Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
The power of film
Last night six of us got together for dinner and a movie. Among the things we have in common is our dedication to our racial justice book club, or as we call it, our learning group. We started this group in 2020, when the pandemic was upon us. Thanks to the technology of Zoom, we have been meeting monthly ever since. The people in it have changed over the years except for the nucleus of Rose, and Mary, and myself. We have absorbed and discussed the lessons from four books, starting with “White Fragility”.
One book that we have not yet studied is Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent.” Several of us have read the book. I couldn’t put it down. She traveled the world to gather information and prove her theory that racism has little to do with skin color. That is a strong statement to make in this world where people of color are treated very differently than white people. It seems a natural conclusion that in the United States, white supremacy means that for many people, it is about skin color differences.
Her theory is that racism is about the hierarchy that for hundreds of years has placed white people above Black people. She writes about the influence of a caste system where people are ranked as above or below one another. Perhaps the best known caste system is from India, where people are categorized as Dullets (formerly Untouchables) at the very bottom and Brahmins at the very top, with groups organized in between. As she points out, these categories are created despite the fact that almost everyone shares the same skin color. She makes the same analogy from the history of Nazi Germany – another country in which both Nazi’s and Jews shared the same skin color, but one group was referred to as “vermin” and less-than.
Some days ago Rose told us about a film based on the information in “Caste”. It is called, “Origin”, and it tells the story of Isabel Wilkerson’s personal heartbreaks as she developed her premise and then wrote the book. I was immediately hooked, especially when I learned that Ava Duvernay, (“Selma”, “13th”, “A Wrinkle in Time”, “Queen Sugar”), had written and produced the film. I have watched all of these film and TV gems and been absorbed in each one.
Six of us decided to get together in person, for the very first time, and have dinner then go see the movie. We had a lively conversational dinner, then trooped upstairs to the movie theater. Some two and one half hours later, we emerged, mostly silent as we reacted to the power of the film. It follows the book closely, so there are images of the horrors of the caste system we live in. The film took us to places where unspeakable things were done by those in command to those in subjugation. We saw white people in their Sunday best gathering around a tree to witness a lynching. We saw book burning in Nazi Germany and the capture of Jews with the intention of exterminating as many as possible. We saw a Dullet man get into a sewer full of excrement to perform his duty of cleaning it with his bare hands.
There was a scene, too, of a Little League team of mostly white children and one Black child who was an integral part of the team. After their victory they were taken to a public pool to cool off from the heat. The white children were allowed in the pool, but the Black child was removed from the pool area lest he touch the water – in that case the pool would have to be drained and “sanitized”. In the film she interviews one of the white boys, now elderly and white-haired. He was tearful as he recalled that day. The children felt awful but were helpless to do anything. Finally the Black boy was allowed in to get on a floating mat. He was told not to touch the water while a lifeguard pulled him around the pool. That child’s face said it all. That child’s face could be that of one of my grandsons. My heart broke.
In my opinion, this film is Oscar-worthy, but probably will not be nominated, just as it wasn’t in the running at the Golden Globes. We were the only people in the theater last night. This film deserves better.