She Deserves It

The scene that made the greatest impression on me was right after Sarah Jane’s boyfriend finds out that her “mother is a nigger” and pummels her to the ground. Sarah Jane goes home, her face noticeably bruised and bleeding, and collapses on the stairs for Lora, Susie, and Annie to find her. Susie tells Annie and Lora that it was Sarah Jane’s boyfriend who did this to her but the reaction that it elicits from the two adults is absurdly underreacted. Annie and Lora are certainly concerned that Sarah Jane has cuts all over her face but they are alarmingly not appalled when they learn that it was another person, a man, more to the point, who did this to her. It is almost as if the harm done Sarah Jane was deserved, as if this is a worthy punishment for the crime of concealing one’s blackness. Lora seems more angered by Sarah Jane’s talking back to her mother about how she hates being black than by the idea that a man should physically mistreat her.