Loving

            The other day, I had the good fortune to see the recent Jeff Nichols’ film, which is called Loving. Besides being an absolutely wonderful romance movie and should duly considered for your next date movie, the film extolls a part of the campaign for civil rights that is typically omitted or outright glossed over by most Hollywood recreations of civil rights’ history. That omission is the sheer extent of the belief of white supremacy in everyday society.

            Presently, there is a tendency for people in the present to think that racism was restricted to a select few people, which is namely those Strom Thurman or Bull Conner types. These few personalities, whose very names evoke images of stark oppression, embody the idea of pure racism. Likewise, if the characters are not the embodiment of pure hate then they are those unfortunate many who do not know that racism is bad or that they should not discriminate based on race. Hollywood is quaintly satisfied with this type of characterization because it allows a montage where the characters in the film can learn to live in racial harmony with one another.

            That is not how Loving operates. The film revolves around the couple of Richard Loving, a poor white man from rural Virginia, and Mildred Jeter, a poor black woman, and their choice to get married at time when interracial marriage was a crime. Over the course of the film, we, the viewers, garner a glimpse of the social apparatus of racism. The Lovings go to Washington D.C. in order to get married because interracial marriage is illegal in Virginia. After they return to Virginia, they are then arrested while in their bedroom and imprisoned while Eldred is pregnant with their child. After Richard Loving makes bail he is confronted by one of the officers that arrested him, the officer consuls Mr. Loving, but not because he arrested him. Rather, the officer pities Mr. Loving because he comes from a poor family that is in close association with blacks. He says because of that, “blood doesn’t know what it wants to be.” Likewise, there is frequent mention that Mr. Loving is supposed to know better. White superiority is conflated with the idea of hierarchy and signs of enlightenment rather than ignorance. It is treated as a truth and as such the ignorance thereof is pitiable. So the social hierarchal structures

            Likewise, racism, as depicted in the film, extends even further to the very nature of religion and science as well. Near the middle of the film, the ACLU lawyer informs the Lovings on how the opposition will argue their case by insinuating that their union is damaging to their children. The fact that their union produces a life, that the state considers inferior and is subject to legal restrictions, is reason enough for illegality of it. In other words, they use a form of eugenics to justify their restriction of interracial marriage. When the Lovings, through the help of civil rights lawyer, appeal their conviction the judge from the county evokes the name of god and his placement of the races across the continents as justification for segregation. So the framers and supports of white supremacy support their beliefs with radical interpretations of the Bible and science.

            In all, the film, Loving, produces a wonderful story of two meek people overcoming a society that seeks to disrupt their lives. While presenting this picture of one of the key cases during the Civil Rights era, the film extols the extent that white supremacy entwined itself in the bedrock of society. The social structure and religion revolved around the belief that the separation of the races and the dominance of the white race were the correct way to live.