People would like to say movies are the mirror of the society, they’re portraying the current issue into movies. A movie called ‘Crash’ has shown the stereotype, misrepresentation, sensationalism, racialism, ‘othering’ and burden of representation. The storyline shown handful of disparate people’s lives intertwine as they deal with the tense race relations that belie life in the Los Angeles over a thirty-six hour. A begin of the movie has already shown the racial discrimination on a Aussie father and daughter, when they’re buying gun in a Caucasian’s shop. Then, the scene was following by the unfair treatment on a couple of black man in a restaurant.
This movie full with racial discrimination toward black people, ‘othering’ on Asian people where the Caucasian do not think Asian can speak English. For example, one of the scene in the movie show that an Asian lady walk into wad and shout her husband Chinese name, the first question she been asked are ‘can you speak English?’ Nevertheless, black people in United State always been stereotyping as gangster or robber. Based on research, both US-born and foreign-born Black participants had high level of exposure to poverty (51% and 57%, respectively) and racial discrimination (76% and 60%). (Nancy, 2011) An example that can found in this movie, two black men were carjacked a Caucasian marriage couple, the two black men believes that the lady has stereotypical views of non-whites on them.
According to the American Civil Liberties and the Rights working group, the international community has recognized that racial profiling is a violation of human right, defining it as ‘the practice of police and other law enforcement officers relying, to any degree, on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin as the basis for subjecting persons to investigatory activities or for determining whether an individual is engaged in criminal activity.” For example, a black men has been arresting by few police officers and he did not want to surrender because he do nothing wrong. A police officer is advice him to cooperate with them because the other officers will just shot on him due to his color although he did nothing.
‘Crash’ is a movie reflecting the current society that happening in U.S. We might think that all the citizen in US has get a equal right no matter black or white skin. Yet, race stereotype still existing in certain corner in society. In their mind, Black people are still at the level of slave. Everyone have their rights, please do not stereotype them based on their color or religion.
References:
1. IMDb,2004, Crash, accessed 18 May 2014, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375679/
2. The American Civil Liberties and the Rights Working Group, 2009, The persistence and Ethnic Profiling in the United States, accessed 18 May 2014, https://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/humanrights/cerd_finalreport.pdf
3. Nancy Krieger, 2011, “Racial Discrimination,Psychological Distress, and Self-Rated Health Among US-Born and Foreign-Born Black Americans” , American Journal of public Health, Vol. 101 (9): 1704-1713
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