Fearing Colors
In fall of 2008 I wrote a reaction essay to the movie "The Color of Fear" and it was an interesting movie about a group of guys from different races in a group therapy that lasted for a weekend in San Francisco. It is highly recommended even if it is a little bit old, but the same still applies to today's problems. Enjoy the essay and leave your feedback, of course will be a little difficult to follow the examples, but the material is understandable I think.
Fearing Colors
In "The Color of Fear", we saw how a group of men talked about racism. It was a very interesting experience watching each of them expressing their emotions in such a deep level. I was especially surprised by how Victor, the African American man, and David, the white guy were able to argue face to face about their views in regards to racism.
I know it is a hard topic of anyone to get into and deal with. Because, no one likes getting put on the spot light or being called a racist in front of a group of people. Last semester I took the class of race relations and culture, it was a very interesting class and we also like in the movie were put in the middle of a group of students to talk about our racism. It was a life changing experience since we got to demystify our prejudices and stereotypes we had towards some groups of people. Just like in the movie we went through the state of transference and transferred our frustrations into the group that we saw it fit using them as scapegoat. Just like Victor, argued that the white men used them to escape their problems and blame into them.
Victor and David both represented the white and black culture that there is in this country. Each has its differences that sometimes as David said the white people are not able to see or want to see. I found it interesting how David did not identify with any particular culture or race. This diffusion of reality helped David to not worry about racist or just to ignore it and move on with his life, but Victor brought it up into the light for him to see. I can relate to David in some terms, because in Mexico we have pretty much the same experiences as David has I think. We do not have to worry about where people come from or what is their culture like, we just assume everyone is almost in the same boat and look more into social classes than differences in races. Of course, there is still racist towards black people but in Mexico they hardly make any deal about it. These attitudes we carry on when we come to the United States and discriminate against those people.
Functionalist might argue that racism helps keep control over people, but it does more harm than good. In the movie many of the men expressed their concerns about racism and its consequences some said that it made them feel invisible and others felt too much anger because they were not the ideal American that everyone thinks one should be. This does not only an obstacle for people of color but, a shield for white people to keep on top. I think this is slowly changing but there still needs to be much more work to be done in terms of racism in our society. It is not functional having people harvesting anger and resentment towards others.
"The Color of Fear" I think should be shown to all people so they can begin to discuss racism in our society. This would teach people about the consequences of racism and begin the healing process. This might be a hard task to do but it can be done if we are willing to. Only then we will truly be a country with the same opportunities for everyone and have a fair chance at completing our goals and dreams.