Racial Discrimination in Crash

671 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Racial inequality in society

Our society stated by Zastrow was founded on the principle of human equality, however our society is far from always being equal. In the movie “Crash,” Cameron and Christine, who are upper-class African Americans were affected by racial discrimination by Officer Ryan.
When Officer Ryan first saw the black Navigator he thought they were following the Navigator that got carjacked. Unfortunately, even though his partner tells him it is not the car, Officer Ryan pulls them over because he assumes that the woman (Christine) is giving sexual favor in the car while a black man (Cameron) is driving. When Officer Ryan gets to the window he realizes that they are an upper-class African-American couple however, this routine stop turned into a very hostile confrontation because of Christine’s mouth. Both Cameron and Christine experience stereotyping and racism from the Officer Ryan.
Officer Ryan’s treatment to them was unfair but later in the movie you notice why he treated the couple the way that he did. Ryan was angry about not getting help for his sick father that he took out his frustration on Cameron and Christine. He thought that they only reason why African-Americans got where they were was because of the “white” society giving them opportunities. He made a statement later on in the movie to Shaniqua saying “…And then the city council decides to give minority-owned companies preference in city contracts. And overnight, my father loses everything.” Yes, Officer Ryan see that Cameron is a wealthy hard working business man but he feels that the only way he got to the place that he got was because of the sacrifice that “white” gave up.
However a routine stop turned into a hostile situation. When Officer Ryan asked Cameron t...

... middle of paper ...

...came to me for help both would have many issues to work on. Cameron and Christine both need to work on their self-awareness and how they even though you are successfully you will run into people who will be prejudice and will always feel that they are superior to them. Christine would first need help with how she felt being sexually assaulted by a white male officer. Christine was a victim not just a victim because of her race but a victim to sexual assault. With Cameron, he realized if he wanted to be successfully he needed to act like a “white man.” Both Cameron and Christine faced a flood of embarrassment, shame, frustration, and anger and realizing that no matter that you are a law abiding person that are society still looks at the color of their skin. Our society in so stereotypical that even all the money in the world will never change some people views.

Show More
Related

  • Racial Injustice In Fallen Angels By James Baldwin

    1339 Words  | 3 Pages

    Racial inequality is a disparity in opportunity and treatment that occurs as a result of someone 's race. Racial inequality has been affecting our country since it was founded. This research paper, however, will be limited to the racial injustice and inequality of African-Americans. Since the start of slavery, African Americans have been racially unequal to the power majority race. It was not until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when African Americans received racial equality under the laws of the United States. Many authors write about racial injustice before and after the Civil Rights Act. In “Sonny’s Blues”, James Baldwin tells a fictional story of an African American who struggles to achieve racial equality and prosper

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Origins Of The Urban Crisis

    1145 Words  | 3 Pages

    I know I talked about this earlier in the paper, but inequality is still a major issue that we still have in the United States today. African Americans today still are not treated the same as the white majority. In the case of Detroit, there were inequalities in the work place and in housing. There were laws that were enacted to help to prevent these types of discrimination, for example the Fair Housing Act. There were also laws to help prevent workplace discrimination.

    Read More

  • Interpersonal Communication In The Movie Crash

    810 Words  | 2 Pages

    Officer Ryan is a white bigoted police officer who has a clear hatred of African Americans. The scene depicts Office Ryan pulling over a vehicle, because it looks like one that was reported stolen. However, after running the plates, he knows the vehicle is not stolen, but using his Legitimate Power, he pulls the vehicle over anyway. Like most power, legitimate power is based upon perception and reality, and the ability to influence others based on their status, and the right to comply. However, once the stop is initiated, he then engages in Coercive Power, and sexually assaults the female passenger, Christine Thayer, as her husband, Cameron Thayer, watches helplessly. Ryan hatred of blacks is so intense that he does even care that he has just committed a crime in front of his partner, a partner who knows that he has just crossed the line. Officer Ryan has no respect for blacks, and used racial profiling as a means of pulling over and harassing the couple. When a person with authority uses their position to force someone to comply with what they want, by using acts of threats and intimation is coercive power.

    Read More

  • Inductive Reasoning Pros

    1600 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Yes, sir. I live here and make this turn every day. I’m not sure what I did wrong this time,” I responded in my most innocent voice. All three times I had been pulled over prior to that day, I managed to get out of getting a ticket. This police officer, however, was not

    Read More

  • Minorities and Policing

    382 Words  | 1 Pages

    According to Dr. Carl S. Taylor, the relationship between minority groups and police in the United States has historically been strained. Some cities have a deep and bitter history of bias and prejudice interwoven in their past relationships. The feeling in many communities today is that the system pits law enforcement as an occupying army versus the neighborhood. Dr. Taylor wrote about easing tensions between police and minorities, but stated “If there is any good news in the current situation, it is that the history of this strain has found the 1990’s ripe for change.

    Read More

  • Intersectionality Case Study

    1601 Words  | 4 Pages

    For instance, relating to the employment, there were two obvious hierarchical differences between the black and the white, and women and men. According to Kimberle (2015), in the late 1970, the employment opportunities for black people and women were still in the straitened circumstance, furthermore, even if there were chances for them, “... the black job were men’s job, and the women’s job were only for whites.” (Kimberle Cranshaw 2015). In other words, there was no opportunity for the black women. In this case, the unjust discriminatory treatment for black women simply resulted from their intersected identities as a “black” and “woman” both were marginalized in the society. In regard to this, however, the important point is that people did not analyze the cause of this situation through considering it from the both racial and sexual sides simultaneously. People ignored the experience of the others, and categorized the black women based on their sex as a “woman”. In other words, people, especially who were in the privileged position, just neglected the subtle “differences” of others, and they stretched the rules to their own advantages. Relating to these “differences”, Audre Lorde (1984: 115) explains that “ But we have no patterns for relating across our human differences as equals. As a result, those differences have been misnamed and misused in the

    Read More

  • Examples Of Discrimination In The Movie Crash

    1391 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the world, there are vast amounts of hate crimes, racism, and discrimination between all ethnicities and throughout the movie “Crash”, there are countless examples carried out between the characters. It makes the viewer rethink what they believe they know about the world they live in. As ‘Merriam-Webster Dictionary would define it as, “a stereotype is to believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same”. It is an opinion, conception, or image we hold about a race, or group of people. Discrimination is most commonly defined as the practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from one another. And to be prejudice is to hold preconceived judgements, biased suspicion, or hatred of a particular race or ethnic group. Each of these play a role in the assumptions people make about one another and the stereotypes portrayed throughout the film. Crash deals with America, specifically

    Read More

  • Crash Tragedy Analysis

    976 Words  | 2 Pages

    Big fucking surprise that is." (Haggis, Crash), to which she hangs up on him. Later on, he visits the clinic that Shaniqua Johnson works at, seemingly apologetic at first. He goes on to explain how his father, before he got sick and lost everything, was an advocate for the rights of African-American people, saying he is a good person and deserves to get the proper treatment and diagnosis for his condition. Johnson says she would like to help his father. She says if he were to personally ask her for help, she would comply; but because it was not his father who went to the clinic, she refuses to help. Ryan claims Johnson 's "people" are part of the reason his father lost everything and says she should feel obligated to help him, further proving his prejudice. Although, in the scene where Ryan helps Christine out of the van, when Ryan realizes who she is, he does not hesitate to continue to get her to safety. This may pose a question of whether he is trying to convince himself, and others, that he is not a racist, and if he is trying to redeem himself. Additionally, the character of Officer Tom Hanson tries to prove time and time again that he does not believe in society 's stereotypes. Hanson, present for the incident with Christine and

    Read More

  • Racial Inequality In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin

    1392 Words  | 3 Pages

    Racial inequality is a disparity in opportunity and treatment that occurs as a result of someone 's race. Racial inequality has been effecting our country since it was founded. Although our country has been racially injustice toward many different race this research paper, however will be limited to the racial injustice and inequality of African-Americans. Since the start of slavery African Americans have been racially unequal to the majority race. It was not in tile the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when African Americans received racial equality under the law of the United States. Many authors write about racial injustice before the civil rights act and after the civil rights act. In “Sonny’s Blues” James Baldwin tells a fictional

    Read More

  • The Role of Social Movements in Fighting Racism

    1326 Words  | 3 Pages

    Discrimination has always been there between blacks and whites. Since the 1800s where racial issues and differences started flourishing till today, we can still find people of different colors treated unequally. “[R]acial differences are more in the mind than in the genes. Thus we conclude superiority and inferiority associated with racial differences are often socially constructed to satisfy the socio-political agenda of the dominant group”(Heewon Chang,Timothy Dodd;2001;1).

    Read More

  • Racism In Sherman Alexie's 'Gentrification'

    720 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Who was the most racist in that situation? Was it the white man who was too terrified to confront his black neighbors on their rudeness? Was it the black folks who abandoned their mattress on their curb? … Or was it all of us, black and white, passively revealing that, despite our surface friendliness, we didn’t really care about one another?” He never blames the black neighbors for their disregard of the mattress because their black, but sounds aware of the stereotyping and how he comes off addressing it. He also knows how much he stands out in the community as a minority, wondering what the cops would say to him, “ ‘Buddy,’ the cops would say. ‘You don’t fit the profile of the neighborhood.” Despite his pride in his actions of disposing of the mattress, the mistreatment by his black neighbors comes off as an unfortunate, but expected, consequence, “I knew the entire block would shun me. I felt pale and lost, like an American explorer in the

    Read More

  • The Movie Crash and Racial Tensions

    1394 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the first scene when Cameron is introduced, two white cops get a call about a stolen car. The openly racist cop, Officer Ryan, pulls over Cameron and Christine’s Lincoln Navigator, although it is obvious that their Navigator is not the stolen vehicle. The cop thinks he sees the couple participating in a sexual act while driving. When he approaches the car to ask for registration and license, Cameron and Christine laugh and find the whole situation humorous. Officer Ryan then asks Cameron to step out, and although Cameron obeys, he acts confused. He is obviously not drunk or wanting trouble (in the movie it even states that he is a Buddhist), and he declares that he lives only a block away. When his wife comes out of the car protesting the absurdity of the stop, the officer tells both of them to put their hands on the car so he can check for weapons. The cop then humiliates Christine by feeling her up between her thighs while Cameron is forced to stand by and watch. In this scene, Cameron does not protest but unbelievingly stares at what is happening to his wife. He is in a vulnerable situation because if he objects, he and his wife could be arrested and his reputation ruined. When the police ask Cameron what he should do with what they did in the car he slowly says, “Look, we’re sorry and we’d appreciate it if you’d let us go with a warning, please.

    Read More

  • Discrimination And Prejudice In The Movie Crash

    744 Words  | 2 Pages

    This was especially evident when they were being pulled over by a racist white cop. She felt that he could have done more to defend their rights instead of accepting injustice. There is also a Persian store owner, who feels that he is getting the short end of the stick in American society because his store was robbed multiple times. Then the Hispanic locksmith encounters racial slurs and discrimination, although he just wanted to keep his family safe. The partnered detectives and lovers of different races, one is a Hispanic woman and the other is a black male, who are dealing with his drug addicted mother who feels that he does not care enough about taking care of his family. In this movie, discrimination and prejudice are the cause of all kinds of collisions. We easily prejudge people with stereotypes, and we are concerned with our pre-thoughts of what kind of person he/she should be, we forget to actually get to know them. It is human nature to have some type of prejudices in one way or another; we fear the unknown. There are stereotypes that black people are angry or tend to be violent; white people feel they are the dominant race and discriminate against all; Asians are thought to be poor or ignorant, and people with higher economic statuses are distinguished to the working class

    Read More

  • Racial Discrimination in the Workplace

    1557 Words  | 4 Pages

    Abstract- Racial discrimination happens all the time and most of us are unaware of it. The most common place for this to happen is in the workplace. Now people can be discriminated against because of their race, religion, or any other numerous things. Also, discrimination can occur during the job interview or even after you got the job. This paper will shoe the effects of racial discrimination and how it can be prevented. In addition there are some very important laws that deal specifically with discrimination, like the NAACP or Affirmative Action. These both will be discussed.

    Read More

  • An Essay About Racial Discrimination

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    In some countries, racial discrimination is acute, violence and so on that are some ways to solve different problems, it is not even questioned. In today 's society often happen racial discrimination problems, such behavior destroy the people to go abroad. Even harm to other people 's life safety. This is making a lot of foreigners to protect their own security, and give up their studies and works, they want not to go outside. 'Attacks on Chinese student at Paris metro stirs concerns ' French women attacked Chinese students, event alerted the important leaders of the two countries. Because of their behavior were represent a country in the eyes of foreigners. I visited New York in first time, I suffered some American to abused me. I was very angry. Racial discrimination, this is making a person life uncomfortable. I think people are equal, we should correct treat the problem. We should get on well

    Read More

More about Racial Discrimination in Crash

Open Document