I recently watched a PBS documentary entitled, A Little White Lie, about an African-American woman, Lacey Schwartz, who grew up thinking she was white even though any mirror could have told her otherwise. (Ironically, Schwartz is German for black.)
When Lacey was born to her white Jewish parents - she was dark. Brown. Instead of drawing the rather obvious conclusion, the fact that her father’s grandfather had been a swarthy Sicilian was seized upon as an explanation.
So Lacey grew up white. This was not a matter of passing for white nor pretending. It was a denial of the obvious physical facts. Her parents, Robert and Peggy Schwartz, and their kin, told Lacey she was white and behaved as though she was. The whole family was in denial - though surely some may have been more realistic and just played along.
Woodstock, where Lacey grew up was a white, liberal community. When she went to high school in a more mixed community perception and reality started to get out of sync. Lacey still saw herself as white, though the black students there could see she was black. When Lacey went to Georgetown University, the facade collapsed and Lacey finally realised she was black.
Her parents’ marriage fell apart before that. At long last, Lacey’s “father” had faced up to the fact of his wife’s adultery and his wife had to admit to that adultery. (Even the mother had grasped at the straw of Sicilian ancestry.) How could the father have been so slow, so naive?
The Peggy Schwartz had been having an affair with a black man, one Rodney Parker. That started in 1968 prior to her marriage and lasted at the very least until Lacey’s birth, very probably later. Lacey was born in 1977. Did the affair ever end?
Did Peggy and Robert decide that she should go off the pill so they could have a child? If so, she could have put Parker on hold for awhile but did not. The documentary did not cover this so I can only guess as to the circumstances, but she would hardly have been the first woman to not care just which man got her pregnant.
Amazing though the denial was, the really interesting part is the two things the story says about the wife, Peggy - and about some other wives.
Firstly, Peggy’s attitude: what she had done was No Big Deal. Nothing. She did not seem to have any comprehension - none whatsoever - that a wife fucking another man, year in year out, was wrong. It was as though the piece of brain that might have told her so was missing. Peggy Schwartz just liked what she was doing. After all those years, the sex must have been routine so maybe she just enjoyed the deceit.
Peggy merely commented that if her daughter was not black, no one would have been the wiser. No problem. Her daughter asked her why, if she was so keen on Rodney Parker, she did not leave her husband for him. Peggy said that Robert was a much more fun and interesting person to live with - and he was paid much more money than Rodney. Robert was a meal ticket.
Secondly, the type of person Peggy presented as: innocent, trustworthy. When the child was born, and growing up, it should have been obvious to her husband what had happened. Apparently his mind just could not conceive that his wife would be unfaithful. No, she was not that type of woman. Well, she was.
What a delusion - but a common one amongst men.
I have, over the years, noticed this in other cases. When some wife is revealed as an adulteress, everyone is shocked. No, not her, so sweet and innocent and good. Butter would not melt in her mouth. Such deceit with such an innocent face.
It is expected that if the wife is an adulteress there must be some reason - a loveless, unhappy marriage or an unfaithful husband. Sometimes that is so, but not necessarily. Some just like fucking someone else. This Peggy Schwartz was one such and she made no claim otherwise.
The husband, Robert, was a weakling, a wuss. Why else did he go into such denial? And why else, after decades of betrayal, did he not put a bullet in the wife?
