Black or White

Angelenos Elliott and Carol Anderson, an affluent white couple, have been the legal guardians of their biracial granddaughter Eloise Anderson since birth as Eloise's then seventeen year old mother, Elliott and Carol's daughter, died in childbirth. While Eloise's biological father, Reggie Davis, has never been in the picture in being a junkie, Reggie's extended family, most specifically his mother Rowena Jeffers, affectionately referred to as Wee Wee, has been. While the Jeffers live a modest life in what is seen as the tough South Central Los Angeles neighborhood, Rowena has hustled many jobs, some her own businesses, to maintain a good living. There is a shift in the dynamics when Carol dies in a car accident leaving Elliott as the sole guardian to now precocious seven year old Eloise. There had always been an understanding between Carol and Rowena as mothers about Eloise's upbringing, but with Carol no longer in the picture, Rowena, with the help of her lawyer brother Jeremiah Jeffers, feels that it is time not only to file for shared custody, but full custody, which means including Reggie in Eloise's life. Rowena accuses Elliott of denying Eloise's "black" family of access in having an issue with race, and of being unfit to raise Eloise on his own, the unstated item being Elliott's drinking problem, he increasingly using any excuse to have a cocktail. While Elliott, a lawyer himself but one whose firm does not specialize in family law, wants to maintain the status quo partly in it being the only life Eloise has ever known, both he and Rowena, who focus on what's bad about the other side, will have to examine their own motives and areas which they have blind spots about in their own lives.