The Movie Crash
In the movie, Crash, nearly any racism and discrimination you can think of are shown. In all of these the core problems are lack of civil liberties, rights, social justice, and prejudices from people. This movie did a great job of showing what goes on in certain societies. The main races shown as minorities and being treated wrong were African Americans, Hipics, and Persians/Asians. Civil rights are defined as, “The rights of citizens to political and social freedom and equality. ” Civil liberties are defined as, “Guarantees of the safety of persons, opinions, and property from the arbitrary acts of government. Social justices are defined as, “The application of the concept of justice on a social scale. ” Prejudices are defined as, “An unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason. ” All four of these are heavily shown in Crash. It is unfortunate that these things happen to people, but it is important to know they do happen and to not treat people like this. African American rights have been a struggle throughout our history, and probably always will be.
A major landmark in our process to equality was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was an Act in the United States that outlawed some forms of discrimination against African Americans. This act outlawed the segregation of schools, work places, and public areas. It also outlawed unequal voting laws. In the movie, African American discrimination was shown a lot. A scene with car-jacking involving African Americans showed the way that many people view the entire race to behave. There were also scenes with racial profiling and even being ignored at a restaurant.
One of the worse scenes showing the discrimination and total loss of equality and rights to all races was a scene where a white police officer pulled over an African American couple for not good reason and proceeded to take full advantage of his situation. He sexually assaulted the woman because he knew they would not report him, seeing that they were a minority. It was really sad to see that the husband had to just watch and couldn’t do anything and I’m sure this sort of thing has really happened before. This is not social justice, and is a lack of both civil rights and liberties.
No one should feel like they cannot report a crime because they are the minority in the situation. A real case involving African Americans is Lloyd Gaines, who was denied from a law school in Mississippi because he was black. When taken to Supreme Court, Gaines won the case. This is good news and a step in the right direction. African Americans are discriminated against a lot, as shown in the movie. Hipics are another group largely discriminated on. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1968 was an Act that did not help our equal rights progress through the years.
In the movie, we see problems that occur today in the United States dealing with Hipics. I think that Hipics are the group most prejudiced against today. In one scene, a white rich woman is getting her locks changed by a company. When the lock changer showed up, she completely stereotyped him noticing his tattoos and baggy clothing. The women did not trust the work of the Hipic man and wanted the company to re-do the locks. Another scene shows a women disrespecting her Hipic housekeeper and treating her with no equality. She is rude to the housekeeper and treats her as a minority.
The last scene about Hipics that stood out to me was the scene where the lock worker showed up to change the Persian man’s shop’s locks. When the Hipic man nicely tries to explain to the man that the door is broken he immediately things the Hipic man is cheating him. The Persian man was very rude, and was yelling at the worker. Even though the Persian man is later discriminated on, it is no reason to have such a strong prejudice on a man just trying to do his job. In the movie, I didn’t really see any crimes committed to Hipic people, I definitely saw social injustice but no specific crimes done to them.
I think Hipic discrimination is still a really big problem today and everyone has so many stereotypes for everyone. The last groups of people shown being discriminated against were the Persians, and Asians. Some history behind these groups was the Chinese Immigration Act if 1885. This Act gave a big tax to all Chinese Immigrants in the United States. Today, I’d like to think there is less discrimination on Asians. In one scene, the Persian shop owner wants to buy a gun. The man selling the gun refuses to sell the Persian man because his English is broken.
His daughter talks to the man selling the gun and ends up succeeding and purchasing it. It is illegal to not sell a product to someone because of a prejudice view or racial profile. In the end of the movie, we learn that the Chinese man who was ran over by the African Americans was actually selling people of his own race out of his truck for money. This sort of shows that discrimination and lack equality has gotten so bad that even same-race people are doing whatever they can to survive in this Country. African Americans, Hipics, Persians, and Chinese are all shown being racially profiled, prejudiced, and treated far from equal.
None of this, by law, should be happening. It is impossible to control all people all the time, but I think too much of this is happening everyday. In the United States, certain laws are promised and should be completely followed through. It is sad to see all of this discrimination in the movie, but it is good to know it happens so that we can stop it as much as possible, and make more equality for every citizen, no matter their race. The United States has done many good things to put the Country on the right track towards equality, but still decimation exists, and to every race and minority.
