Crash

This week we watched the movie Crash in class, which doesn't have a "main character" except for race.  The movie began with two black men complaining about the racist white people around them who stereotype, and as you're nodding and agreeing "yes, everyone is judging them! They're so right-" they pull out guns and stole a car from the couple they were criticizing.

I started laughing at that point because it was the first of many shocking and thought provoking moments.  Almost everyone in the movie thinks in stereotypes, (except for the lock guy,) but we still end up sympathizing with the characters we started out disliking (like one of the black men from the beginning), and disliking the ones we thought were good (like the Asian man who was hit by a car, and ended up being an illegal person dealer.)  The movie was designed to mess with our heads in this way, and it did an amazing job of it.

No one wants to think of themselves as a racist person, but I'm curious where the line is drawn.  If someone thinks by stereotypes for some people and not others, are they racist?  If they actively try really hard not to be, but once in a while make a comment or two, does that make them racist? I know I try my best to avoid any stereotypes because I've been stereotyped myself and I know how much it sucks, but it can't be completely unavoidable.  It's all about looking at the bigger picture, like we're talked about all semester, and know not to judge ANYONE on first impressions. Only then can we get over racism.

On a lighter note, no blog post about race is complete without this:

Race

I feel like I already knew that what people consider to be "race" wasn't biological, but it was still really interesting to have the knowledge put to use.  We did a classification activity with like 10 sports balls, and I thought putting them by "type" instead of "color" was the less offensive way of doing it. However, many of the balls couldn't be used for playing the sport that they look like they belong too, so my categories were too constraining for what it should have been.  I realized after the activity, that even though I don't think about putting people into categories by the way they look, if I can't even figure out how to do it with balls, I may accidentally be doing it in real life too. So from now on, I'm going to try and actively not put people into categories by a first impression.  Race is another social construct that I'm going to try and break free from.

Another Poverty Post

The game of monopoly isn't really realistic, because in real life people don't actually start with the same amount of money, or get paid that much.  In class we played the game like it was real life, but in the end only the people who started with more were able to make money.  For anyone (like me) in middle class or lower, it was really hard just to make ends meet.

I'm very fortunate in real life, and can't imagine living dollar to dollar like so many people have to.  It's so hard for people to move up economically, which means that the rich will keep getting richer, and the poor will become poorer. How is that the American dream?