By Cindy Reed
I watched the film again and caught something I missed the first time, something crucial to understand Mary as nonwhite and why Sammie would ever ask her what her race was. Y'all know I struggled with him asking her because other Black folks would know a passing person from their hometown, right? It turns out he did, and one brief line told it all.
At the train station, we all recall Sammie telling Stack a white woman—Mary—was staring at him from afar. Of course, she comes over and confronts him for mishandling her heart. What I caught this time was Sammie and Delta Slim eaves dropping on Mary and Stack's convo after which Sammie walks up to his big cousin and says something like, "Maybe, she ain't white woman after all."
At the train station, we all recall Sammie telling Stack a white woman—Mary—was staring at him from afar. Of course, she comes over and confronts him for mishandling her heart. What I caught this time was Sammie and Delta Slim eaves dropping on Mary and Stack's convo after which Sammie walks up to his big cousin and says something like, "Maybe, she ain't white woman after all."
Sammie's big observation came out in hushed tone because, well, this white woman not being quite white ain't anybody else's business because that info in the wrong hands is a matter a life and death...I needed Sammie to have some questions about Mary's race or notice something different about her before that bar scene. I'm so glad he did.
Along the same lines, I paid closer attention to Mary's race explanation to Sammie at the bar and caught something else I missed. As Mary explains her half black grandfather as her claim to blackness (I'm still rolling my eyes a little at that, but ok, one-drop rule), she implies that her mother passed as white when explaining that her grandfather wanted to keep his daughter safe from the KKK at all costs--in this case, passing as White to avoid being a target. From that, I originally inferred that her mother passed as White forever in perpetuity. But, nope. I didn't connect the dots the first time that Mary's momma had to stop passing at some point.
If momma was still passing, it wouldn't make sense for her to work among Black folks as a midwife and live among them raising two brown-skinned Black boys that she delivered. She can't do any of that living among White folks and passing as one of them. Socially impossible....Now, I'm wondering why momma stopped passing and just who Mary's daddy is. I have my speculations. But, I digress.
The point: I have only ever understood the one-drop rule theoretically from my contemporary position in time. I imagined what one drop of Black blood looked like, and it never looked like Mary! But, casting Hailee Steinfeld as white-passing made me move from theory to practice and consider how one drop of Black blood could look like at the time. It absolutely could look like Mary. Whew. That's messy. Complicated. Even with fresh illumination about my dilemma with Mary, I know I'm only scratching the surface on how the film represents versions of Blackness in the Jim Crow South.
The way Coogler makes these nuanced implications and expects viewers to infer the right way kinda takes me back to how Morrison does her readers, you know, expecting us to be smart and piece things together. We can't piece a good puzzle together in one sitting but rather by seeing and reading the film multiple times. By wrestling with the questions and letting the ahha moments come one viewing at a time.
This second watch made Mary and her passing momma clearer; I'm wondering what I'll catch the third go 'round.
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