TOO SUPERFICIAL AND SENTIMENTAL TO GET TO ROOTS OF RACIALISM
By Benita Teper
1959The NewsletterBenita Teper Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: headlines and words can be misread, and a caption or advert can run into the text. For anything you quote, read the scan.
‘SAPPHIRE’ has been hailed not only as a good thriller, but as a serious comment on the race problem.
As a thriller it is rather obvious. In its treatment of racialism it is deceptive.
No doubt the intentions of those who made the film were good. This is just what makes it dangerous; for the liberal explanation of racial hatred is superficial. and the solution is misleading.
A girl is found murdered. Investigations take the police to two worlds, one black, one white. In each, we are carefully told, there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’.
DECENT
There are debased coloured people, there are some who are anti-white, but then there are decent and tolerant ones too.
There are white people whose outlook is riddled with prejudice, who are even sick with hatred; but there are others who implement the ‘brotherhood of man’.
Not even policemen are immune. We see a _ bigoted Scotland Yard man as well as one who is a worthy custodian of blind justice.
One important thread of the film counterposes the ‘black’ side of the girl’s life—dancing and low dives—to the ‘white’ side—the civilized pursuit of studies in an academy of music.
But this is covered over by a series of sentimental and corruption. It cannot be fought effectively by individuals’ leading the ‘moral life’. Still less it can be fought by the ‘law’.
This is the liberal deception which seeks to disarm any militant attempt to destroy racialism at its root.
BENITA TEPER