NPR music critic Ann Powers provides a rundown of notable musical acts, including Leon Bridges (pictured), at SxSW; Twin Shadow goes from indie rock to pop music on his latest album, “Eclipse"; filmmaker Lacey Schwartz talks about uncovering her secret racial identity in her documentary, "Little White Lie."
'Little White Lie' traces one woman's quest to discover her true biracial identity
Imagine growing up and developing an identity that you soon realize is shrouded in family secrets.
That’s exactly what happened to filmmaker Lacey Schwartz. She traces her journey of self-discovery in the documentary "Little White Lie," airing tonight on PBS.
Schwartz was born to a middle-class New York Jewish family, and had lived her childhood and adolescence believing she was white. Her mother had explained that her darker complexion came from her Sicilian grandfather.
There were times when she questioned her identity, but it wasn’t until college when she learned that her suspicions were true.
Through the course of her research Schwartz learned that her biological father was actually a black man with whom her mother had an affair.
Schwartz spoke with The Frame host John Horn about her decision to pursue her story via film, how she came to understand her ethnicity and what she plans on teaching her kids about race and identity.
Interview Highlights:
When did you decide that you wanted to explore your story through film?
I started this movie when I was in my mid-20s, and I was living in what I considered to be a racial closet. When I was out and about in my life, I identified as black, but when I would go home to my family I would identify as what I had grown up with -- a nice white Jewish girl -- and not really acknowledge anything else about my background or my paternity.
At the time, I was really struggling to internally integrate my own identities, of being both black and Jewish, because when I had grown up, Jewish was synonymous with being white. I really thought I was going to make a film much more about being both black and Jewish, and looking at other people's experiences of dealing with those identities.
I feel like we talk so much in society about how people are or aren't integrating, but a lot of times people are having those struggles internally, so I was really curious how other people were dealing with this as I was struggling to deal with it. And I always thought my own story would be a part of it, but I thought it would be a broader film.
In pushing myself, I realized that I was never going to be able to integrate my own identity until I was able to uncover my family's secrets, and as part of that I realized that so many other people were also struggling with their own families' secrets, and by using film to film my process I'd be able to model a process of how important, albeit difficult, it is to have these intense conversations about the things that we don't talk about within our families but still have such a strong impact on who we are.
Early in the film, you say, "Even though I knew there was something different about me, I didn't want to admit it." How much of that came from the way in which you were brought up, and how much of that came from societal pressure to identify yourself?
It's a tricky balance to get right, because the internal is so affected by the external, and especially for children. Until I left my house at 17 and went away to college, I really was a reflection of my family. I didn't really have this identity separate from them.
Obviously I had my own personality, but not necessarily an identity that was separate from theirs, and I liked being a part of that. It was safe, it was comfortable, I wanted to conform to what I was around. At that point, so much of it was external and very little was internal.
Something really important happens when you go off to Georgetown: you're contacted by the Black Student Alliance. How did that come about, and what happened once they contacted you?
One of the big themes of my story is denial, its power, and how I was really fascinated that so many people in my life could believe what they wanted to believe -- including myself. My parents split up when I was 16, and at that point I think I really started questioning where I came from, and when I started applying to college, I didn't really know how to identify myself.
I didn't check any boxes on the application because I was really questioning my race and how to identify myself. When Georgetown admitted me as a black student, and as a result the Black Student Alliance invited me to their meetings, I took it as an opportunity to explore something else.
This film is largely about secrets, and a family not talking about things that they know to be true but don't want to share. As a parent now, how do you imagine having conversations with your children about their identities?
I believe very strongly that you have to raise kids to feel great about themselves, but at the same time not shield them from reality. They're going to encounter that at some point in their lives, and I've had so many people, biracial people in particular, come up to me after screenings and say, "I grew up and I was really loved and supported by family, but I went out into the world and nobody had told me about what I might encounter."
To me, it's really about raising your kids to understand who they are, how the world sees them, and how they can deal with that while feeling really positive about themselves.
Little White Lie is available for download on iTunes on March 31.
Indie-rocker Twin Shadow doesn't see being a pop star as a bad thing
There’s not much decorating the walls of George Lewis Jr.’s loft in downtown Los Angeles, but the first thing you notice is a keyboard sitting right in the middle of the room. This is where Lewis — also known as Twin Shadow — comes to write songs, and it's where a lot of his latest record, “Eclipse,” was conceptualized.
In a way, I think isolation gives you one thing, which is perspective, or the total opposite. In my case, so much of my life in New York was spent socializing and being a part of the art scene. It all left me a little bit disheartened, so I needed to pull back and spend some more time alone in a healthy environment. I needed to get some sunlight on my skin. I think it was inspiring for me.
But sunlight isn't the only thing Lewis got when he moved to L.A.; he also signed with a major record label. Now that he's on Warner Brothers Records, artists such as Muse, The Black Keys and Neil Young are his label mates. It’s a big jump from the band’s beginnings on the small, indie label Terrible Records, and Lewis' sound has changed along the way.
I have this natural progression where I can't do the same thing twice, so shifting is like something I think that I'm good at. That's for other people to judge, and for me to believe that I'm good at. I feel like it's in my nature to flip.
That nature goes beyond songwriting and performance, as Lewis says he's never been one to follow expectations.
It's like when I was in high school and I [thought], This isn't going to go well, and I'm not down to sit here and play this game. I didn't want to go to high school because I knew I was going to do poorly. It was going to be a constant battle of teachers freaking out, have parent-teacher meetings, and so I just thought to myself, Why even bother? At 16 years old I left, and quit high school.
So Lewis devoted himself to music. That’s one thing that’s stayed constant in his life, but it's more than just a passion project — his goal has always been to become a pop musician and make a living doing so, even if it hasn't played out quite like he imagined as a child.
I was a huge Boyz II Men fan, and I thought that was going to be my life. I thought I was going to be in an R&B boy group. That memory is probably from when I was five or six years old.
When he made his first album in 2010, Lewis didn’t set out to release a of lo-fi, indie record. As he explains: "Nowadays I feel like people purposefully make 'gritty' sounding music. I made gritty sounding music, not because I wanted to, but because I didn't know what I was doing."
Which is kind of shocking, since that's the sound that brought him a devoted fan base. But the sound on "Eclipse" is no accident, and while Twin Shadow fans who fell in love with the rough, early stuff may be alienated by this record, Lewis doesn't think that "pop" should be a derogatory term.
I actually think the opinion on pop is totally changing as well. I think it's becoming an incredibly positive word among my peers. I'm not going to be the one to be like, "I'm pop now, guys." I'm just going to keep doing what I do and let the world put me in a box, because that's what the world is good at.