Social Justice Project

I watched “25 Mini-Films for Exploring Race, Bias, and Identity with Students” created by The New York Times. I watched all 25 films, which were divided into four series, and I will highlight a few of the films I found most impactful from each series.  

In the first series, “A Conversation on Race”, the film that stood out the most to me was when the police officers spoke about racism. One officer spoke very bluntly and what he said was very alarming to me. He admitted to being biased, even saying if he saw a group of young, black men in a white neighborhood he would go over and give them a hard time because “they’re not supposed to be there”. Who is this man to judge whether or not these boys belong there? He also says towards the end that he thinks protestors should get a job and find something better to do than to blame the police for their problems. First of all, I cannot believe this officer feels this way in the first place. But second of all, I cannot believe he is not the slightest bit embarrassed to admit to this. 

In another mini-film of this series, a teenage girl shares the story of her father coloring in the characters in her books brown when she was a child. This reminded me of Christensen’s argument that minority groups are underrepresented in media, TV, books, etc. Like the Christensen article points out, many children of color grow up without ever seeing people who look like themselves in books. This father wanted his daughter to be able to open up a book and see people who look like her just like all white children get to do. I found this story touching but also very upsetting. It’s disgraceful that this father had to do this in the first place. The fact that he could not just go to the store and buy a book with characters of his daughter’s race is disgusting. I like to hope that this is changing, but quite frankly I am not so sure it is. 

The second series introduces the concept of implicit bias, thoughts that pop into one's head without control which occur because of associations that form from what we see and hear every day. The video makes a great point that implicit bias can exist without racism. A person who has biases in their head but does not act on them is not racist. It is when one acts on these biases and starts to discriminate that racism is the more appropriate term. I was intrigued by one film that said that simply exposing yourself to and hanging out with people of other races is proven to decrease implicit bias. This is valuable advice that myself and everyone else should take. If everyone followed this advice, implicit bias could decrease tremendously on a national scale. 

I have provided the link to an implicit racism test. This type of test is talked about briefly in the video and it shows how prevalent implicit bias is. 

The third series is primarily about racism represented in objects. I found the second one about Native American people protesting the use of the Indian as a mascot very captivating. I don’t understand how people don’t see why they’re protesting. It is a false and mocking representation of Native American people. In my opinion, it would be like if a team mascot was Jim Crow. I think almost everybody would see the problem with this, so why can they not see the problem with using an Indian as a mascot. It is making fun of a certain culture and I agree with the Native American people that it should be abolished. People argue that it has been the mascot for decades and therefore it cannot be changed. Get with the times! Slavery existed for decades too but eventually people smartened up and recognized that it was wrong. The “it has been around forever” excuse just does not fly. In the third mini-film of this series, a woman talks about her “white guilt”. She works at her parents’ store which sells old objects that are often racist in nature. The defensive reaction from the Johnson article was very obvious because the woman constantly felt the need to state that she knows these objects are wrong and she doesn’t want to be selling them. She is very defensive in making her point that she is not racist and does not agree with these objects. However, in my opinion, that means nothing because she does nothing to change the fact that she sells them. 

I found an article about a man who collects racist objects. I think it is very interesting in relation to this mini-series. 

The final series is the most impactful in my opinion. It is people telling their stories of how they grew up in America, yet don't always feel American. White Americans force the "hyphen" onto them whether they were born here or not. For example, one young man was born here but his parents were from Mexico and his friends told him he's Mexican-American not American. Another interesting statement made by many of those who shared their story is that they don't feel that they belong in the country their ancestors are from either. One man shared that he does not feel welcome in America yet he goes to Sudan and is called and treated as a foreigner. I cannot imagine the feeling that you don't belong anywhere. It must be the most devastating feeling and I cannot even begin to imagine. One moment that made me smile was when multiple people shared that a moment they felt most American was when Barack Obama was elected President. This put a smile on my face hearing how much it meant that they saw the first black President of the United States elected in their lifetime. One woman who has a lighter skin tone but is not actually white shared that many people tell her that she could pass as white and it would be easier for her to succeed in life if she said she was white. This reminded me of Delpit's culture of power concept. If this woman said she was white, she would now be a part of the culture of power and would have an easier road to success. However, she does not want to take the easy way out and be a part of the culture of power. She wants to honor her own culture and feels that "being white" would be disgraceful to her ancestors who worked so hard and did not have the option to join the culture of power. I believe this woman is so strong and beautiful for choosing to honor her ancestors rather than take the "easy way out" and join the culture of power. 

I have included a video that shares the reactions of African American people to Obama's election in 2008. 

I am so glad I was given the option to watch these videos for this assignment. I have gained wonderful insight and I feel grateful that I was able to hear the stories of these strong men and women who overcome despite many people trying to keep them down. I have so much more I could say about these 25 films; I could talk forever about them. I encourage those who have already attended a different social justice event to watch these films anyway.