LESSONS FROM A MOVIE, COURAGE TO LOVE! By Felix Nyerhovwo Jarikre.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a movie on YouTube starred by Vanessa Williams, ex-Miss America beauty queen. It was titled,  Courage To Love.
Vanessa Williams's character played the smart, intelligent but inquisitive daughter of a beautiful black mother, played by late Dianne Caroll. The mother was the long-standing mistress of a white man played by Stacey Keach.

The white man provided well for his black mistress. The two daughters she bore for him were not excluded from his generosity. They lived in a big beautiful house. The Ms Williams' character was being prepared well to marry a certain rich young white male.
The setting of the movie was New Orleans in an era when the city was more of a French-speaking territory than American.  The black citizens were maltreated as no better than slaves. They were expected to know their place. To remain obsequious. And not create waves.

In this society of that era, we saw white men from France, with their idea of egalitarianism, having open affairs with black women who gave birth to mixed breed children i.e. creating a relatively  affluent and educated Creole class.
In the midst of all this, we saw Ms Williams' character treating people, black and white, with compassion and respect. Through a Catholic church mission, she secretly taught  black children to read and write. And activity that was considered criminal. As it was illegal to teach black children to read and write.  (Black children here meant children without a white father)
So she became marked as a troublemaker when  she was discovered in a classroom teaching some black children how to read and write. But she was protected by her background as a Creole. As they could do nothing to her.

Not long into the movie, it was discovered that Ms williams' father had married a white woman.  When he was confronted by her mother, his weak defence was that he needed to have ' legitimate' children also! Her mother was not pacified. She threw the father of her children out of their  home. But this Creole mistress was not able to recover from the betrayal of her man  whom she had loved and raised well-bred children for without any sense of trouble in her paradise. She went insane, and was admitted into an asylum. 

As she, Ms Williams' character was trying to move on with her life, she learned that one of her black female students, a twelve year old, was raped by a prominent white citizen. The black father of the violated child was enraged but felt impotent to avenge  the injustice. The rapist was his master whom he had diligently served. His faith faltered. He was convinced the ' the Christianity and God'  preached by Ms Williams had failed him! Incensed, she courageously went to the house of the rapist, and confronted him with the violation in the presence of the man's wife and guests. As she was going out to fearlessly confront the rapist, her white  boyfriend, a medical doctor from France, gently  and fearfully pleaded for her caution in these words: ' Don't make it worse' That phrase struck my attention. Because it was exactly the same phrase she used to restrain the father of the twelve-year-old from killing the rapist in raw anger: ' Don't make it worse'
This phrase was eloquently raw in the sense of the realization of all concerned that justice was not going to be served in that society for the violation of the young child.
As far as the scornful rapist was concerned, this girl child was a sub-human, a thing, a mere property to be raped, impregnated  and even discarded.

Before that painful scene, I silently wondered what would have happened if the father of the sexually violated child had given vent to his inner revolt and gone ahead to kill the rapist. The authorities certainly would have framed the black man for the murder of an 'innocent prominent' white citizen, and sentenced him to die by hanging!
So I asked myself again: supposing the black man had privately studied the Bible under the teaching ministry of the Holy Ghost, and acquired the knowledge of the truth for himself, would his story be different?
The trajectory of his story would have been different, even though his knowledge wouldn't have prevented him from facing tribulations.

By the way, before the movie ended, a mysterious plague in the family of COVID-19 swept through the city, and one of its prominent victims was the rapist of the twelve-year-old. His life ended on a hospital bed on a very miserable note.

So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure:  Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:  Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;
2 Thessalonians 1:4‭-‬6

To be continued.