By: Christiana Best-Giacomini, Ph.D. & Janice Hassan, LCSW
July 11, 2025
Ryan Coogler’s movie Sinners is more than a film, it’s a layered allegory about white supremacy, intergenerational trauma, spiritual resistance, and the quest for belonging. Featuring Michael B. Jordan in a powerful dual role as brothers Elias “Stack” and Elijah “Smoke” Moore, the story follows their return to Jim Crow-era Mississippi to open a juke joint. But this is no ordinary narrative. Beneath its surface lies a deeply symbolic exploration of race, memory, power, and healing.
After watching Sinners, I wasn’t just moved, I was stirred. The kind of stirring that demands conversation in safe, sacred spaces like my book club, surrounded by Black women who see the world through a racial equity lens. These are the spaces where truth can be spoken freely, where stories are unpacked and layered meaning revealed.
Sinners may have vampires, but the real monsters are systems—racism, colonialism, patriarchy. In one unforgettable scene, Native Americans arrive at a white couple’s door to warn them about a vampire. The woman greets them with a shotgun, ready to defend the very danger they came to stop. That moment encapsulated the psychological denial and cognitive dissonance that upholds white supremacy. Rather than accept the truth, she clings to illusion. That scene wasn’t just about a monster. It was about the illusion of safety built on denial.
The vampire is more than a figure of horror, he is the embodiment of colonial violence, cloaked in civility. And the white couple? They represent complicity, protecting the monster because acknowledging it means confronting their own role in its survival.
Later, over lunch at Ponty Bistro in Harlem, my friend Janice and I dove into this symbolism. She immediately brought up the vampire’s obsession with the Blues. To us, that screamed appropriation the predator’s need to consume Black creativity. From Blues to Jazz to Hip-Hop, Black music carries ancestral memory and resistance. But there was a vampire trying to possess it, just as Black culture is so often commodified and stripped of meaning.
We talked about the nightclub scene, how the music took over the room like a spiritual invocation. I felt it in my body. My movements were no longer mine alone, they belonged to my ancestors. Janice laughed and said, “Girl, I couldn’t even watch, it was too much!”
That’s what rhythm does. It awakens us. It reminds us that movement is memory, and music is medicine. Psychologically, this is connected to embodied memory, how trauma and healing live in the body. That scene wasn’t just cinematic; it was a ritual.
It reminded me of my childhood in Grenada, where our neighbor practiced both Catholicism and Obeah. I’d sneak peeks at the drumming and dancing. I didn’t understand it then, but I knew it was sacred. Sinners brought it back, the pulse, the connection, the power.
Janice and I talked about how colonization taught us to fear our own practices. But Obeah, Vodou, Santería, these are about healing, not harm. They connect us to something older and deeper. The healer in the film embodied this truth. She didn’t just survive, she resisted. Spiritually grounded, she was unshakable.
We linked this to the Haitian Revolution; how African spiritual practices fueled the only successful slave revolt in the Western Hemisphere. That’s why Haiti has been punished ever since, not because of its failures, but because of its audacity to win.
Later, at the beauty parlor, the conversation continued. Shakeda, my stylist with a psychology degree, broke down the significance of Confederate money used in the nightclub, how it symbolized generational wealth and systemic control. Other women critiqued Stack’s naiveté, especially his entanglement with his white-passing ex. “She had blood dripping down her face, and he didn’t see it?” they asked. Their critique revealed how racialized desire and denial intersect.
Then came the discussion about the Asian woman who, out of fear, let the vampires in. Her act sparked a powerful conversation about white adjacency, fear, and the cost of survival. The vampires weren’t just characters, they were systems. And like colonizers, systems don’t ask, they occupy.
Sinners is a mirror. It forces us to confront how people of color keep sounding the alarm, only to be ignored, dismissed, or silenced. It asks: who gets to belong? Who is protected? And at what cost?
Belonging isn’t about assimilation. It’s about being seen and heard as we are. In psychological terms, belonging is vital to identity and well-being. When systems deny it, people fracture. But true belonging comes from reclaiming our stories, our bodies, our spirits.
That’s why conversations in restaurants, salons, and safe spaces matter. They are acts of resistance and reclamation. Because we belong. Not because we’ve earned it in someone else’s eyes, but because we carry the knowing in our bones.
Dr Christiana Best is an Associate Professor at the University of Saint Joseph, Connecticut
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