Bamboozled: Racial Identity In Film

Step 3: Look in the Mirror with Someone Else’s Eyes
“In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.” Dalai Lama
Taking a moment to look at our lives as white people from the view point of an American of color is important to our talking about racial issues. We need to fully understand our racial identities from every view point. This idea is explored in a very interesting way in Spike Lee’s movie, Bamboozled:
“African American producers like Lee are making films like Bamboozled that help both white and black audiences ‘unthink’ the taken-for-granted cultural logic of whiteness. Nevertheless, the fact that Bamboozled made many people uncomfortable suggests that perhaps things have not changed as much as they seem on the surface…” (Fine, Weis, Powell Pruitt, Burns, 2012).
If we spend time walking in the shoes of “others”, we put ourselves in that uncomfortable place where true growth and learning takes place. This can allow us to open a dialogue guided by true curiosity and the understanding of white privilege. However, to fully understand what we look like in the

Is it to acknowledge that one is inherently tied to structures of domination and oppression that one is irrevocably on the wrong side? ” (Alcoff, 1998). The self-criticism and shame that comes from thinking about this concept can bring about depression and anxiety. As humans we desire a culture and an identity but as white people our history is swollen with hate and bigotry. Alcoff suggests that we redefine what it is to be white altogether. We should see it from two points of view, “double consciousness requires an ever present acknowledgment of the historical legacy of white identity constructions in the persistent structures of inequality and exploitation, as well as a newly awakened memory of the many white traitors to white privilege who have struggled to contribute to the building of an inclusive human community” (Alcoff,