to a bronzed caramel come summer. Even knowing her identity, she had grown to hate her blackness due to racial epithets spewed from her grandparents (on her mother’s side). The moments her black-side came up in the car ride home, my mother would soothe her tears or angry outbursts with Nigerian Mama love, and a kid’s meal from Sweet Mesquite. [Their chicken tenders and gravy were EVERYTHING!]
I just hope that all lost identities find their Nigerian Mama to remind them of their beauty on both sides, and fill them with deliciousness shortly after.
Little White Lie is currently playing on NETFLIX or Amazon Video for those interested in seeing the story for your self. Please let me know what you think!
Now for the trailer…