Racism's Crashes

Officer Hanson exhibits racism when he is talking to Peter in his car. He doesn’t believe anything Peter is saying, and eventually gets fed up and tells him to get out of the car partly out of aggravation, and partly out of fear. This is like when Jean is yelling at her husband about getting scared of the two black men who stole their car; both are examples of being covertly racist in situations where one was warranted and the other maligned. When Hanson is trying to help Cameron out by letting him off the hook for speeding, this is similar to how Peter and Anthony are talking about how it makes no sense that white people should be scared of them just for being black. In both cases, the offended feel like the outsiders don’t really know them and are making assumptions ignorantly about them based on previous experience. This is also kind of like when the shopkeeper and his daughter were called Arab when they are really Persian. Many people are ignorant to differences like these, where someone from the Middle-East’s name must be Achmed and all “Arabs” are undoubtedly terrorists.

As the Peter was getting a ride home from Hanson, they made small-talk, and the Hanson stereotyped the brotha’ a whole bunch. Peter talked about writing a country song, which he sort of did, and Officer Hanson didn’t believe him. When Peter gets angry and tries to get out his replica of the cop’s dashboard Jesus, the cop assumes he is taking out a gun and shoots him. Peter was frustrated with how the cop didn’t believe anything he said just because he was a lower-class African American, and when he finally tries to provide evidence of his honesty, Matt Dillon shoots him.
After the stupid bitch gets her car stolen, she begins to think negatively about all the minorities around her. Since she’s rich and has servants, this is very bad news for them. Right after the car gets stolen and the mayor is having their lock replaced, she asks him to have the locks changed again in the morning because a Latino is replacing the lock. The beeyotch whispers extremely loudly, and the lock repairman hears her accuse him of being in a gang and untrustworthy. Daniel is obviously offended by this, but he keeps his dignity and also makes her look like a total bitch by giving her both the keys to the door, meaning he couldn’t possibly have kept a key for his chicharrones on the South-side.

When Graham says “You embarrass me; you embarrass yourself.” to Ludacris in the car, he is saying that his actions are shameful in their own right, and also that his criminal ways give cops reason to not trust honest black men like Graham. Stealing cars and carrying guns only perpetuate the stereotypes which Graham has had to deal with when dealing with the cops and his wife earlier on. Ludacris listens to this and takes responsibility for his actions when given the chance to sell the Cambodian immigrants at the junk-yard. Instead, he takes them to the center of town and lets them go free, which was a far nobler fate than selling them as if they were property. In the end, he feels good about himself, goes against the grain of the stereotypical black man, and gets a free car.

People look at others and see their race instead of the individual because humans observe patterns. We are one of the only animals to do this, and while it can help with things like learning languages or predicting rainfall, when we use it blindly with people and their race, our generalizations often prove to be false. Someone may observe in the news that there are many robberies by African Americans in New York City, but that does not mean it’s okay or at all reasonable to think that every black person who walks into a store is there to rob the place. When we judge people based on their race, we fail to take into account that patterns do not speak for everyone and that each person is independent of these patterns. At the very least, people are offended when thrown into a general grouping based on the color of their skin, but racial prejudice can make or break landing a job, affect one’s ability to get a loan, and even cost his life. When the brotha’ is trying to get his dashboard Jesus out of his pocket, the cop takes into account the stereotype that the news portrays African Americans as a dangerous, violent race, and shoots him with the conviction that he was getting a weapon from his pocket. When he threw Peter in with the pattern he had in his mind of black people, Officer Hanson grossly assumed his intentions incorrectly, and cost a decent black man his life.

I think it is in our genes to observe patterns and make generalizations about the world, such as the observance that beer tastes like piss, always has tasted like piss, and will continue to taste like piss till the end of time. However, when people start to apply generalizations to other humans, they oftentimes will find themselves mistaken, for humans have individual minds which make decisions not based on a species standard, but on a personal basis. Beer does not wake up each morning and say, “I’m in a rotten mood, I think I’ll taste like piss today.” People do. Also, part of the reason racism exists is the human desire to feel good about themselves, and what better a way to do that than to put other humans below you based on some physical nuance? If we believe that we are innately better than people of a different skin color, it boosts our status as human-beings, and allowed us in ‘ye days of yore to justify our maltreatment of Indians, Africans, Chinamen, etc.

Race is learned by both families passing along the stereotypes through words or actions, and also the media. In the South, African Americans were treated horribly during and still after slavery. This is because many racist white parents tell their children they are inherently better than blacks, and this belief is passed down from generation to generation. If a neighborhood is specifically avoided on a tour of a city, and a certain ethnicity is prevalent there, one might start to believe all individuals of that color are to be avoided. The media loves throwing down the race card whenever possible. They will take care to mention the race of someone who commits a crime, not making any conclusions themselves based on this, but this hint usually will help the viewers along in forming their own opinions about people of that certain race.

I do not believe it’s possible to completely put an end to racism, although it certainly has been declining over the years. I don’t want to make it sound like there’s no hope for humanity in a racial perspective, but I think the fact that it once was makes racism an indestructible evil. Being an idea you hold in your mind, it’s very hard to know of its particulars and not take some part in it. No matter how well we educate people about tolerance, there always will be those few who harbor racist sentiments towards others. Although, we definitely can reduce racism’s prevalence by introducing diversity to neighborhoods and schools, and teaching kids from a young age that skin-color does not have any predestinations.