Last night, I watched Places in the Heart, a movie that is now 37 years old. If you haven’t seen it, spoiler alert: I cannot share my impressions without revealing key scenes at the end of the film.
Set in a small town in Texas in the 1930s, Places in the Heart is essentially about a young mother who must find a way to support her family when her husband is accidentally killed by a Black boy wielding a gun while hopelessly drunk.
To help make ends meet, Edna Spalding (Sally Field) takes on Mr. Will (John Malkovich), a blind boarder who only wants to be left alone. But he is won over by Edna’s two small children, and a new kind of family unit is formed, one that eventually includes a Black man named Moze (pronounced Moses).
When Moze (Danny Glover) comes around looking for work, he is offered a plate of food and told to move on. Instead of eating and leaving, he chops wood for the woodpile. He then points out that Mrs. Spalding has nearly thirty acres lying fallow —planted with cotton, that land would bring in a good income. Edna knows nothing about cotton, but she is desperate to feed her family and hold on to their home. She decides to risk what little she has on making Moze’s idea into a reality.
Moze has been planting and picking cotton since he was a boy. He mentors Edna, nudging her to insist on the top-grade seed she has paid for. Together they put in long days with a mule cutting furrows in the dirt and planting the seed. He coaches her on how to negotiate a price for the cotton once it is picked.
Picking the cotton has its own price: back-breaking work and bleeding hands.
Hard as it is, the business of cotton turns out to be a successful endeavor for Edna. She dreams of buying more land, planting more cotton. When she says she might even be able to afford a tractor, Moze dares to dream with her. “I’ve always wanted a tractor,” he says. At that point — along with these two characters — I could, for a flickering moment, imagine a fine future for these people.
But the white men who run everything in this town have no use for a Black man helping a white woman. One night when Moze and Mr. Will are alone in the house, the Ku Klux Klan shows up. They corral Moze and begin beating him. He is saved from being beaten to death by Mr. Will, who grabs a gun and knows where to point it – being blind doesn’t prevent him from recognizing the voices of the men in white sheets or where they’re standing.
One of the men tells Moze they’re not done with him; they’ll be back to cripple or kill him. Moze knows he has to leave. The potential for a good life in this place has been taken from him; the knowledge he might have contributed to Edna Spalding’s future prosperity must go with him.
As Moze is saying goodbye to Edna, he hands her small gifts — a rag doll he has made for her little girl, his rabbit’s foot for her boy, a handkerchief that belonged to his mother for Edna. It was at that point I began to cry.
It was not only this scene that made me cry. I was crying because the same scene has been played out countless times over the centuries, and it is still being played out today. It is the misery of white supremacy keeping people of color, indigenous people, and women of every race from realizing their full potential. It is white male supremacy constantly suppressing the best in so many of us, and depriving our society of the contributions non-white, non-male people could make — an immeasurable wealth of knowledge, talent, skill and creativity lost to us because a certain segment of America refuses to allow a level playing field for everyone.
These bullies have been with us for a long time. They were emboldened by Donald Trump’s four years in the White House. They stormed the Capitol on January 6th, and now they are threatening election officials and poll volunteers. They’re screaming at school board meetings and menacing teachers, trying to ban books – even burn them. They want to get rid of anyone who doesn’t tow the white supremacy line. Fascism is characterized by “forcible suppression of opposition.” That is exactly what we are witnessing in America today.
The notion that the white man is and deserves to be the dominant race and gender has always been, and continues be, an enigma — beyond my ken.
The definition of an enigma is “…a person or phenomena that is perplexing, baffling, inexplicable.” Our current batch of bullies is an enigma, whether dressed in suit and tie or tee shirts and red maga hats. I believe their outlook and view of the world is one that was taught – because none of us is born seeing skin color as a defining characteristic of who to love or like. But how these bigots can continue to hold onto their prejudice and desperate sense of superiority is beyond me.
The other enigma: what to do about bullies, fascists, Neo-Nazis, and run-of-the-mill racists? I don’t know. I do know — in spite of the ever-present extreme right — things are better than they were, and I am grateful for the individuals and organizations that have worked and continue to work tirelessly to change conditions for those who are suppressed, under-valued, and ill-treated.
For those of us who believe in a nation of equal opportunity and equal justice for all, it is imperative to join with and support the people and organizations working to deliver the promise of equality. I know there are more of us than there are of those spewing hate and raising flags of intolerance. We have intelligence, consciousness, and love on our side. It is a place in the heart filled with light, and I place my faith in that light to guide us to a better tomorrow.
A backlit view of a country road at dawn in Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Like this:
Like Loading...
zen crunch 