Once again, a classic film with classic flaws. This film is based on a true story. It is flawlessly filmed and exceptionally edited. I enjoyed it. But, I am haunted by its colorism and sexism.
The lead hero in this film is oustanding. Yet, he chose to grant a young boy authority over a group of unrealistically fragile and helpless Black adult women. (Even a retarded man-child was braver than these women.) In reality, Black women are super-sheroes and better warriors than most men and boys.
The most painful flaw in this film is the degradation of the most beautiful and blackest woman in the cast. This same actress was a heroine in “The Color Purple” (a superior film due to the artistic direction of Alice Walker). In “Rosewood”, she is a disposable and silly whore. This blatant colorism cut open a deep wound. The salt in this wound is the fact that she is actually John Singleton’s new wife. The director’s wife should have a more flattering role.
Another degraded, Black skinned, female character is an elderly maid. She moves from coward to prophet to mammy to victim in an especially painful portrait. Her most excrutiating line is a reference to the fictional “blue eyes” of Jesus. Why could she not be light skinned like the romantic female symbols of this film? Why are the mammies and whores always so dark skinned in films directed by Black men?
The hypocrisy of religion is superbly exposed in this film. We see Black Masons revere their club membership more than their own blood. We see white “christians” attend lynchings as joyously as baptisms.
One of the best features of this film is its absence of “great white hopes”. There are heroic white characters. But, they are realistic, not angelic. Their racism is sporadically overcome, not omitted.
The strongest female character in this film is a pious white woman. This is a heinous insult to the legacy of Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, and Rosa Parks. In the real world, SISTERS ARE WARRIORS!!!. By circumstance and choice.
The fatal envy of poor and uneducated whites is excellently depicted in this film. The same insecurities that fuel the fans of Proposition 209 in 1997 fueled the real-life mobs of Rosewood, Florida in 1922. Nothing is as violent as a caucasian whose only social asset is the color of his skin.
It is easier to gather a crowd of cowards than warriors. This is beautifully illustrated by the white mobs who torture and kill, and by the Black men who hide and run. In any war, there are very few who are bold and brave enough to fight righteously on the front lines.
Who would dare watch this film and ever claim that white people do not “riot”? How do Black men see the legacy of lying white whores and still dare to worship white women? Who fails to understand the lingering racial hatred this film so expertly documents?
I loved the ending of this tragic film. But, I still long for a film in which the weakest characters are not Black females. I crave a film in which Black women are as heroic as Black men.