Racism in Society
Introduction : Racism in Society The movie Crash is about several different scenarios of everyday people from different racial backgrounds in Los Angeles. Crash was “the only movie that is not afraid to tackle the themes of race and ethnical tension in today’s American society.” The film compelled people to examine their own prejudices. (Orbe & Kinefuchi, 2008). Within a two day period, the characters will come in and out of each other’s lives and show the racial interaction between them thru “collisions”. Two black thieves rob an attorney and his wife; attorney’s wife is racist against her locksmith, who also changes a Persian mans locks; a black detective who is working on a case with the attorney and whose brother is one of the thieves; a racist cop who molests a black woman and cares for his father; a black health insurance lady who has to put up with the racist cop; a black director and his wife get pulled over by the racist cop; a Persian store owner has his locks changed and blames the locksmith when his store is vandalized. The movie shows collisions of these characters and the stories that lead up to the collisions (Kinefuchi & Orbe, 2008). I think what Paul Haggis, the co-writer and director of Crash wants us to believe that all types of racism are part of all of us and illustrates the reality of it among our society in the movie. Crash examines the racial interactions between several ethnic groups through cleverly constructed scenarios. It also identifies individual struggles with racial prejudice and how it affects choices they make in their personal and professional lives. In reality, we think we are unaffected by racial prejudice by avoiding certain encounters. We pretend we are invisible to its effects. But if we were placed in a particular situation, we would be forced to deal with our prejudices. Only when we recognize and admit our prejudices can we begin to deal with racism in our society. Some of us are aware of
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