Blackface leaving me red in the face

Dear White People by Justin Simien is a great modern portrayal of racism and segregation. I found it to be very smart and witty, yet managed to hit some hard topics. First, I have to mention what was shown during the end credits because I was so unaware of it until I saw this movie. Parties of people in Blackface is actually a thing that happens. I couldn’t believe it. That is ignorance on my part. It is terrible that even in modern times that racism is so prevalent whether it is intentional or ignorant racism. These parties are so out of line that I cannot believe people participate in them. Some examples from the movie are “Dartmouth College Students hold racist Crips and Bloods Party”, dated August 2013. “University of Florida, 2012” showing white students painted black and with stereotypical clothing. “University of Southern Mississippi, 2011” showing a group of women dressed as older black ladies. “White college students wear Blackface at Compton Cookout themed party UC San Diego, 2010.” This is not just a one-off occurrence. Even though it is met with outrage and protest, it keeps happening. Someone explain this to me. I am horrified at the blatant disrespect.

I wish that I attended a University that had a radio show calling out white people like is does in Dear White People and that it would hopefully inform them a bit more on what they’re doing and how it is in fact racist. There was this concept brought up in the movie several times that racism was out of fashion and that it was a topic nobody cared about anymore. In the movie, it was the university President who suggested it. Now at first to me that idea sounded completely ridiculous. But then I thought, is that part of the problem? People don’t think racism is an issue anymore? Just because black people are no longer slaves or are allowed to attend the same universities as white people means racism isn’t prevalent? Segregation of housing is a clear example of racism at work.

The housing situation was a central theme in the movie. There was the traditionally black only housing which a lot of other white students came to for many reasons, one example being better food. Coates talks a lot about housing and segregation in The Case for Reparations. “Locked out of the greatest mass-based opportunity for wealth accumulation in American history, African Americans who desired and were able to afford home ownership found themselves consigned to central-city communities where their investments were affected by the “self-fulfilling prophecies” of the FHA appraisers: cut off from sources of new investment, their homes and communities deteriorated and lost value in comparison to those homes and communities that FHA appraisers deemed desirable.” This is Redlining. This system allowed white people to become richer and created all black neighbourhoods considered “the ghetto”. In Dear White People, the administration was looking to “randomize” the housing. Basically, what I took from this is white people can segregate when they want, and then change the situation because it benefits them. We operate on white people rules. Systematically if you are white you already have an advantage in terms of pay, jobs, social standing etc over someone who is black. And too often this is conveniently forgotten. Racism is alive and well. And if people fail to acknowledge the problem, we can’t work on improving it. 

The Ripples of America's Racist Past Are Still Being Felt Today

After watching the movie Bamboozled in class on Monday, I was not sure if I could be more surprised with how blatant racism has permeated our American culture for centuries. However after reading Ta-Nehisi Coates's article The Case for Reparations, I am shocked at how manipulative and systematic racism was in the 20th century.

 Pairing the movie I watched this week Selma with the reading, I was able to realize how ignorant I was when it came to understanding the African-American struggle in America. The movie Selma focuses on the Selma and Montgomery marches. The movie predominately focuses on the prominent members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and specifically on Martin Luther King Jr. This movie was able to portray how violent the local government, townspeople, and police force were in reaction to the Civil Rights Movement. I have always known racism was really bad in the Deep South, but watching this movie made me realize how big of a target blacks had on their heads. They weren't safe anywhere. These marches led by the members of the SCLC and Dr. King are still tremendous examples of courage in the face of great evil.

 Furthermore, even though the movie Selma is just a movie, it still was troubling for me seeing how much hate, violence, and pure evil that members of the Civil Rights Movements and blacks in general had to endure. I realize the footage wasn't real, but seeing how someone could murder 6 or 7 children in cold-blood just because of their race is just incomprehensibly evil. Then learning about how the housing market, economy, and local governments from Coates's article blatantly persecuted and oppressed blacks to such an extent made me realize how greatly racism has permeated and impacted our culture. The ripples of racism are still felt today in America.

 Reading this line from Coates's article, "One man said his black neighbor was “probably a nice guy, but every time I look at him I see $2,000 drop off the value of my house” caused me to do a double take. From my own personal experience, I feel this is still unfortunately the case in many affluent white neighborhoods. I grew up in an affluent white neighborhood, and I remember people discussing how the city is trying to keep blacks out. People were upset at how more blacks were moving in, and how the public schools have begun to bus-in students from poorer black neighborhoods. I also remember growing up, and seeing black people being regularly pulled over by police officers routinely. When I was a teenager, I never really thought about it, but as I got older I realized how the neighborhood I grew up in was actively trying to intimidate and keep blacks out.

 The personal experience I had of systematic racism and active oppression against blacks caused me to realize how true this line from Coates's article is, "Negro Poverty is not White Poverty." Poor whites driving in my neighborhood growing up wouldn't have to worry about being pulled over by the cops, however poor blacks would. So even if a poor black family does their best to support their themselves, history has shown that they have significantly more hurdles to overcome than a poor white family. These hurdles are often times deeply embedded in our society as a result of long-held racist beliefs. This, in turn, causes a systematic oppression to take place. 

Ultimately, after watching Bamboozled, Selma and reading the assigned readings for this week, I learned how ignorant I am, and how deeply racism has impacted our culture .

Crash and Clash of race in modern America

Speaking of race in a modern context can no long be defined simply as "the color of one's skin". While the textbook definition is still true in it's own right, race can not be treated as a singular characteristic that only acts upon one aspect of an individual's life.


I personally wanted to watch The Joy Luck Club (1993) for this week's movie but I couldn't mange to get ahold of it. I did find a rather old a dusty copy of Crash (2004) that I ended up settling on. And wow, am I glad I did. The incredible part of the film lies in how Crash precisely exemplifies the intersections of all race (and even gender) relations that exist between majority races and minority races, and even between minority and minority.


In Coates article "The Case for Reparations", the proposition, and bottom line evidence, are brought up to address the past hundreds of years of black and white race relations in America. In the flip side, the certain realm presented in the film shows a much-needed look into each aspect of what the race relations in modern day America actually are. As Coates mentions the oxymoronic examples in the article as "celebrat[ing] freedom and democracy while forgetting America’s origins in a slavery economy is patriotism à la carte", and exemplifying same ideology that crafts the corrupted and sleazy character of Officer Ryan in Crash. As presented in the dynamic of Officer Ryan, a blatantly racist and misogynist cop in Los Angles who uses his power for manipulation. The kind of systematic racism of everyday life in modern day America is shown as a local police officer. This is exactly the decades old justifications of countless white individuals in real situational accounts that have been occurring since slavery and even after it's abolition.


Even in a closer and more dramatic example are the instances that Coates writes per the multiple interviews of modern day black men and women facing blatant discrimination and racism in Detroit.  But, through the trails and tribulations documented, it is not the actions and offences that the black population of Detroit and the "Contract Buyers Leagues", those who were cheated out of fair homeownership, demand from modern conscience America. They want a fundamental change, a change of mindset, a change of laws that root in historic discriminatory ideology, and a change of population-wide norms. They demand a similar situation like that of post-WWII Germany, one with a fundamental cultural shift to right the wrongs of the past. Coates states the exact change needed as "a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history". 


Thus, movies like Crash, in which this systematic problem is addressed and showed in such a light, that the world must continue to be examined even 13 years after being released. The problems of racial tension in American life did not simply go away after the abolition of slavery, nor the Civil Right movement, nor the election of the first black president of the nation. The problems exist in such a way that a complete re-evaluation must take place before anything can begin to be "fixed".