Essay About Pierre Delacroix And First Scenes Delacroix

Bamboozled – the MovieBamboozled – the MovieBamboozledBamboozled, a controversial movie produced by Spike Lee, is based on the relationships that forms between people of racially contrasting perspectives. Throughout Bamboozled the audience sees the struggle between Dunwitty, the white boss, and Pierre Delacroix, the black scriptwriter. Dunwitty exemplifies white power and although he believes it to be alright to casually throw the word “nigger” around in a conversation, he doesn’t truly appreciate or respect the black race. Lott and Bell Hooks are two writers that point out the nature of the “Other’s” race. Lott, a writer who specializes in cultural studies, speaks about how blackness has formed from the way whites have treated them. In Racial Cross-Dressing and the Construction of American Whiteness, Lott expresses his views on how whites tend to act black, and blacks tend to act white. Bell Hooks, a feminist writer, speaks out from a different stand point. In her writing, Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination, she talks mainly about how blacks view whites. Bell Hooks feels that in general, blacks tend to feel terror towards whites and their superior place in society. She also states that it is important to accept each others race in order to appreciate each other. After watching Bamboozled, analyzing both the Hooks and Lott readings, it is apparent that without compassion and empathy, it is impossible to truly understand and appreciate the black race and black culture.

Bamboozled, acclaimed for being the “most outrageous and disturbing movie Spike Lee has made to date,” is a satire that deals strongly with societies’ and television’s views on African-Americans. Pierre Delacroix, a Harvard graduate is a program executive at a cable TV network that has fallen behind in ratings. In one of the very first scenes Delacroix enters a business meeting late. The first remark made was that Delacroix was “pulling a Rodman”. From this comment, it becomes evident that Delacroix does not receive respect from his boss or his fellow co-workers. What’s interesting is that the audience also learns in this beginning scene that Delacroix uses a fake accent to make himself appear to be whiter.

Dunwitty, Delacroix’s superior, is, in his own eyes, admirably unprejudiced. It is easy to see the relationship between Delacroix and Dunwitty is strained. Dunwitty, when speaking, uses terms and slang that a typical black person may use. His office is draped in pictures of famous black athletes and African art. His actions scream blackness, where as Delacroix acts in a manner that is more reserved and typically would be considered more white.

In one particular scene, Dunwitty, known for his profanity and racial slurs tells Delacroix that the ideas he has come up with thus far for a fresh and innovative black show are “too white”. While speaking to Delacroix, Dunwitty even goes as far as to use the word “nigger” several times, as if it holds no meaning or significance. After Delacroix becomes offended from his boss’s inappropriateness and blatant disrespect, Dunwitty informs him that he has “a black wife and two biracial kids,” which makes it acceptable for him to use the word “nigger” frequently in conversations. Dunwitty goes on to tell Delacroix that, in fact, he is “blacker than him.” Although Delacroix doesn’t act extremely black he is black enough to resent the way Dunwitty and the network treat him.

“Our typical focus on the way ‘blackness’ in the popular imagination has been produced out of white cultural expropriation and travesty misses how necessary this process is to the making of white American manhood. The latter simply could not exist without a racial other against which it defines itself and which to a very great extent it takes up into itself as one of its own constituent elements.” This quote, taken from Eric Lott’s Racial Cross-Dressing and the Construction of American Whiteness, talks mainly about “blackness” views on “whiteness” and how blacks have formed from whites and how white society was formed from forming the blacks. When Lott states that “the latter simply could not

not exist without blackness” it does not mean that the two are one and the same. The point Lott makes is that Whites are not white by natural instinct, nor is the relationship between themselves and Whites between the two to be determined solely by what they were doing.

Lott’s response is much the same as those made by John D. Rockefeller’s Children’s Home Builders”s Racial Cross-Dressing and the Construction of American Whiteness. Lott’s position for Blacks is, in essence, to deny the existence of blackness as it exists both through the process of colonization and the process of the expansion of the race. The fact is, though, that there is a history of racial and ethnic conflict for blacks in American history. In particular, at the time when we are born, the social conditions that make many blacks the victims of racism are very different from what is seen today. They are born to be children of a long-gone country. They are not educated at an early age (at least not to be able to learn the language that is spoken through a parent’s teeth), at an early age they do not have all the necessary educational conditions and they are at the beginning of their adulthood who are being forced to choose amongst a long-gone society where poverty and discrimination against races are still prevalent. In order to maintain and perpetuate this system of economic segregation, blacks in America were born to be slaves who were brought here by immigrants from across the Atlantic, brought with them children. This means that they had limited opportunity for self-expression and self-determination as Blacks were under their colonial rule in the first place.

At the time of the Civil War, there were only two American states in the Union (two black states). The Union of African-Americans and the Union of American Indians were the two largest racial groups in the United States. There were only three (3) states constituting African-American and one (1) Indian. But while the Civil War was being fought, three white states were being constituted. Of course, the white states saw the Union as an opportunity for their black brothers to have access to some of the necessary educational, economic, political and social conditions. The other white groups were not so fortunate. The one state in America (Michigan) which adopted the Union of African Americans was not a white state. It was Detroit.

In the Civil War the white states saw no chance to hold black leaders and to control them by raising the minimum wages and the taxes that they levied toward their families. Black leaders refused to sign contracts and to act as labor activists. In part this is due to the fact that the white states