CrashCrashWatching Crash really opened my eyes and helped me come to the realization that there is good and bad in us all; no matter how well we think we know each other or ourselves. In life we are capable of doing good things, but at the same time we are just as capable of doing wrongful deeds to others around us. The movie is mainly about stereotypes and how by simply judging somebody on the color of their skin can lead to terrible unthinkable actions. Crash demonstrates this concept so well it was disturbing to me because in all actuality that is what is going on, and not just in city like LA, it is all around us every day!
In Crash the lives of many completely different people are interweaved throughout two days in Los Angeles. A black police detective with a thieving younger brother and a drugged out mother, his Latina partner/girlfriend, the district attorney and his spoiled wife who are both white, two black car thieves, a white racist cop with a sick father at home, the racist cops white partner who is more idealistic, a black Hollywood director and his wife, a Persian immigrant family, a Hispanic locksmith and his family, a Korean couple, and many other different classes and ethnicities.
Since we all watched the movie I would find it pointless to summarize it in its entirety, so instead I will point out parts I thought important and refer to different scenes.
Officer Ryan: “Whats your name”? Shaniqua: “My name is Shaniqua Jackson”. Officer Ryan: “Shaniqua. Big fucking surprise”. This dialogue takes place when Officer Ryan calls Shaniqua about his sick father and is frustrated because she cannot help him. Shaniqua is very upset by the comment and hangs up the phone. By doing this one would think that Shaniqua would be a considerate person and not racist right? Wrong, the movie ends with a car rear-ending Shaniqua’s car. The people that wreck into her do not speak English and Shaniqua says “Ahh! Oh, my God. What the hell is wrong with you people? Uh-uh! Dont talk to me unless you speak American”! This scene really gave the movie a powerful ending because it demonstrated how even people that would seem to not be racist actually can be, and it also started the circle of events all over again.
Officer Ryan: “You think you know who you are”? [Officer Hanson nods]Officer Ryan: “You have no idea”. After Officer Hanson requests a new partner because of the incident with the black couple the night before Officer Ryan asks him that question. Officer Hanson seems pretty sure of himself when he shakes his head in assurance that he “knows” who is, but is proven wrong that very night when he kills Peter in his car then dumps his body and burns the car. This showed that even though you “think” you know you are, you don’t know what you are capable of doing someday.
Another scene I found to be important is when Graham’s mother calls and says he can’t talk because he is having sex with a white woman. Ria gets out of bed angrily and Graham thinking she is offended because he called her white says, “Oh, shit. Come on. I would have said you were Mexican, but I dont think it would have pissed her off as much”. This showed how ignorant people could be when they assume peoples ethnic background by the color of their skin because Ria’s is actually a descendant of Puerto Rico. Another similar incident happened when the Persian man was buying a gun and the owner called him an Arab, his daughter said, “They think were Arab. When did Persian become Arab”? Once again showing the ignorance of human nature.
The reason I say the ignorance of human nature and not of the storeowner is because we all are ignorant at times. You have been and Lord knows I have. Sometimes it is without realization and after the fact I always feel like a horrible person because I was not raised to be that way.
I grew up in Southern New Mexico where the minority is the majority, so I stood out as being one of the “white kids”. One day I asked my Father if I was white and he said far from it. You are some of everything he said. Your Mother is half Hispanic, I am a quarter Cherokee and we have every other kind of race you could think of down the family line somewhere. Those words made me feel better because the Hispanic kids were always teasing my brother and I and making us feel like we were not as good as them. But when it came to putting our ethnicity on a standardized test my teachers always instructed me to put white, when it came to the color of my skin I was white, and when it came to my last name I was white. I was once very ashamed of who I was because being white was not cool. I even asked my parents if I could change my last name to my Mother’s maiden name of Dominguez so the kids would think I was Hispanic. Like changing my name would change who I
The teacher’s words didn’t go unnoticed, you have no idea when I started hearing about such things coming from my teachers. I told the whole class that this was not good for this community and what I was telling was nothing more than the typical racist comments we see. These racist comments have nothing to do with my life and everything to do with their own success and family being white. These remarks were made when I was 19 by my mother for having my first child and what she is wearing now. I know we all love him. These racist comments still are considered a problem by both my school and the school system in Mexico because we are still treated as inferior and should be treated as children. I knew they only made a small difference, even for us. I was told that we are just as deserving of respect as that child.
The teacher tells me to ask myself about my education.
“What do you think when these people tell you their problems? Have they not seen you in public?”
At the end, I tell her that I am going to tell her that this whole experience is wrong because I did not go to college and I am not a student. When she told me I was not going away because I do not want to live in poverty, her answers were cold and flat. I know who she is, I know what I have to learn. It is all I can think about. “Tell me, what happens when those who are in poverty don’t get the benefit and they feel like it. What do I think of that?”
It has not been that long since I have spoken this kind of harsh words.
What was my name a kid thought I was and how do you think people look at what this says about you?
I am a Hispanic girl and my father (born in the Philippines) has been through everything he can. I grew up in a low middle class household in Chihuahua, Mexico. Many other families were in poverty and so when I was younger, my parents would send me home because they couldn’t afford to care for me or work. I would never pay my own way. If I didn’t pay my way with my family, I would never be able to raise my family or have my children. It was just awful. My parents did all of the buying and selling of my clothes, I always bought everything I had to be paid my way. If I didn’t have my own family or support system, then I would never be able to support myself, that was the worst. Every day, my mommy would try to put me on medications and she would try to take me home. Because of this, many of her children died at home. Â But as soon as I had my own family, it meant that I could not come home but I lost my ability to make ends meet and that was really the worst part. I never would have had the opportunity to speak my heart out after spending so much of my life fighting for what was right.
How does learning to speak Spanish translate into work?
To get a job, to get a high school degree, to earn a living it is important for my family. To find a job I needed to learn this. Â It does not surprise me because I grew up in a middle class family when I was around 13 because we were poor and I am an immigrant. My mother was a lawyer and my father worked for the government to help in government programs. When I was about 10 years old my dad was born in Mexico and his wife