Crash...

In class, we are watching the movie Crash. Even though I have seen this movie before, I have been able to watch it with a new perspective. Now, when I am watching, I have been looking for different examples of and how people act about racism. I have noticed 2 major things. First, I saw how people acted differently around people of different races. For example, Sandra Bullock's character is very comfortable around her white husband, but she has to put her arm around her husband's when she is by black men. She felt differently and had to act differently, subconsciously, around different races. Also, I noticed different forms of both explicit and implicit racism. There were a ton of examples of explicit or overt racism. Many times, a character would get angry because they were dealing with a person of a different race. There was also examples of implicit or hidden racism. In the movie, a lot of the racial tension came from stereotypes and misunderstandings. When the lock guy can't fix the door, the store owner gets mad at him. That whole scene is a big misunderstanding because of stereotypes. The store owner assumes the lock guy is a thief because of his race, so he accuses him of cheating him. Then, later, the whole "shooting" could've been avoided. I think that education about other races and their cultures can eliminate a lot of the racism. If people know about other races besides their own, maybe they will create less stereotypes of races because they are more educated.