... 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.

"Little White Lie" is an interesting documentary in that I was MUCH more interested in learning how they made the film as opposed to the content. Now this isn't to say the film isn't interesting or worth seeing--it's terrific. But how they filmed it...that's what I'd love to talk to the filmmakers about more than anything else.

The film is an interesting real life story about a young Jewish women who didn't look like a typical Jew. After all, although EVERYONE in the family convinced themselves she was normal in every way, she was pretty clearly bi-racial. The obvious yet unasked question is 'how can a woman give birth to a bi-racial child when her husband is white?'--and obviously the biological father was someone else. Yet, everyone in her life bought into this lie! How does all this play out---see the film.

The interesting part of all this is that you see the subject of the film, Lacey Schwartz, in therapy sessions talking about her true racial identity...which is super-odd. Later, even odder, you see her show at at a funeral for her biological father and folks walk around like it's a normal funeral...when it couldn't have been due to the camera crew. The same can be said about when she confronts her mother and father about her race. How could the film crew just happen to be there and no one thought anything of it?! I assume this was all re-staged for the cameras. And THAT is why I found this film so interesting...so unusual and worth seeing.

By the way, I know the original quote by Krylov is about an elephant in the room, not a gorilla...but this is a quote by one of the family members when they FINALLY got to talking about the whole race issue.

Well told,well directed, documentary on race being part of a troubled family's story.