Crash Again

This past week in class we watch the Academy Award winning film Crash written and directed by Paul Haggis. The film follows a number of characters each a different ethnicity/race. Throughout the film they cross paths with each other a number of times, during these interactions their racial prejudice is shown. Some of the characters resolve their problems by meeting each other like John Ryan did when he saved Christine from the car wreck, while others create more conflict like Tom Hansen did when he killed Peter. The film reveals real world problems that people in a diverse city like Los Angeles face, this was summed up by Graham Waters (Don Cheadle) "It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something". When someone doesn't interact with people of other races or ethnicities they tend to look towards stereotypes to define what a certain person is like. They tend to think all black people are hoodlums, all asians are smart, etc. The film addresses this by showing that stereotypes are completely irrelevant. At the beginning of the film Anthony is a no good person who steals cars and sells them to chop shops while, Cameron Thayer on the other hand is a successful law abiding television director, and both of them are black. Like world peace and ending world hunger I don't believe a completely tolerant society is possible but, we can make it better than it is now. Like previously mentioned people don't interact with others that are different then them, thats where the problem starts. If we were all raised around diverse people I think we would grow up without prejudices and overall this would somewhat resolve the problem. Unfortunately prejudice is passed down from generation to generation, racist parents cultivate these ideas in their children's minds before they are even allowed to make their own opinions. I think it will be a long time before we see any major step towards eliminating racism in our society.