By Suzanne C. Ryan, Globe Staff  |  March 4, 2006

It was a gut-wrenching moment in Rose Bloomfield's life.

After pouring out her soul in a poetry class full of African-American students, she had to face the group and confess that she was a fraud: she's not black. She was a white teenager in blackface.

She joined the class secretly because she's starring in an FX television documentary series about race relations, ''Black. White." The show debuts Wednesday at 10 p.m.

''I felt like I betrayed them," Bloomfield says, describing her confession.

In the show, her Santa Monica, Calif., family dons makeup and wigs to look black, and a black family from Atlanta is made up to look white.

For six weeks they live in the same house in Tarzana, Calif., sharing out-of-skin encounters that include car shopping (they experience no apparent bias) and bartending (a white man tells a black man in disguise that the surrounding neighborhood is unspoiled by minorities).

''It was almost like a history class," says the 18-year-old Bloomfield. ''Here are my stereotypes. Here are yours. Which of these are real? . . . I walked around and there were times when nothing was different. It is 2006. Then there were times when I would see a white person smile at someone else. I would beam a smile and they would look at the floor. I would say, 'What? Did that happen?' It was so weird."

It's been 47 years since John Howard Griffin chemically altered his skin color and visited racially segregated states for his book ''Black Like Me."

Since then, the country has clearly made progress. But Ice Cube, a rapper, actor, and filmmaker known for telling stories about the black community, was skeptical about how far we've come. Working with producer R.J. Cutler, who coproduced Morgan Spurlock's ''30 Days" for FX, the producers put society to the test.

''I wanted an honest view, whatever was real," says Cube. ''I wanted to give people a taste of what it's like to be another race. It's a sad situation when you have people who have never dealt with black people. All they have to go on is the TV or what their friends say."

The producers selected two middle-class families with ''mainstream" points of view. ''We didn't want to put somebody from Idaho with people from Compton," says Cube. ''The show would have lost its texture over economic and other hang-ups."

So Carmen Wurgel, a 48-year-old location scout for a photographer in Santa Monica, was chosen along with her boyfriend, Bruno Marcotulli, a 47-year-old elementary school teacher, and her daughter Rose. Bloomfield says her mother and Marcotulli were curious and excited about the experience but she was less enthusiastic. ''I didn't want to get involved in something that might be considered offensive," she says.

In Atlanta, Brian Sparks, a 41-year-old contractor, was recruited with his wife, Renee, a 38-year-old office manager, and their son Nick, a 17-year-old student. The family agreed to participate, Brian says, because he ''wanted to go in and be a fly on the wall, just to see what whites talk about when no other races are around."

The program used the skills of Academy Award-nominated makeup artist Keith Vanderlaan (''The Passion of the Christ") to transform the families, which took three to five hours each day -- an eternity for Bloomfield. ''My face was breaking out and I had gray hair coming in," she complains.

Although the show is groundbreaking, the concept has been met with hesitation in some academic circles. ''It's sad that the testimony of people who have experienced racism isn't enough," says Jennifer Fuller, an assistant professor of radio, television, and film at the University of Texas at Austin. ''People don't want to believe it, so it takes a hidden camera to provide objective proof."

Fuller plans to watch the series, however. ''People are probably expecting the white family to be transformed more by the experience, but I'm looking forward to seeing how the black family might be transformed. Will white privilege come into play for them? And how will they live with that after it's over?"

The series opens with the families arriving for their first makeup session. Immediately, the stereotyping begins. Looking at his new white face, Brian Sparks remarks, ''I think I'll break out the sticks and play a little golf. Awesome!" Then he gives a two-thumbs-up sign to the camera. Wurgel, in blackface, begins bopping her head side to side. ''Hello, girl," she says to herself in the mirror.

Back at the house, Marcotulli begins to practice his ''black" walk. Wurgel wonders aloud what happens when black people start ''jiving." Later, Marcotulli confides to his girlfriend, ''I look forward to having someone say 'Hey, [n-word] . . . I hate you' . . . and expect me to get all freaked out about it. And I just look at him and say, 'Gee, why do you call me that?' And that would be the end of it."

Donald Bogle, who teaches Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, predicts that viewers will walk away from the series with differing conclusions, depending on their race. ''I don't think black audiences will discover anything they don't already know," he says. ''Black people live in two cultures, and we understand both. Whites don't have to, so their perspective on blacks comes from sitcoms. I hope white audiences will look at this and at least try to understand less blatant forms of racism and the impact of that on blacks as it accumulates over the years."

Brian Sparks walked away believing that racism is more prevalent than he thought. ''I'll never forget my experience as a white man at a white focus group," he says, referring to a scene in the series. ''This young man tells us that he's been taught by his parents to wipe his hands after shaking hands with a black person. And a white man in a bar tells me that he wants to keep his neighborhood white. It was very jaw-clenching. But I figured, whatever happens, I will hold my composure. This is what America needs to see."

Rose Bloomfield empathizes with Brian but thinks he needs to loosen up. ''I think Brian had a real agenda. He would tell Bruno what it's like to be black and how difficult it is, but I felt like he wasn't open to where there are similarities."

''What do we do about the racism?" she adds. ''I hope this show instigates a desire to ask questions and to be open to the possibilities."