Does Colorism Matter?
I’m sure the ancestors said yes
“But why does their skin tone matter, he asked. To me if they black, they black.”
The movie, The Harder They Fall, has made it’s way to Netflix and before viewing it, the conversation of colorism made its way to social media. The movie itself is a western but in a way we haven’t experienced much of them. Normally shown as less than, black characters are thrust into leading roles as both outlaw and cowboy. The majority of the cast are black actors and actresses but director Jeymes Samuel doesn’t consider it a “black western.”
“It’s just a story about these people in their own world, just like ‘Rio Bravo’ is a story about John Wayne and Dean Martin in their own world,” said the director over Zoom. “Like ‘Unforgiven’ is a story about Gene Hackman and Clint Eastwood in their own world. These aren’t white westerns or white movies, they’re just movies.”
Although the story draws from a fictional background, the characters in the movie are based on real history. One character in particular Mary Fields or Stage Coach Mary is at the forefront of this colorism controversy. Not much is known about the real-life Mary Fields but what we do know about the hard-drinking, shot-gun toting mail carrier was she secured mail routes from thieves and bandits and delivered mail. She was the first African American woman in…
