...town rivals, Saint Francis, the number one seed in the playoffs. They played them the best they could, but would end up losing to them by two points at the buzzer, as the All American, Ty Crane, hit the game winning three pointer. Coach Carter’s team was heartbroken after the loss because they had done everything possible to get the victory. After this heartbreaker, Coach Carter comes in to give a speech that uplifts the players. Coach Carter ended his speech with this quote, “I came here to coach basketball players, and you became students. I came here to coach boys and you became men.” This movie had a great purpose that should be implemented into more athletes’ lives to help them in life. I rate this movie as a 5 because it was very inspirational to me. Being a former athlete, I think I would have learned some valuable life lessons from a coach like Coach Carter.
Racism is something that almost everyone has witnessed. Racism is a word that many people do not fully understand or have their own perceptions of. The oxford dictionary defines racism as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior. Racism is often misunderstood as someone’s genetic characteristics. The distinction made between races has nothing to do with genetic characteristics. Instead, race was created socially, primarily by how people perceive ideas and faces that they are not quite used to.
The movie I decided to analyze was Remember the Titans. I examined the dilemmas and ethical choices that were displayed throughout the story. In the early 1970s, two schools in Alexandria Virginia integrate forming T.C. Williams High School. The Caucasian head coach of the Titans is replaced by an African American coach (Denzel Washington) from North Carolina, which causes a fury among white parents and students. Tensions arise quickly among the players and throughout the community when players of different races are forced together on the same football team. Coach Boone is a great example of a leader. He knows he faces a tough year of teaching his hated team. But, instead of listening to the hating town or administrators, Boone pushes his team to their limits and forces good relationships between players, regardless of race. His vision for the team involves getting the players concerned in what the team needs to become, and not what it is supposed to be; a waste. Boone is a convincing leader with a brutal, boot camp approach to coaching. He believes in making the players re-build themselves as a team. When Boone says, You will wear a jacket, shirt, and tie. If you don't have one buy one, can't afford one then borrow one from your old man, if you don't have an old man, then find a drunk, trade him for his. It showed that he was a handy Craftsman and wanted done what he wanted done no matter what it took.During training camp, Boone pairs black players with white players and instructs them to learn about each other. This idea is met with a lot of fighting, but black linebacker Julius Campbell and stubborn white All-American Gerry Bertier. It was difficult for the players to cope with the fact they had to play with and compete with ...
Racism is a belief that a particular race is superior and better that other minor or specific races. It is a very aggressive behavior towards members of another race that can cause an enormous amount of hate and separation between society members. It is very bitter to realize that even though we are living in the twenty first century and yet racism still exists in our lives. It’s even worse when we realize that it exists in places such as sports. In America, sports plays an important role in the social life and economy. One of the most popular sports in the United States is basketball. Its league is called the National Basketball Association. “The NBA began back in 1946 and was founded by wealthy owners of different sports” (Rupert). While racism has been thought to be diminished in this modern advanced era that we’re living in, the fact is that it’s still exists in places we love to watch. Unfortunately racism is still alive and well particularly in the NBA.
When most people think of racism or supremacy, the images that come to their mind are white power organizations that undermine blacks and other minorities. Groups such as the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Skinheads and the White Nationalist Party may be some that come to mind. However, many people are not aware of other racist organizations and powerful leaders that influence people other than whites. A prime example of this is Louis Farrakahn, perhaps one of world's premier black leaders, who condones racism against whites and people of different religions. The image of an African American promoting racism among whites is not what society understands as a typical form of racism. Despite this, Louis Farrakahn has managed to gain support from thousands of African Americans and his Nation of Islam against white authority in America and worldwide.
Racism is still after 200 years one of the most dominant political/social issues of our time. The case of the white mother who had given birth to a half black baby as a result of a sperm bank mix-up really highlights the topics of racism and white privilege in the United States. The white mother has filed a lawsuit for damages for emotional distress against the sperm bank. There are several points to address: the white mother treating her black child different, the social and cultural surroundings that in part that are racist, and the validity of her law suit. White privilege is a result of the cultural/social background of the United States as well as the subtle racism that’s still exists.
It is commonly believed that racism is not born but taught. According to a quote from CLR James, "The conception of dividing people by race begins with the slave trade. This thing was so shocking, so opposed to all the conceptions of society which religion and philosophers had…that the only justification by which humanity could face it was to divide people into races and decide that the Africans were an inferior race" (Roots 1). The novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, shows the racial views of the white population towards the black minority in the eyes of a young girl named Jean Louise Finch or her more commonly known nickname Scout. Although as a reader we understand more, watching Scout try to formulate what is going on when she hears certain racist remarks shows her innocence. It also shows us as a reader that racism is a product of society teachings, not human nature.
The 1989 film Glory is a classic Civil War film based on the history of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment. The film focuses on the courage displayed by the first black regiment in the Civil War, also known as the “Fighting Fifty-fourth.” The regiment headed by the admirable Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, Matthew Broderick, must overcome an enormous amount of adversity during the war. The film was daring for filmmakers Zwick and Fields because it was a film not only with, “vivid and frightening battle scenes and finely etched dramatic characters, but a film that shattered the great Civil War taboo-it told a story of African Americans(Chadwick). Many articles and texts leading up to the film failed to mention the participation of African Americans in the Civil War. In fact, the participation of African Americans helped turn the course of the war and nearly 300,000 fought for the North.
The Civil Rights Era impacted the realm of sports in a great and powerful way. Throughout the mid 1900s, many minority athletes emerged through all odds and began to integrate themselves in the white dominated athletic business. These athletes endured constant hardships in order to achieve their goals and dreams; facing much racism, segregation, and violence. Minorities across the country began to look up to these sportsmen and realized that anybody could attain greatness despite the social troubles of the time. Stories depicting the struggles of minority athletes soon arose and grew popular among different cultures. These true accounts passed from generation to generation, each admiring the courage and bravery of athletes and how important they became in obtaining an equal society. Producers and directors soon found a way to revolutionize the film industry by retelling the racial discrimination that minority athletes faced. Remember the Titans, The Perfect Game, 42, and The Express are all examples of how minority athletes overcame racial adversities in order to obtain the championship. These Hollywood movies contain many inaccuracies that draw away from the true impact minority athletes had during the Civil Right Era. Although these films do depict the racial components of the time, they do not depict the accurate occurrences of the stories they try to recreate.
There have been significant strides to deconstruct the explicit forms of racism such as segregation within education through historical instances such as Brown v. Board of Education, integration attempts post Jim Crow era, and a variety of others but there is a hesitation to talk about the roots of origination for this issue. Why is it easier to continue the negligence of race rather than address it, maybe even solve for inequality in privilege? Ideally, our education system constitutes a free space to nurture thought. What is racism? Where does it come from? How does it affect us and where all is it present? It would be interesting to note the diversity of responses one would get if such questions were asked– what forms are visible to some of us versus others? Race should be an integral part of discussion within education. A possible starting point is participating in a thought experiment of the outcomes of abolishing slavery in the modern state through the abolishment of prisons. By tracing historical issues of the past within education and comparing it to present conditions of the institutional negligence of race, the pragmatic solution of increased dialogue emerges. Such a solution will attempt to create empathetic free-thinkers to reform the structural violence that occurs outside of the education system within the state due to racism.
Coach Herman Boone is the main African-American character in this film. He is a football coach who is brought in by the newly diversified T.C. Williams High School as a form of affirmative action. This character struggles throughout the movie with dealing with the prejudices of his players, of other football coaches, of parents, and even of the school board who hired him in order to try to create a winning football team. Another key black character is Julius Campbell. He plays a linebacker who ends up becoming best friends with a white linebacker on the team. He, too, struggles with prejudices from some of his teammates and people in the town because of the new desegregation of the team. The remaining black players on the T.C. Williams High School had very similar roles in the film. Petey Jones, Jerry Williams (quarterback), and Blue Stanton all are shown facing racial inequality by players, citizens, and even other football coaches. The attitudes of ...
Wiggins, David Kenneth, and Patrick B. Miller. 2003. The unlevel playing field: a documentary history of the African American experience in sport. Urbana: University of Illinois Press
James Baldwin, an African American author born in Harlem, was raised by his violent step-father, David. His father was a lay preacher who hated whites and felt that all whites would be judged as they deserve by a vengeful God. Usually, the father's anger was directed toward his son through violence. Baldwin's history, in part, aids him in his insight of racism within the family. He understands that racists are not born, but rather racist attitudes and behaviors are learned in the early stages of childhood. Baldwin's Going to Meet the Man is a perfect example of his capability to analyze the growth of a innocent child to a racist.
In today’s world, racism is a mere glimpse of the past. We are so often educated about it, yet we face it rarely and if we encounter it, it is as subtle as a double take based on your colour. Our racism today is very light compared to racism faced in the past. The novel Noughts and Crosses is set in a world where racism is normal, the conventional way of living in their society. In Noughts and Crosses, Marie Blackman demonstrates the act of racism influencing the actions of the characters. Consequently, the character Callum McGregor is one of the characters who let racism and discrimination determine his actions made. Callum was a Nought boy, he was part of the lower class, and was directly affected by racism throughout the novel. Callum attended