During this week, we watched a documentary called “The Color of Fear”. This was mainly focused on the perspectives and views of one race towards another. It was a discussion over 3 days shortened to 90 min. This documentary made me realize about how much racism can affect another group of people and we could fail to understand how it does so. This video alone taught me many things.
During the first part of the film, the discussion was based on the idea of being “American”. I, for one, never noticed that we live in a continent called North America, yet people in the United States of America are the only ones that can be called “American”. You can relate this to our class discussions about the past where Mexico once owned the parts around California. Then, those we consider “Americans” took it and made laws to prevent the Mexicans living there from becoming actual citizens of the country. In reality, the land of so-called Americans had settled here because of a man who was named Christopher Columbus, someone who found this inhabited land by accident and claimed it as being his discovery. In fact there were many people already here who were the REAL americans. The “americans” ended up driving the natives out and claimed this land as their own. So, how can we call ourselves true americans when we slaughtered, imprisoned, and abused the natives that were originally here in the first place? How are we truly americans if we didn't originate here. These are questions i still have and hope can answer soon
One of the main things that stuck out to me in this movie was the change in David throughout the film. In the beginning, while people were sharing their problems with the group, he constantly said that he understood them and he understood how they felt. This shows how he thought he would understand everything about what they are going through and subconsciously listened less to what the others were saying because, in my opinion, he assumed that he already knew everything. It wasn't until the near end when he gave an example about his daughter barely short of her goal. He questioned how his daughter didn't get the extra points to get that grade she wanted. Someone responded that what if she was just told to try harder next time, and he said that he wouldn't feel as if the decision was fair. That's when he realized the way he had thought about other people from other races weren't the same as those people were actually experiencing and feeling.
This relates to the reading “Moving Beyond White Guilt”. Just like this reading says, David possibly believed that “The more I learn about racism, the less time other groups have to take to convince me that it is a problem to them”. I believe that just because you learn about a certain problem doesn't mean you ignore the experiences of that racial group. This is why many others seemed frustrated with David during the movie while he kept saying things like “I know” or “I understand”. They get frustrated because he CAN'T possibly know. No matter how much people read up on black problems, they won't fully understand unless they themselves walked in the black man’s shoes. The closest someone could possibly get to understand a race’s struggles, they would have to hear that from a black person themselves.
In conclusion, I have taken away many things from this story. First, America isn't filled with true Americans that originate from this country. “Americans” are here because they accidentally found this area and decided to take it. Secondly, Everyone has their own opinion towards how they treat a situation towards others and how they treat things toward themselves. Its best to get a understanding about a situation about racism by listening to a group of people in a given group and hear their views on how they are treated. Everyone has a story, it all just depends on how it is told
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