WHITE F A C E




Barbara Bain smoking a cigarette
bio

When the series Mission Impossible came out who wasn't glued to the TV in the late 1960's? The coolness of Barbara Bain's character was quite a look into the face of white women whose faces were not, by law, in many states, safe to look into. But, on TV a Colored man could look deep and longingly, or contemptuously into a white woman's face.

It is important to remember how many Black men were killed by the face, and in the face of white women! And to it is important to remember the voices they had and the power of what they accused Black men of that led to Black men's violent deaths rippling still in our present day lives.

"My have times changed!" you may say, but how and who has changed? Have illusions changed perceptions or have distractions rendered a reality obsolete, or out of view?

 - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 1.27.15




Barbara Bain, actress in 2014