The Color Of Fear

The documentary The Color of Fear was very different from what I was expecting. I came into the documentary thinking is was going to be the same old black and white and boring videos we have watched before in our class. Surprisingly, it was not as bad as I thought. Even though the topics and activities they did were stuff I had done before prior to this class. What made it seem interesting was the lighter skinned black guy in the documentary, Victor. He was very emotional and brought up good points in an active way which brought discussions alive. The main scenes that stood out to me were the very emotional ones. Seeing people get emotional woke me up and got me to want to know what was happening. I don't really think that the Asian-Americans and the Hispanics changed their viewings of this problem. None of them were like, 'wow I never knew that about your culture' or 'thank you for correcting my view points'. A guy I felt most connected to was Loren Moye. He understood and knew what Victor was saying, but was not a big talker. Like Loren, I feel the pain of most African-American children but I do not speak up as much as I really could. One main issue discussed during the documentary was white supremacy, and mainly how some white people do not know that they are privileged. One of the white males, David Christensen, feels as though he is not privileged and that he had to work as hard as every other culture to be successful. Like David, Jan Arminio was unaware that being 'white had advantages over people of color (Arminio). "I decided to use the work ... and its relationship to the oppression of people of color..." (Arminio, 126). In this documentary people's viewpoint of what it means to be American is discussed among the group. Some viewpoints were that to be American you have to give up your old cultural ways, being born and raised in America, having freedom of choice, and one of the African-American men said that you have to be white to be American. My viewpoint of what it means to be American is someone who was born here or if he/she wasn't then someone who is willing work hard and contribute to America's success. How I would identify my identity is an African-American. I am also part white and Native American but I do not automatically use those groups mainly because I do not want to be known as a white American. Not saying something is wrong with being white, but when I have been raised by African-Americans and born by an African-American I should be black. Unfortunately, I look white so I get categorized as a White kid. Towards the end of the document there was a lot emotions from David. I believe this emotion comes from the realization that the world he has been living in has been all a lie. Similarly, when Victor would get mad it was because David was not understanding the struggles of a black man.