The relationship between Chiron and his mother, Paula, is fraught with addiction and neglect, yet it culminates in a deeply moving scene of forgiveness.

In African American literature and cinema, the mother-son bond is shaped by slavery, segregation, and mass incarceration. Examples: The Wire (D’Angelo and his mother Brianna – she protects the drug organization’s code), Moonlight (Chiron’s crack-addicted mother Paula – her love is real but poisoned, and his forgiveness is the film’s climax), Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates’s letter to his son about the mother’s fear).