The Color of Fear
We watched part of this movie called "The Color of Fear" in class this morning. The movie provide very insightful ideas and thoughts regarding to race relations in America across eight men including White, Asian, European, Latino, and African. They each expressed their own feelings with their past experiences. They revealed the pain and the psychological impact on their lives by racism.
Out of all the men, Victor (the African man) was very emotional when he expressed his feelings of how he was treated differently because he is an African. He talked about when he was little, the teacher put him into a low level reading class while his reading ability was way better. Victor also believed that being white means having the power of blaming and standing on top of other colored people and even white women.
In general agreement, they believe that white men do not understand why colored people can't get their own place and be themselves or fear of being on the highway. The reason is because the white men do not get out of their comfortable place and go outside and see the issue in other positions.
My first surprise in this film was right in the beginning on the introduction. One Asian guy was introducing himself as American and I was looking at him and think to myself "No, you're not American. In fact, you're Chinese!". As I thought, he later let us know that he is a Chinese. It may seem like stereotyping to classify him as Chinese, but it just become so natural that I just think that way. In fact, he told us that someone said "All Chinese look alike", which insulted him.
At the last part that we watched in the movie, some of them felt that they weren't making any progress. I have to agree it is hard to be unite together and eliminate racism. The colored believe that white is their barrier and whites do not think that way. In a part of the movie when the white man was asked to supposed he would live a harsh life like Victor, he denied that such a harsh life does not exist to try to avoid answering the question. To me, I would expect the answer would be "it's your problem". It's human nature that drives us to keep our power and wealth, for this reason, I don't think racism will ever be eliminated... at least not eliminated just by discussing and talking.
Comments
Today we watched a movie "The Color of Fear." This film was about a group of men who shared their experiences with racism and questioned what/who is an American.
As a minority, myself, I could relate to alot of the emotions they felt.
I thought that Victor did a very good job expressing himself. "White" people do not understand the frustration that colored people face when they try to address racism. I could also relate to David (the Chinese guy with glasses). When he shared his story of feeling invisible. I, too, grew up in a predominately white city. It was difficult finding your place.
I thought it was funny how the man who was a racist said that he is working on it. Being a racist is something that you choose to be. But then I realized that it is difficult for someone to accept people of other ethnicities if they have never been exposed to them and only heard negative sterotypes about them.
I think it's interesting how they only chose men to participate. None the less, this film was documented ten years ago, and today we are still facing the same issues. It's sad to see how far we have improved.
Posted by: Ashley | February 20, 2007 2:36 PM