Dear Stavros,

In the final scene of your movie, your success in America is made clear by your "act of racial contempt". You become an "entitled white" through your ability to push a Black man down.

I, too, am familiar with this murky ethnic middle ground, although I have not been as successful in using it for myself. I may have been fine with moderate success in my life, able to assume whiteness, if it were not for the foul crime I have been accused of. This close examination of my person found it impossible to ignore my "bulging satyr eyes", "high-bridged nose" and "thick lips". My race (or is it race? impossible to know these days) was the nail in my coffin, I believe. My people and I were villanized and any crime explained away by the tendency of Jews.

What else was I to do, but to turn to the tendency of Blacks and accuse a Black man of murder. Unsuccessfully, I must say.

I am the victim of racism or the perpetrator? I lost my case overall, so maybe in the end race had an effect on me. Believing the things I claim to be inherent about the Negro race, did I believe my own race deficient too, for no other reason than our "high-bridged nose"s? Of course, in the end neither of us nor our races is better off.

So beware, Stavros. Should your race come into question, it will most definitely remain Greek. And watch carefully who you tread on.

Sincerely,

Leo Frank

1. How did pre-existing attitudes and laws around the Black-White color line effect racism and attitudes toward new, White immigrants?

2. There are unmistakable parallels between the anti-immigrant stances portrayed in "Whiteness of a Different Color" and current US attitudes toward undocumented immigrants. What can we learn from making these comparisons and where do they fall short?