Understanding Race
Natasha Patterson
Sociology 304-002
Understanding Race
In the beginning of the documentary we were asked a couple of questions what is race and if race existed and before taking this class and watching the movie I would have said yes race does exist because growing up I believed race was what we were not who we are. A lot of people have suffered because of race especially black people because we have never and never will achieve the whiteness per say as everyone else who have come to this country. Overall I like the documentary because I think it has or will open up people eyes and make them realize that there is no validity behind the word race. There were several parts I didn’t like and made me mad because I believe people from different ethnicities’ would not have been mistreated if the European people were not so afraid or felt that they were superior to everyone else.. The first thing I didn’t like about this film was the way the KKK and the authorities treated the Dahmer family because they were involved in the civil rights movement and allowed blacks to have a place to vote and because of this their home and store was burned and Mr. Dahmer was killed. Even back then we are supposed to have been living in the land of the free but that to me really didn’t exist for black people and even today we still have to work twice as hard to prove ourselves. Mr. Dahmer states that race has a lot of connotations to it, some good and some bad and I agree but majority of it is bad, that’s just my opinion. Another thing I didn’t like was how the judicial system let these people go because of their ethnicity and it took over thirty years for the Dahmer family to get justice.
Another question asked was what makes people behave this way and Maya Angelo said it best, we use the differences because we don’t know any better really, we use the differences between ourselves in hopes that doing so our individual lives will be better. Race is a big bashing two by four and we
Sociology 304-002
Understanding Race
In the beginning of the documentary we were asked a couple of questions what is race and if race existed and before taking this class and watching the movie I would have said yes race does exist because growing up I believed race was what we were not who we are. A lot of people have suffered because of race especially black people because we have never and never will achieve the whiteness per say as everyone else who have come to this country. Overall I like the documentary because I think it has or will open up people eyes and make them realize that there is no validity behind the word race. There were several parts I didn’t like and made me mad because I believe people from different ethnicities’ would not have been mistreated if the European people were not so afraid or felt that they were superior to everyone else.. The first thing I didn’t like about this film was the way the KKK and the authorities treated the Dahmer family because they were involved in the civil rights movement and allowed blacks to have a place to vote and because of this their home and store was burned and Mr. Dahmer was killed. Even back then we are supposed to have been living in the land of the free but that to me really didn’t exist for black people and even today we still have to work twice as hard to prove ourselves. Mr. Dahmer states that race has a lot of connotations to it, some good and some bad and I agree but majority of it is bad, that’s just my opinion. Another thing I didn’t like was how the judicial system let these people go because of their ethnicity and it took over thirty years for the Dahmer family to get justice.
Another question asked was what makes people behave this way and Maya Angelo said it best, we use the differences because we don’t know any better really, we use the differences between ourselves in hopes that doing so our individual lives will be better. Race is a big bashing two by four and we