Our society stated by Zastrow was founded on the principle of human equality, however our society is far from always being equal. In the movie “Crash,” Cameron and Christine, who are upper-class African Americans were affected by racial discrimination by Officer Ryan.
When Officer Ryan first saw the black Navigator he thought they were following the Navigator that got carjacked. Unfortunately, even though his partner tells him it is not the car, Officer Ryan pulls them over because he assumes that the woman (Christine) is giving sexual favor in the car while a black man (Cameron) is driving. When Officer Ryan gets to the window he realizes that they are an upper-class African-American couple however, this routine stop turned into a very hostile confrontation because of Christine’s mouth. Both Cameron and Christine experience stereotyping and racism from the Officer Ryan.
Officer Ryan’s treatment to them was unfair but later in the movie you notice why he treated the couple the way that he did. Ryan was angry about not getting help for his sick father that he took out his frustration on Cameron and Christine. He thought that they only reason why African-Americans got where they were was because of the “white” society giving them opportunities. He made a statement later on in the movie to Shaniqua saying “…And then the city council decides to give minority-owned companies preference in city contracts. And overnight, my father loses everything.” Yes, Officer Ryan see that Cameron is a wealthy hard working business man but he feels that the only way he got to the place that he got was because of the sacrifice that “white” gave up.
However a routine stop turned into a hostile situation. When Officer Ryan asked Cameron t...
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...came to me for help both would have many issues to work on. Cameron and Christine both need to work on their self-awareness and how they even though you are successfully you will run into people who will be prejudice and will always feel that they are superior to them. Christine would first need help with how she felt being sexually assaulted by a white male officer. Christine was a victim not just a victim because of her race but a victim to sexual assault. With Cameron, he realized if he wanted to be successfully he needed to act like a “white man.” Both Cameron and Christine faced a flood of embarrassment, shame, frustration, and anger and realizing that no matter that you are a law abiding person that are society still looks at the color of their skin. Our society in so stereotypical that even all the money in the world will never change some people views.
Jean Cabot learned that all races are not the same and she should not have prejudiced her Latino maid. And Officer John regret to what he did to Christina and her husband Cameron, and saved her life a second before the car she was in exploded. He risked his life to show how sorry he was. It’s a lesson to everyone not to judge people on how they look but to judge them on what they are from
All through time, the world has been racist and intolerant of people different from themselves. Countless millions have suffered due to the bigotry of people that couldn't understand change or differences among one another. There was a time when any soul that wasn't blue eyed and blonde haired in Germany, anyone with darker skin where immediately classed as inferior and not human. Even now, when you are not aware, racism is still a considerable problem. But sometimes it isn't one person being racist against another, but rather one person being racist against them self. The movie crash shows good examples of how racism against oneself, caused by fear and misunderstanding, is just as malevolent and evil as racism against another person. Fear is what makes people act racist. Farhad is one of many examples in the movie of a person who recognizes his own race and paralyzes himself through his own fear. Farhad believes that since he is Persian he is immediately being persecuted against and cheated. He flips out at the gun shop when the owner was insulting him which just furthers his fear of Americans. After the events on 9/11, which are referenced a lot in the movie, Farhad thinks that anyone who is Middle Eastern isn't welcome in America. Even after the gun shop owner was rude; his shop was destroyed by racist people who hated him. It is this same fear of being cheated because of his race that makes him very untrusting to people he doesn't know. He calls a lock smith to come fix his door because it won't lock. He immediately thinks that Daniel is trying to cheat him and steal money from him just because of his past endeavors.
According to Dr. Carl S. Taylor, the relationship between minority groups and police in the United States has historically been strained. Some cities have a deep and bitter history of bias and prejudice interwoven in their past relationships. The feeling in many communities today is that the system pits law enforcement as an occupying army versus the neighborhood. Dr. Taylor wrote about easing tensions between police and minorities, but stated “If there is any good news in the current situation, it is that the history of this strain has found the 1990’s ripe for change.
Racism, prejudice, stereotypes, discrimination, these are just a few of the topics that the movie Crash touches on. This film was well written and shows an honest depiction of the racial and social tensions that we face every day. However, the film shows us that no matter who you are, we all have some type of stereotype ingrained into us and it is not one group of people that believe in the stereotypes of others.
In the world, there are vast amounts of hate crimes, racism, and discrimination between all ethnicities and throughout the movie “Crash”, there are countless examples carried out between the characters. It makes the viewer rethink what they believe they know about the world they live in. As ‘Merriam-Webster Dictionary would define it as, “a stereotype is to believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same”. It is an opinion, conception, or image we hold about a race, or group of people. Discrimination is most commonly defined as the practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from one another. And to be prejudice is to hold preconceived judgements, biased suspicion, or hatred of a particular race or ethnic group. Each of these play a role in the assumptions people make about one another and the stereotypes portrayed throughout the film. Crash deals with America, specifically
Tension between the African Americans and Caucasians have been present in America since slavery. In the movie Crash (2004), race and culture are major themes that can be seen in the lives of the characters in the film. One character in particular, Cameron, a prestigious color vision director, displays the friction between two cultures. He belongs to the educated, upper class of the Los Angeles area. He is also an African American, yet he seems to have no ties with that class. He has a light-skinned wife, attends award shows, and it appears that his acquaintances are predominately white. When he and his wife, Christine, get pulled over by a racist cop, he experiences emotions of powerlessness and helplessness that he never knew he would experience due to his upbringing and place in society. Cameron goes through a radical transformation where he comes to grips with his background and how he fits into these two clashing cultures.
Big fucking surprise that is." (Haggis, Crash), to which she hangs up on him. Later on, he visits the clinic that Shaniqua Johnson works at, seemingly apologetic at first. He goes on to explain how his father, before he got sick and lost everything, was an advocate for the rights of African-American people, saying he is a good person and deserves to get the proper treatment and diagnosis for his condition. Johnson says she would like to help his father. She says if he were to personally ask her for help, she would comply; but because it was not his father who went to the clinic, she refuses to help. Ryan claims Johnson 's "people" are part of the reason his father lost everything and says she should feel obligated to help him, further proving his prejudice. Although, in the scene where Ryan helps Christine out of the van, when Ryan realizes who she is, he does not hesitate to continue to get her to safety. This may pose a question of whether he is trying to convince himself, and others, that he is not a racist, and if he is trying to redeem himself. Additionally, the character of Officer Tom Hanson tries to prove time and time again that he does not believe in society 's stereotypes. Hanson, present for the incident with Christine and
“Who was the most racist in that situation? Was it the white man who was too terrified to confront his black neighbors on their rudeness? Was it the black folks who abandoned their mattress on their curb? … Or was it all of us, black and white, passively revealing that, despite our surface friendliness, we didn’t really care about one another?” He never blames the black neighbors for their disregard of the mattress because their black, but sounds aware of the stereotyping and how he comes off addressing it. He also knows how much he stands out in the community as a minority, wondering what the cops would say to him, “ ‘Buddy,’ the cops would say. ‘You don’t fit the profile of the neighborhood.” Despite his pride in his actions of disposing of the mattress, the mistreatment by his black neighbors comes off as an unfortunate, but expected, consequence, “I knew the entire block would shun me. I felt pale and lost, like an American explorer in the
Throughout the film, Officer Ryan has a very close relationship with his father and his racism personality is showed right throughout the film because of his job and how it is affecting him to lash out towards people of other races. It is first assumed in the film that at first that Ryan was a product of his environment that absorbed racist views from his white ethnic group and got it from his father regarding his attitude towards black people. Ryan’s father however happens to not to be racist man at all and is the only stable relationship Ryan has in the film and manages to humanise him more whenever he is shown with his father compared to other scenes where he is portrayed is a racist stereotypical white man. Officer Ryan on the job uses his power as a police officer to sexually harass a black female civilian in front of her husband, simply because he can and has the power to as a police officer of the law. Another scene in the film that showcases this racist side to Officer Ryan is when he is on the phone trying to get a hold of a medical clinic regarding his father’s health condition on the phone he is speaking to a black woman “I want to talk to your supervisor, I am my supervisor, yeah what’s your name? Shaniqua Johnson, Shaniqua massive surprise that is!” these quotes of officer Ryan showcase his racist personality and stereotypes of a black woman can have a prominent position of power in a 21st modern day
After all these years, racism and prejudices are still present in our society. It seems as though there is not a day that goes by without seeing a story about a racially fueled crime or act of discrimination on the news. As much as people would like to believe that racism no longer exist and that stereotyping and racial profiling do not happen on a daily basis, the truth of the matter is that these prejudices are still very existent today. In the 2004 movie Crash, the lives of several Los Angeles citizens intertwine when faced with racism, stereotyping and crime.
In The Talk Canedy explains that she needs to teach her son how to act around the police. Things such as police brutality happen a lot more tech African American then it does to white people. A lot of white people tend to not understand the problems that African-American, Hispanics, Asians, and more go through on a daily basis. Learning from the Nicole Chung’s personal essay I was able to learn racism isn’t always clear. There are different forms of racism such as casual racism that people endorsed on an everyday basis that wait people might not even notice they are saying. This is just one great example of things that an African American man would need to learn that a white man wouldn’t. Not in all cases but frequently when you think of African-Americans you think of property. Although this is not a fair assumption this has a lot of the fact on life experiences. People with low social class and low income don’t forget to do things that people with high income get to do. This causes different races to have different life experiences. Another example can be college, certain races push college more heavily than others. Some families finally important in working straight out of high school well there’s find important in a college education. Depending on your race could depend on if you go to
Officer Ryan is a white bigoted police officer who has a clear hatred of African Americans. The scene depicts Office Ryan pulling over a vehicle, because it looks like one that was reported stolen. However, after running the plates, he knows the vehicle is not stolen, but using his Legitimate Power, he pulls the vehicle over anyway. Like most power, legitimate power is based upon perception and reality, and the ability to influence others based on their status, and the right to comply. However, once the stop is initiated, he then engages in Coercive Power, and sexually assaults the female passenger, Christine Thayer, as her husband, Cameron Thayer, watches helplessly. Ryan hatred of blacks is so intense that he does even care that he has just committed a crime in front of his partner, a partner who knows that he has just crossed the line. Officer Ryan has no respect for blacks, and used racial profiling as a means of pulling over and harassing the couple. When a person with authority uses their position to force someone to comply with what they want, by using acts of threats and intimation is coercive power.
This was especially evident when they were being pulled over by a racist white cop. She felt that he could have done more to defend their rights instead of accepting injustice. There is also a Persian store owner, who feels that he is getting the short end of the stick in American society because his store was robbed multiple times. Then the Hispanic locksmith encounters racial slurs and discrimination, although he just wanted to keep his family safe. The partnered detectives and lovers of different races, one is a Hispanic woman and the other is a black male, who are dealing with his drug addicted mother who feels that he does not care enough about taking care of his family. In this movie, discrimination and prejudice are the cause of all kinds of collisions. We easily prejudge people with stereotypes, and we are concerned with our pre-thoughts of what kind of person he/she should be, we forget to actually get to know them. It is human nature to have some type of prejudices in one way or another; we fear the unknown. There are stereotypes that black people are angry or tend to be violent; white people feel they are the dominant race and discriminate against all; Asians are thought to be poor or ignorant, and people with higher economic statuses are distinguished to the working class
Prejudice refers to one’s biased opinions and ideas of others, based on secondary information. Hence, the internalized ideas concerning the prejudiced members in society does not result from personal experiences, but information from third parties. Where prejudice is prevalent, the social relationships between the concerned individuals become strained and unmanageable. The existence of equality in society discourages the frequency of prejudice on racial grounds. The content of this discussion explores the concept of prejudice, as it relates to racial inequality and discrimination. The discussion features the Emmanuel AME Church shooting scenario, which characterizes racial discrimination and inequality. The discussion further examines the role
Abstract- Racial discrimination happens all the time and most of us are unaware of it. The most common place for this to happen is in the workplace. Now people can be discriminated against because of their race, religion, or any other numerous things. Also, discrimination can occur during the job interview or even after you got the job. This paper will shoe the effects of racial discrimination and how it can be prevented. In addition there are some very important laws that deal specifically with discrimination, like the NAACP or Affirmative Action. These both will be discussed.