Crash Into Racism

               The movie Crash is a great movie to show real racism in everyday life. The movie has characters of many different races and each character is either a victim of racism or a racist themselves. One character is a white police officer who uses his power to take advantage of a black woman when he pulls her husband over for a traffic stop. The officer’s partner doesn’t agree with his actions and gets a new partner. Later that night he picks up a man who African American and gives him a ride. When he hitchhiker reaches in his pocket the officer believes he’s reaching for a gun and shoots the man. The movie shows that even those who don’t agree with racism will still have stereotypes and make prejudices sometimes about other races.

                There is also a man from the Middle East who owns a convenience store. He hires a lock smith who is Latino and he fixes the locks for him but tries to explain that he needs new doors. The man doesn’t understand English that well and insists the man fixes his locks. Later that night young gang members break into his store and the man is convinced the lock smith was to blame. When we think of racism and stereotyping we usually think of whites and African Americans but the truth is racism can occur between minorities as well. Sandra Bullock’s character also hired the locksmith to change the locks in her home and she yelled at her husband for hiring a Latino. She believed he was a Latino thug who would sell keys to his friends and break into their home. Her husband was a politician and he was hoping to get more black votes so his advisors told him not to report their truck being stolen by two African Americans. He didn’t want to appear racist but his wife’s comments about the lock smith show she has no shame in racism.

                There is also a pair of detectives who are a couple. He is African American and she is white. He will not take her to meet his mother because she has a drug problem and she also does not like her son dating a white woman. Many people like Gahlager believe interracial relationships will help end racism. I believe there has been a huge increase in interracial relationships over the last thirty years and I believe they will continue to increase and become more common. I also believe people will become more accepting of interracial relationships when they see how common interracial relationships have become. I also believe younger generations are more accepting of interracial relationships because they live in a less racist world that doesn’t keep races separate.

                I believe racism could end someday but it may take a long time to get to that point.  I believe racism is learned behavior and if children are taught to treat everyone equal and are encouraged to form relationships with people of other races we could prevent them from being racist. I also think it is important to educate people about different races to prevent people from making assumptions and stereotyping people of another race.

http://racism.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=401:whiteness19a&catid=69&Itemid=165
This is a website that addresses white superiority in the movie Crash.

http://dblunt.blogspot.com/2008/05/crash-racial-stereotyping-and-prejudice.html This website discusses the sterootypes in the movie.