In the 1997 film Rosewood written by John Singleton we follow the horrifying story of the small city Rosewood and its residence, a predominantly black community, which was extremely rare for its time. The movie portrays the historical events in which whites lynched dozens of blacks and burned down the city of Rosewood, Florida in 1923 due to a white woman who had claimed to be beaten by a black man. The story takes place during the Jim Crow Era, which was a set of rigid anti-black laws set in place to keep the segregation and oppression of blacks.
It is important to see that Rosewood was set during this era because it demonstrates the relationship of the Jim Crow laws and the characters in the film. The character I will be discussing from the film is John Wright. His character is stricken with many identity conflicts throughout the movie. He is torn between helping his neighbors, the black citizens of Rosewood, and helping the white lynch mob carry out there own justice. John wright also helps manifest a few African American motifs throughout the film.
First, what is a motif? A literary motif is any recurring element that has symbolic significance in a story. Through its repetition, a motif can help produce other literary aspects such as theme or mood. An African American Motif is a motif that helps the reader understand the literary aspects contributed by African American history. In the film, we see John Wright using the Systems of Oppression motif, primarily Economic Exploitation.
The Economic Exploitation Motif displays the oppression of blacks by using economic methods. Blacks were kept from becoming wealthy or advancing themselves by means of racial ideologies. These ideologies were rampant in the early to mid twentieth century and were reinforced by such things as the Jim Crow Laws. Whites resented any economic gains by blacks and lynching became common against blacks that tried to compete economically with whites.
In this film John Wright is a wealthy shop owner in a predominately black town. Wright, his wife and two children are the only white residents of Rosewood. In the film it is apparent that being the only white man in Rosewood, he holds the upmost power.
In the opening scene we discover him abusing his power by having sexual relations with Jewel, who is the black help at the store. This scene demonstrates economic exploitation to the fullest. It shows how a young black woman who is relying on the low wages she may be paid cannot afford to lose her job by refusing to sleep with her boss. It was likely she would be threatened with violence or death if she ever implied that a white man was pursuing her sexually. This is the first of three examples of systems of oppression that John Wright displays in the film.
Another example is seen when John Wright is shown telling a black customer that an item was $3 instead of the usual $1. The extra $2 was due only because the black customer was already in debt with the store. This demonstrates how whites took advantage of blacks that had no other means of purchasing household necessities. It reinforces the oppression of the black citizens because it was nearly impossible for blacks to better advance themselves when their debt was rising higher and higher.
When the lynch mob begins to start killing the citizens of Rosewood, John Wright displays another example of economic exploitation. In this scene he is torn between hiding a black man in his house that is threatened with death or turning him away. John Wright refuses to let the black man hide in his house until he is offered money. As he takes the man in the house, Wright states that when the violence is done he wants to talk about that deed of land, referring to the land that he was being outbid on by a black man named Mr. Mann earlier that day. I believe this was the largest display of oppression by John Wright. Even when a black man was threatened with death, John Wright still thought about how he could become wealthier at their expense.
In conclusion, throughout the earlier twentieth century in the U.S. there were many examples of Oppression by way of economic exploitation, from share cropping to the everyday purchases blacks made. John Wright was a symbol in the film Rosewood to better illustrate the oppression that blacks endured.
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