Cecil Gaines Quotes And Analysis

The film starts in 1926 Macon, Georgia. Cecil Gaines was a young boy working on a cotton plantation with his parents. Cecil witnessed his mother raped and his father shot by the landowner. After the tragedy the boy experienced, the mother of the household took Cecil in and raised him to be a house servant. The skills he learned as a house servant landed him a job at an elite hotel as a butler. Cecil was recommended for a job offer at the White House and he served as a butler for more than thirty years with eight presidents.
While Cecil served on the White House he and his wife had two sons. One of the son’s experienced life in a different perspective than his father. He went to college in Tennessee and was curious about civil rights. Cecil

consistently throughout the movie had a blind eye to what was going on. He was serving the president and had personal experiences of the difficult process of helping blacks gain rights. The two generations lived opposite lifestyles throughout the movie, but the scenes were parallel in time. It was interesting to see how different people comprehend the world and what is going on just based on personal experience.
Many monumental moments in history occurred during Cecil’s employment at the White House.

He witnessed Little Rock school desegregation, the JFK assassination, Vietnam, Watergate political pressures, and coincides with the expansion of the civil rights movement. Cecil’s eldest son Louis, decided to be a freedom rider when he attended college and became very active in the movement for civil rights. Cecil had difficulty relating to his older son because they had opposite viewpoints on the black political spectrum. Cecil had no desire to participate in the movement and ultimately could not because of his career at the White

House.
The first perspective that can be applied to the movie The Butler is conflict perspective. The social systems during the civil rights were definitely divided by race and gender. Blacks fought for their rights as citizens of the U.S. causing discord with whites. In conflict theory, the only way for this problem to be solved is through social change(Johnson, 2015, pg. 12). Blacks gathered together and formed the Black Panthers group to protest and fight for their rights. The freedom rider group tries to debunk the segregation laws by breaking them and they were repeatedly unsuccessful. Racial segregation stigmatizes its victims and excludes them from full participation as members of society, treating them as subordinates(Kook, 1998, p.168).
Once Kennedy was elected in 1961, the film shows a bus full of African Americans traveling in Alabama. A car comes up behind them with a white cross on it, symbolizing Ku Klux Klan(KKK). The KKK attacks the bus along with other white citizens by smashing windows, throwing things, and trying to tip the bus over. Kennedy then proposes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination against minorities. Several months after the speech his was assassinated and Lyndon Johnson, the next president, makes it a law.
The Butler also displayed conflict perspective when he asked for the wages of black workers to be the same as the white workers through multiple different presidencies. He repeatedly stated that the black workers did the same job or a bigger job than the white staff. Throughout the time in the White House, the black “help” never received equal pay. This is keeping the black employees at the White House in oppression.
The second theory that can be applied is the Functionalist Perspective. With the establishment of the United States, and the writing of the constitution, African Americans were considered to be property. As property, they were denied the basic rights afforded to citizens of liberal democracies, as well as the basic human rights secured for the average citizens of the new federation. They had no protection under law, save the protection accorded to property(Kook, 1998, p.157-158).
The black population's’ role in society changed many times through the movie. Blacks were fighting for their place in society and it functioning. At the beginning of the movie, Blacks were showed in slavery, providing free work to white families to help them gain more power, money, property, etc. Blacks continued to be portrayed in a lesser manner to fulfill a position in society to keep things balanced. Political stability requires that those people who benefit less than others from particular political decisions must nonetheless accede to communal decisions for the sake of the good of all(Houston, 2014, p.711).
Lastly, the diversity perspective shown in the film focuses on the race relations affecting a large population. From the beginning of the movie at the plantation, it how African Americans were treated. The women were abused and raped by white men of the household and no one could do anything about it. Children were subjected to human trafficking alongside their parents. Blacks did not go to school or ever learn how to read or write.
The movie did not show any positive black female roles. Two of the major roles were the butler’s wife who seemed to be a homemaker and an alcoholic at one point, and the butler’s son’s girlfriend, an active member in the Black Panther Party. African American women have played significant roles in the ongoing struggle for freedom and equality. They have organized and led struggles for suffrage, for anti-lynching laws, for full employment, and against Jim Crow laws(Atwater, 1996, p.539). The movie encourages blacks to adopt the dominant groups’ ideal for them. Very little does it show black culture, language, values, and norms.
In the movie, Cecil’s son returns home and tells his family that he has helped found the Black Panthers, a radical organization. The Black Panthers were an actual party who wanted protection of black neighborhoods from police brutality. They were founded in 1966 but then saw a decline in 1969. They were known for their criminal activity and their violent tactics against the police. His son eventually leaves the party once they start violent acts in response to racial confrontations.
The vulnerable populations displayed in the movie are blacks and females. In the beginning of the movie, the white man raped the black slave and no one stood up for her. When her husband stood up for her, he was shot and killed. Females were portrayed as less than and did not hold any power. As stated previously, the female roles in the movie were far from normal. They even showed Mrs. Kennedy in a vulnerable position after her husband was murdered. During the same time frame women were fighting for rights as much as African Americans. This can mostly be identified in conflict theory along with the maltreatment of blacks.
The movie focused on the struggle for blacks to gain freedom and rights throughout history. It showed the butler in servitude to white men of power and the butler’s son was persistently fighting for his rights at the same time. The son’s role in the movie represents diversity perspective and conflict perspective. The butler’s role is an example of the functionalist perspective. It showed blacks beaten, murdered and arrested while trying to make a statement. Violence and economic coercion remained durable strategies of white rule through the 1960s, (Houston, 2014, p.713). The white people fighting for rights, are also vulnerable to consequences the white men in power gave. During the Civil Rights movement, the movie had a white man standing up for rights with the blacks. The white man was treated just as terribly as the blacks were.
Social workers use conflict perspective to understand clients who are experiencing oppression in some form or another in our capitalist society.

Conflict perspective seems to be the most common theory in discussion of social work. It seems as if there is always a collision with a less than and a greater whole. Most of the population will fall under this perspective because the clients who need social workers are usually not the “elite”.
Functionalist perspective is in our everyday lives as productive members of society. Schools, housing, utilities, and everything else revolves around a functionalist perspective. Every person has a role even if it seems minimal. As a social worker in direct practice, clients need to be encouraged and empowered to fulfill their role in society. By every role being fulfilled there is stability in the community or society.
Diversity perspective is the up and coming theory that social workers need to be familiar with. In our area alone we have multiple different ethnicities, cultures, and people who will need assistance. Cultural diversity is something that you must be trained in to keep a license to practice. Social workers must have the ability to be competent working in diverse settings with diverse people. As time goes on, there will be more emphasis on culture

diversity.
In conclusion I think this movie displayed every perspective that we have discussed in class. The challenge for myself was to pick which perspectives I wanted to mention. As a social work student I like to try to think outside if the norm. I want to come up with new ideas and theories. Using creativity and exploration will help me become a good social worker in any field.