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Racial stereotypes and how they cause problems in society
Social media in police brutality
Racial stereotypes and their cultural effect
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At its best, Crash as a microcosm of America’s racial climate. It emphasizes and upholds many of the country’s beliefs on race, and shows true stereotypes that plague the minds of some people today. Individually, each of the films characters, develop generalizations show some type of discrimination or racial aspect that we can learn from. Officer Ryan is one of the characters that stands out in terms of relevance in racial relations and stereotypes today particularly considering the current perception of police officers in America. Ryan is exactly of what people, namely African Americans, say they fear in a cop. He is white, entitled, and deeply racist. Nonverbally he carries himself with an air of arrogance and abuses his power on a regular …show more content…
Not only is he racial, but also sees himself as being above those of color. He seems to think that he is entitled to the power that comes from his ethnicity. He believes that because he is a white male living in North America, he is somewhat at the “top of the food chain”. Socioeconomic identity deals with income, occupation, and education. Officer Ryan has an average income, average occupation, and decent amount of education. Nothing about his socioeconomic status would ever elevate him or make him above others, yet because he is a law enforcement officer, he seems to have the idea he can use his position to exert power over others, like he did with Cameron and …show more content…
Is he truly a bad person? At the beginning of the movie, he is portrayed as a villain, a selfish individual who only cares about his and his own. He clearly did not have any respect for other people illustrated by his complete humiliation of Cameron and Christine. He made no qualms of taking advantage of these two innocent minorities. However, as the movie progressed, you see the softer side of him. He is shown living with his dad taking care of his health problem. You see him doing everything possible to making sure his father is receiving the best care, though he insults yet another person while doing it. Finally, in one of the most powerful scenes of the movie you see him risking his own life to save a woman of color. This to me proves that Officer Ryan is not a horrible person. He can not truly be a racist, at least not at this moment, because someone who truly hates minorities would of let Christine die. Which leads me to the lesson Officer Ryan teaches. Bitterness and circumstances can cloud our perception of people. He allowed a few occurrences to change his view of an entire race. The bitterness he felt about what happened to his father consumed him. Observing all the negatives of the black people and other minorities, events he saw everyday as a police officer, lead him to classify all African Americans as bad
One of the main topics of both stories involves racial tension within a community, focusing specifically on the tension between white and black Americans. Many of the people that Anna Smith interviewed had something to say about the race of Rodney King or how the white cops controlled the power of the city. With racial tensions boiling in the ghettos of Los Angeles between the white policemen and the black communities, violence became all too common in the community. By the 2000’s, the time setting for Crash, violence from the police became less prominent, but still evident.
He was sentenced to five flat years without the possibility of parole. In prison, he had the same idea about race. He must stick to what this family taught him and stick to the Chicanos. Everybody is prison had the same idea. “Whites sat with whites, blacks with blacks, and Chicanos with Chicanos.” (Baca 114) It was the same thought process of race behind bars. He did just that, throughout his time in jail his close friends were Chicanos and he didn’t trust any other race.
In the interviews Wood (2015) and Balko (2015), medically retired Police Officer and former Marine, Sargent Michael Wood discusses his time on the Baltimore Police Department and the driving factors to police corruption that is drawn from his experience. Sgt. Wood was a police officer for 11 years and for the first four years he was assigned to a majority black neighborhood. His second assignment was in a majority white neighborhood and during this assignment Sgt. Wood formulated an opinion on the police policies that drove corruption among good men and women (Wood, 2015). Although Sgt. Wood identifies many fascinating issues within the Baltimore Police Department, I will focus attention on his insight into the Baltimore police culture and
One of the most memorable and dramatic scenes of the film, Crash, occurs when Ryan, a personally racist police officer, happens upon an car accident in which a woman is trapped in her overturned vehicle. The lasting impression that this scene leaves is probably the reason that I chose it to reflect on in this paper. Ryan, when taking his daily patrol, notices a line of stopped traffic, and stops to see why they are at a stand still. Up ahead, he sees smoke coming out of the engine of one car, and another flipped upside-down. He quickly runs to the car to see if anyone is trapped inside, without a thought. He sees an African-American women caught in her seatbelt and dives through the broken window and asks if she is alright. When she responds that she cannot breathe, he slides in further to try to help her unbuckle and get out; Around them, gasoline is dripping from the tank. The woman, Christine, recognizes him from earlier as the officer her sexually assaulted her in front of her husband, and screams at him to get away from her--having been scarred by their earlier encounter. He also recalls her from earlier, and realizes in this moment, that his racist and sexist actions towards Christine earlier could cost her her life. He informs her that he is the only person th...
Editor of The Onion, Cole Bolton states, “Confronted with the enduring shadow of slavery and Jim Crow-boom!-, and you simply react,” which is a portrayal of pathos. Using a form of satire, Bolton easily and clearly gets his point across, saying that the cop is treating the black minority unfairly and unequally more so than he would treat any other suspect. He is exemplifying that every policeman that is in a legal situation with a minority automatically switches to the mindset of an authority that would react to this situation a few hundred years ago, poorly and with racist treatment. Policemen nowadays should treat every suspect the same, no matter what the color of their skin is, whether it is black or white. Bolton is stating that cops go to extreme levels when confronted with a minority in a criminal situation and is shown with pathos. Another form of Juvenalian is in the likes of pathos when Bolton states, “You’re face-to-face with racial disparity that dates back to the 17th century.” By saying this, Bolton is describing how the mindset of a policeman changes so quickly from dealing with a white person to dealing with a black person. He is asserting that when in the presence of an African American, the cop must treat them the way that they were treated back in the 17th century when slavery and racist laws were in effect (Bolton). Bolton is using this to his advantage to express his
In the fire hydrant scene, the black people got the rich man’s antique car wet. When driving by, the police stopped to cease the water flow. When the rich man complained about his car, the police told him that he better g333et back to his car before the black people stripped it clean. The police referred to all blacks as criminals, which implied that whites were better than blacks, supporting the idea of white superiority over black people. Here, the stereotypes about black people are applied to the whole race, and the black people need to fight the false stereotypes given to them by the white people. The remarks of the police reinforce the stereotypes that all black people are criminals. The white bystanders who hear the police will continue to believe these stereotypes because they heard people with authority reinforcing
Throughout the entire film race is one of the most prominent themes. The film shows that racism is not one sided as the characters themselves are Caucasian, black, Persian, Iranian, and Hispanic. The film shows that race assumptions not something that is just in existence, but rather society builds up these prejudices and ideas. This can be seen when the district attorney wanting to advance his political career think he can just honor a black man or woman. He suggests a firefighter who his secretary then informs him is actually Iraqi. He responds by saying, “Well he looks black.” Even before knowing someone’s true race and identity society can put up walls. The cops also pull over the couple because the one believes they are biracial and he believes that is wrong. In actuality both people are black one just happens to be of a lighter complexion. Race and racism the film shows limits one’s ability to experience new individuals and
The negative views of everyday people often make work hard for officers, adding more stress to their careers. The general public regularly criticizes officers for using excessive force and brutality, especially when a police officer ends up killing a suspect or criminal. Oftentimes, especially when a white police officer shoots a citizen of a minority race, the general public is quick to find faults in the officer, blaming the officer for being racist. However, cold, hard statistics show that the majority of police officers are, in fact, white, and the neighborhoods in which these officers are placed in tend to be high-crime areas with many minority citizens living there (Miller “When Cops Kill”). In addition, people might say that a citizen who was shot was not armed; however, almost anything close to the shot individual could have been turned into a deadly weapon that he or she could have used to wound or kill the officer involved. Whenever officers are in this position, the natural reaction is to defend themselves. Everyday, police officers confront the most aggressive, immoral, and sick-minded individuals of society. Officers jeopardize their own lives every time they report for work. Officers witness things that no person should ever have to encounter. They see the most horrific and gruesome scenes that the general public turns away from and
Sam Woods is a middle-aged man, who works for the city of Well's police department. Until Chief Gillespie had arrived in town, Sam Wood had been rated as a big man, but Bill Gillespie's towering size, made Sam look a normal size. Sam takes a lot of pride into his work, and has read up on everything you need to no about being a police officer. Sam takes his job very seriously, and dislikes being told what to do by everyone and anyone, especially when it comes to Bill Gillespie. Sam dislikes Negro's. He thinks that they are very dirty compared to his race. It is not only black people who are dirty, there are many different races whom are dirty, and that has nothing to do with color, but self-induced. Also, he thinks that all Negro's are poor criminals, and also, he thinks that they have big butts, and they stink terribly when they sweat, and that they are stupid. But like I said, everyone is the same, being stupid has nothing to do with color, and having a big butt has to do with your genes and not color, and everyone's sweat is the same, and it is not like black peoples sweat is like acid. Sam Wood's opinion on Italians was that they married too early, and all got fat. But very many people do that, not just Italians, but white, black, yellow etc. But his opinion changed when he first me...
It shows the difficulties individuals face each day, whether they are authority figures or civilians. The film "Crash" is very applicable to race relations in New York City in its relevantly direct approach to everyday life in a City populated by various races and ethnicities. In "Crash", there are numerous scenes where race relations were either an issue or the basis of an action. Most incidents in the film occurred due to the race of an individual. Corresponding to the film "Crash", there are times in New York City where individuals are pulled over by police just because of their race.
... supremacist gang, to rioting in an Asian owned grocery store, to finally brutally murdering someone. We observe as family ties become increasingly strained in every way, the viewer can easily conclude that Derek’s racism as well as his eventual influence on his younger brother ultimately contributed to their own downfall. As controversial as this movie maybe for the offensive language and brutal violence, it is a movie that deserves to be seen, and even discussed. It really provides insight into some factors within society that cannot be contained by the law or even deterred by even the harshest punishments. Even though American society is becoming more modernized as time goes by in terms of tolerance, racism will unfortunately always be prevalent in society and inevitably it will also lead some individuals to violently express their distorted mentalities.
In the 2004 film Crash, directed and written by Paul Haggis along with fellow screenplay writer Bobby Moresco (“Crash: Full Cast & Crew”), the entire storyline of the film is heavily influenced by intersectionality and skewed perceptions of other social groups within society. The character that I am choosing to focus on specifically is the character Anthony, played by Christopher Bridges (also known as Ludacris). Anthony’s ...
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.
Crash is a movie based over a day and a half in Los Angeles. It is an overview of a group desperate people 's lives overlapping as the deal with tense situations such as race and privilege that accompanies city life. One of the main characters is the white district attorney who uses his political prowess to step on other races; his wife who was recently carjacked
The director of the film Crash was trying to convey a message to his audience about race and how prejudice can blind a person which keeps them from truly connecting with those that surround them. He does this by making the plot of his movie center around several characters with different backgrounds, occupations, and ethnicities. The film follows the events of the character’s lives over a period of two days and it shows how their stories are all connected. The cinematography that is used throughout also works to convey the director’s message. For example, the movie opens with a voice over by Detective Waters where he is talking about people missing touch in LA because no one touches each other. This scene starts by being shot out of focus but