Crash

Crash was a very complicated movie that I would imagine would be upsetting to everyone on some level. None of us like to be painted as the aggressor or the victim, and every ethnicity takes on each of these roles throughout the movie. The most interesting points in the film occur when power changes hands. The first place we see this take place is when the the Black detective is having an affair with the Hispanic detective. He makes generalizations about her culture even after he is corrected for suggesting that she was Mexican. It shows an unwillingness to accept that overgeneralizations are often wrong. It would be very easy to pass judgement on the Black detective until one remembers that his perspective is one of a man whose ethnicity has also been lumped together with many others. No one would expect him to say that his parents were from two different African nations, and he probably does not actually know his specific heritage. The manifestation of that lack of identity is that his specific heritage does not matter. In American society he will always be a Black man. All of the negative connotations and stereotypes in American will still weigh heavily on him regardless of whether or not he understands his own cultural roots. With such a lack of conviction about one’s own ancestry, it becomes blindingly obvious that he does not value the importance of anyone else ancestry. The same way that those facts and values have been taken from him so to does he disregard the importance of the Hispanic detective’s upbringing.

            This is the first instance where we see someone’s institutionalized subordination play itself out in their actions. Almost everyone in the world has some group of people or specific persons under them or below them within their family, job, school, or society. Therefore, when someone is subjected to an inferiority complex, they see it as only right that someone else feel similar effects with them being dominant.

            The development of an inferiority complex is worth fleshing out a little bit more. The constant subordination in regards to class, gender, or ethnicity creates a grand narrative in a person’s mind about who they are and what they should be. We see this quite a bit with the talkative gangster played by Ludacris. His demeanor and articulation suggest that he has taken an active role in trying to define the process by which he came to be in the position that he is in. However, it becomes clear throughout the movie that most of his sermons are his own justifications for committing crimes that he sees as necessary. This is not to devalue the way that he is acting. All of us make justifications for every action that we take, especially when we have an inkling that it might be selfish or wrong in some way.

 The grand narrative that one is assigned and continually reminded of also defines what kind of battles a person will be fighting and which ones they choose to be valiant in fighting. The less talkative black gangster (who turns out to be the detective’s brother) has clearly taken a much more passive approach to his position in life. By that I mean that he is far less abrasive than perhaps his partner in crime. This could possibly be attributed the fact that we see the family of this man that while broken, is still present in the film. The contrast with the lack of family from the other non-White characters suggests that these people have continually fought their battles on their own and perhaps have become far more aggressive because of that.

Positionality is important when discussing the dynamics between class lines. Class lines and affluence give people the power to be racist. We see such an example with the politician’s wife who is very hostile towards the minorities surrounding her who have “proven her right” along the way. However, her eventual realization is that her other friends in power do not actually care about her even when she is hurt. Her locks are being replaced by an honest man who happens to be Mexican, and her Hispanic maid is the one who helps her when she needs it the most. Her constant anger shows us the banality of racism and how hollow the realization of utilizing one’s power in a negative way can truly be. The racist white cop has a similar reaction when he sees the result of his racism (a terrified and sobbing black woman). Encountering the physical and emotional manifestation of demeaning actions and words is not something one usually encounters, but here he got to see it and probably came away from it feeling different about his own justifications for his own behavior.

The ending of the movie shows us that these realizations really are not enough to eliminate racism from the world. I think the final message in the film is that all anyone can really do is practice a little more self evaluation when we are trying to justify prejudicial and judgemental behavior or thoughts, because the butterfly effect will ultimately take place for every choice we make. To be sure, every positive and negative message in this movie depended on the actors making choices, not just being the victims of circumstance in one way or another. The message being that we are all products of a society, a class, a gender, and a heritage, but how much value we place on this happenstance is paramount to how we live our lives.

When working with students from a lower SES, I have found that it is very easy to justify any action with the idea that what needs to be done simply needs to be done. As long as people are living in order to survive, the view of differences amongst others are immediately seen as a threat. We try to eliminate the importance of these issues at the door, but I would be doing my students a disservice if I did not utilize the experiences that they already have in order to shape their current experience. This is definitely something that I want to work more towards in the classroom.

In the Fall I will be working with a largely White suburban population that is similar to my own SES background. Therefore, the stereotypes in Crash are bound to come up, but even if they do not, teaching tolerance (or acceptance) will be an important point to discuss preemptively so that when issues do arise, a tacit development of culturalist attitudes are not allowed to continually develop in my classroom.