Racism In Finding Forrester

Throughout our lives we face many problems, math problems, relationship problems, car problems etc. Unfortunately during our lives we also experience problems regarding our cultural and ethnical backgrounds. For some people these problems can be much more debilitating than most of the everyday problems people experience. The movie Finding Forrester is an example of this. Finding Forrester is the tale of an unlikely friendship that is formed over a mutual passion for writing. William Forrester is a reclusive famous author and Jamal Wallace, a young African-American boy that had recently moved to a prep school in Manhattan. Their friendship leads to William overcoming his fears of socialization, and Jamal overcoming his racial prejudices. I argue that this movie is important because it gives a realistic account of subtle forms of racism that is more common in today’s society, rather than the extreme outward forms in early American history.

The movie begins with Jamal Wallace, one of the main characters in the film, playing basketball with his friends. They notice somebody looking down at them up from the top floor window of a nearby apartment building. Jamal’s friends dare him to go up and sneak into the apartment and bring something back to prove he really went in. The man who owned the apartment was William Forrester. When Jamal sneaks in, he is caught by William and Jamal mistakenly leaves his backpack behind while fleeing. Later Forrester drops Jamal’s backpack onto the street. Jamal finds that Forrester had written notes in Jamal’s journals. Jamal later returns to Forrester’s apartment and requests that he read some more of Jamal’s writing. This is when their relationship begins. Jamal begins regularly visiting Forrester and t...

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...r employment. The media have focused on the negative aspects which are stereotyped onto the African-American community. The media have not concentrated on important events in the African-American communities. Problems such as urbanization, education, poverty, and other elements have a significant bearing on positions of the black community (Balkaran).

In conclusion, while this movie mainly focuses on the more subtle side of racism, subtle forms of racism can often be even more oppressive because the subtleties often go unnoticed. The oppressors make no effort to change the racist behavior because there are not sufficient repercussions to force a change. From there, it is a slippery slope. Every unpunished action, subtle or extreme, reinforces the behaviors of the oppressor. Recognizing the problem at the source will be the key to unlocking a more tolerant future.