Did anybody feel hurt when Sarah Jane rejected Annie

I agree. I think that was the point though. Sarah Jane was suppose to learn that lesson after Annie was gone. Kind of like she wasted her entire relationship with her mother resenting her until it was too late. Annie was heartbreaking, that's for sure. I can't see how anyone couldn't feel for her. She was trying to show Sarah Jane that being ashamed of what you are and hiding it isn't the way to live. Sarah Jane refused to deal with reality and sometimes, reality has a way of making you face it.

"Without love, you're only living an imitation. An imitation of life!"

Yes. That was a depressing part in the movie. It always makes me cry.

I dont think Sarah Jane was ashamed to be black in absolute terms. But she was embarassed to be black in a white world, if that makes any sense. I think it came from a sense that she did not deserve to be treated like a second class citizen. The fact that she does not treat her mother badly when outsiders weren't around tells me that she was not ashamed of her in a real sense. BUt she just could not handle the fact that she would be viewed as a second class citizen. Plus it did not help her self esteem that living in a combined household with another kid her age, her mom was being subservient to the other mom, and she definitely wanted to do everything she could do avoid such a dynamic with any other white person.

I think that Annie literally died of a broken heart. Of all the bad things Annie might have experienced in her lifetime, her daughter's rejection was the worse of it. And you know when she went to see SJ in her dressing room at the club, she could have told her that she wasn't well and this might be the last time they see each other but she didn't use that argument. That says a whole lot about Annie. Classy woman. She didn't want her daughter's pity but wanted her love and respect, more respect IMO. Too bad for SJ that by the time she decided to accept her mother it was too late. What a waste!

YES!!

I just wanted to slap Sarah Jane, with each nasty word , her selfish, wanton ways! Maybe it is because I know she is hurting her mother. The only mother she will ever have. I get that Sarah Jane is hurting but hurting her mother does not solve anything. And even though it is only a movie, the point is we only get one chance at it. Love you mother, love yourself, love your family- it is the only thing that matters in life.

In order to pass for white it's necessary to reject your black relatives including your mother. That's the tragedy.

I read an article years ago that Alexander Hamilton was black (1/4) but had passed. He denied his own mother (1/2) and brother who were both darker than he was and treated his mother especially bad. It makes sense when you consider that white women were extremely rare in the West Indies in those days (he was from Nevis), but yet the white men living there had many children anyway. It's not rocket science to figure out the mothers were of black and mixed-race descent.

This movie always reminds me of Hamilton.

Well, it's heartbreaking, but I know where Sarah Jane is coming from.

Sara Jane spend all her life watching black people and herself being treated like second-class human being, and many times like the scum of earth, just because they were black. She witnesses her mother acting like the "good" black person, all subservient to the white employee, happy to be an employee to a white person, and never achieving anything other than than . Be quiet, be good don't complain, don't have any ambitions other than being "under"a white person. Then, early she finds out she can "pass" for white, and be treated and respect like human being. Than being white will open new doors, new opportunities for her...

Sarah Jane loved her mother but hated the world she lived in. She wanted to live by her own means, she wanted to be respected. Every time her mother said to the world she was her mother, people looked at her different, acted around her different. Why she would accept that if she could be treated like a human. That is what she said to her mother in that room. She should have said that/ No. She should be ashamed of being a black person? Of course not. The world allows that? No, not even today.