Dear Jakie Rabinowitz,

After seeing you in The Jazz Singer, something inside me was stirred. I felt as if I was seeing a kindred soul and the antithesis of everything I am at the same time. For years, I pretended to be something I am not in order to be given a freedom that was denied to me because of my race. But unlike you, I am black and I pretended to be white.

As you and I both know, the life of a negro is not an easy one. Yet, in your black-faced performances, you found a freedom to express yourself that I too long for. Like you, I left my home and assumed another identity in order to fulfill my American Dream, but we both learned that one can never truly leave behind where they come from. No matter how hard we tried to assimilate, our secrets from past always seemed to hunt us. It was not until we learned to look in the mirror and see ourselves for who we truly are that we were able to find peace in our lives.

You and I are like two sides of the same coin, destined for the same fate no matter how different we may be. There is one side of us that will always be hidden in the darkness as the other comes to light. I had to accept the my existence as negro in order to live my life at its best.

I know that what I have written sounds like the ramblings of an insane person, but please know that I understand better then you will ever know.

Sincerely,

Pinky

Questions:

1)In Rogin's piece about Jewish jazz singers, he says, "Just as the white man in classic American literature uses the Indians to establish an American identityagainst the old world; so the jazz singer uses blacks" (217). Considering the Deloria's writings, what does this say about race as a social construct and its uses in defining a person (or country's) identity?

2)In what ways were whites idolizing and/or vilify Native Americans by "playing Indian?"