CRASH

Crash was such a good movie. Unlike so many other movies, Crash had a message and there was something to be learned from the film. It really is a piece of art. One part of the movie that I noticed especially was the relationship between Shaniqua Johnson, the cop, and the rest of society. Toward the beginning of the movie, the cop got into an argument with Shaniqua. He implied that she was an outsider, saying things like "your people." I feel like he's implying that African Americans aren't a part of the predominantly white society in America. In this scene you can see the racial tension that exists, and how differently the two races treat one another. However, at the end of the movie a Hispanic man crashes into Shaniqua's car. She starts yelling at him and when he tries to respond (with an accent) she tells him that this is America and we speak English here. I thought it was ironic that somebody who is treated like an outsider will go and treat others the same way. It's like an endless circle. You'd think that somebody who understands what it's like to be treated that way would try to stop it, not promote it. I thought this contrast brought the movie full circle. It connects everybody in that each character in the movie committed an act of racism, implicit or explicit. I think that we can take a lesson from this movie and try to stop the endless circling of racism. Even at our school you see that the different races tend to separate themselves. Racism does not benefit our society in any way, so we should all that we can to stop it.

Race

So this week in class we've been discussing how race doesn't actually exist biologically or scientifically. There's nothing in our genes that determines our race. Society has made up this idea called "race." Skin color was determined by where you lived. If you lived near the equator, you had dark skin. If you lived up North, you had light skin. The problem with race is that people will automatically stereotype someone based on the color of their skin. When a person doesn't act like their race is 'supposed to', they are considered outsiders. People can't be defined by the color of their skin. Take Barack Obama for example. People refer to him as our country's First Black President, but he's just as much white as he is black. Skin color is merely a physical characteristic and shouldn't be used to define somebody. However, it's very difficult to avoid doing so. I can relate this to my life by looking past someone's skin color when I first meet them.

Social Class and Mobility

Playing Monopoly following the rules of the U.S class system was interesting. It supported the idea of people generally not moving up (or down) in social class that we've been talking about in class for the past few weeks. I understand that it might be really difficult to move up in social class, but I don't think it's impossible. My family and I immigrated to America when I was five years old. We didn't come from a background of wealthy people, so we basically started off with nothing. We lived in a small apartment in the city for about two years, but then we were able to move into the suburbs. Now we live an upper middle class lifestyle. I've never been able to understand how people who were born in this country and had way more advantages than my family did aren't able to move up in social class. Maybe my family is just the exception? I'm really not sure.