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Authors: Chris Barton
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so you are white. It is as simple as that.
But what if? What if someone recognizes your shoes as those worn yesterday by a black man who wasâsay!âjust about your height? Or what if someone catches you in mid-transformation? What would they make of you? Would they quake with anger and dismay? Would getting caught in the act of crossing over or crossing back be even more dangerous than being black all the time?
In the Pacific, you knew what it was like to have your life in jeopardy, and youâre not eager to experience that again. But you had a mission then, and you have a mission now. You suffered the consequences then, and youâll risk now what you have to risk. During the ten years you lived in darkness, you came to understand that skin color could not possibly be less relevant. Perhaps if you carry on your masquerade just a little bit longer, the story youâll tell will be just a little bit more powerful and enable that many more people to see the truth.
You know what you have to do.
Youâll be black again soon enough, at least for another day, but youâll never again be blind.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
JOHN HOWARD GRIFFIN ended his experimental journey through the South on December 14, 1959. He returned home to Texas, where he began writing his account of that journey, eventually published as the book Black Like Me . Griffin was modest about his accomplishment: âThis may not be all of it,â his book began. Black Like Me became a classicâand occasionally bannedâwork in American literature; it also prompted death threats. Griffin died of various ailments in 1980.
RISING TEENAGE STAR?
RILEY WESTON
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1998
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
You just wanted to work.
You would have wanted to work, to be an actor, no matter what you looked like. The fact that you still look like a teenager, or close enough, shouldnât be important. But itâs not just important .
Itâs everything .
Biologically, you became a teenager in 1979, on the day that Kimberlee Elizabeth Seaman turned thirteen. Nearly two decades later, you go by the name of Riley Weston, but youâre still playing the part of an adolescentânot only on this L.A. set, but in your real life.
Your audience is the biggest itâs ever been. By this time tomorrow, itâs going to be even bigger. Much bigger. And thereâs nothing you can do to stop it.
Hereâs how it started:
You grew up in little-bitty, two-stoplight, Pleasant Valley, New York. From the time you were, like, four years old, you wanted to be an entertainer, visible, on stage . In high school, you did drama, chorus, student government, and cheerleading, a dynamo just shy of five feet tall.
And what do girls with dreams like yours do when they graduate high school? They go to L.A. They change their names to something like âKimberlee Kramer.â They babysit to pay the bills, and they audition, audition, and audition some more.
All that work started to pay off for you. You did commercials. You got the lead in a musical for troubled teens and their therapists. You were âNice Car Girlâ in a movie about competitive waterskiing, and âRita Sabatiniâ in a couple of episodes of ABCâs Growing Pains . In 1993 you were in Sister Act 2 , starring Whoopi Goldberg, which was huge for you.
The thing is, they had you playing a kid. They all had you playing kids. Here you were entering your late twenties, and the roles you kept getting were, like, âGirl Number Whatever.â But you still looked the part, and if it was those parts or none at all, what were you going to do? Of course you took the work.
And if you shaved a few years off your age so you could get a foot in the door at the auditions, well, who didnât ? Thatâs the way show business worksânew names, fudged ages, closeted actors, fake boobs. Thatâs just Hollywood, and you were determined.
Along the way, Brad
But what if? What if someone recognizes your shoes as those worn yesterday by a black man who wasâsay!âjust about your height? Or what if someone catches you in mid-transformation? What would they make of you? Would they quake with anger and dismay? Would getting caught in the act of crossing over or crossing back be even more dangerous than being black all the time?
In the Pacific, you knew what it was like to have your life in jeopardy, and youâre not eager to experience that again. But you had a mission then, and you have a mission now. You suffered the consequences then, and youâll risk now what you have to risk. During the ten years you lived in darkness, you came to understand that skin color could not possibly be less relevant. Perhaps if you carry on your masquerade just a little bit longer, the story youâll tell will be just a little bit more powerful and enable that many more people to see the truth.
You know what you have to do.
Youâll be black again soon enough, at least for another day, but youâll never again be blind.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
JOHN HOWARD GRIFFIN ended his experimental journey through the South on December 14, 1959. He returned home to Texas, where he began writing his account of that journey, eventually published as the book Black Like Me . Griffin was modest about his accomplishment: âThis may not be all of it,â his book began. Black Like Me became a classicâand occasionally bannedâwork in American literature; it also prompted death threats. Griffin died of various ailments in 1980.
RISING TEENAGE STAR?
RILEY WESTON
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1998
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
You just wanted to work.
You would have wanted to work, to be an actor, no matter what you looked like. The fact that you still look like a teenager, or close enough, shouldnât be important. But itâs not just important .
Itâs everything .
Biologically, you became a teenager in 1979, on the day that Kimberlee Elizabeth Seaman turned thirteen. Nearly two decades later, you go by the name of Riley Weston, but youâre still playing the part of an adolescentânot only on this L.A. set, but in your real life.
Your audience is the biggest itâs ever been. By this time tomorrow, itâs going to be even bigger. Much bigger. And thereâs nothing you can do to stop it.
Hereâs how it started:
You grew up in little-bitty, two-stoplight, Pleasant Valley, New York. From the time you were, like, four years old, you wanted to be an entertainer, visible, on stage . In high school, you did drama, chorus, student government, and cheerleading, a dynamo just shy of five feet tall.
And what do girls with dreams like yours do when they graduate high school? They go to L.A. They change their names to something like âKimberlee Kramer.â They babysit to pay the bills, and they audition, audition, and audition some more.
All that work started to pay off for you. You did commercials. You got the lead in a musical for troubled teens and their therapists. You were âNice Car Girlâ in a movie about competitive waterskiing, and âRita Sabatiniâ in a couple of episodes of ABCâs Growing Pains . In 1993 you were in Sister Act 2 , starring Whoopi Goldberg, which was huge for you.
The thing is, they had you playing a kid. They all had you playing kids. Here you were entering your late twenties, and the roles you kept getting were, like, âGirl Number Whatever.â But you still looked the part, and if it was those parts or none at all, what were you going to do? Of course you took the work.
And if you shaved a few years off your age so you could get a foot in the door at the auditions, well, who didnât ? Thatâs the way show business worksânew names, fudged ages, closeted actors, fake boobs. Thatâs just Hollywood, and you were determined.
Along the way, Brad
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