White Like Me Essay

Name: Ho Wang Chung Frankie

Student id: 4053574

Course: LCE 1010_15

Critical movie review: White Like Me White Like Me is a documentary movie about racism in America produced in 2013 directed by Scott Morris. This documentary is set out to look into race and racism in the US in the perspectives of whiteness and white privilege through an anti-racist educator and writer Tim Wise’s viewpoint. In the beginning his personal story reveals how he came to see the world and figured out that race mattered at a very young age as he was sent to a preschool program at a historically black college, where people at school were mostly black. Then, through the example of the racial experiment Black Like Me Tim explains that to ask what it is like to be black

The reason for recommending the movie is that the movie effectively arouses people’s awareness that race and racism do matter to them whether they are white, black, brown or yellow people. First of all, race and racism are still around the world even if most people have an ideology, believing that racism is long gone. The truth, however, is not what it seems to be. Taking the election of Barack Obama as an example, which brings people into a post-racial thinking, some glaring facts are actually being ignored. White Like Me precisely picks up the actual election results showing that although Obama won the popular vote solidly, it was not noticed by many that he lost the white vote by a big margin. The most significant case is that he only received 10% of the white vote in Southern states. Of course it does not mean that all whites voted against him just because he was black but undoubtedly it was the reason for some, clearly showing that racism still exists in which people should not ignore. Second, confronting the problems of race and racism is vital as the consequences can be very serious. Surely if people try to ignore and deny the history and decide not to talk too much about racism to avoid it, they do not actually help improve but worsen the situation. Besides, it is happening. Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American, was shot to dead in 2012 by George Zimmerman, a white neighborhood watch volunteer. No sooner had Zimmerman been acquitted of second-degree murder in 2013 than a large scale of protests in over a hundred cities broke out. Racism indeed causes casualties and widens the gap between different races. People just cannot laugh it off. Last but not least, if there are solutions towards racism, people will know they are able to make changes to relieve the problems of racism. As mentioned by