Don't play with it

I saw the most delightful film tonight, 'Crash'. Not in its entirety unfortunately, but sufficient enough to recognize it's poignance.

Two of the issues that I feel most passionately about are that of racism and discrimination. This movie encompasses these issues in such a manner than if i find it impossible for the coldest person to leave not having been touched, atleast a little.

Prior to watching it i heard several reviews that didn't seem to work in its favour. The movie sounded like a series of random events that lacked direction and purpose.

Au contraire. The movie makes plenty of sense. The end ties up all loose ends, with a pinch of life's cruel irony, and a dash of the harsh reality and truth.

It breaks the barriers of stereotyping, racial classification, and cultural biases. At the end of the day, when it counts we can't hide behind those. We're all common on the inside... with a common conscience and that annoying thing called humanity.

At the end of it all... i believe it just says 'try humanity for a change'.

~~~

I got into several arguments during the course of the movie... One of which went something like "thats all fine and dandy, so long as it doesn't affect me".

What is that supposed to mean?! "So long as it doesn't affect me". Little Black Book covered this whole issue of lives being a spectacle. Often in today's society people complain about how impersonal the world is becoming, how unneighbourly we are as a people, how inhumane we can be as a nation. Yet, you find that these same people do nothing to make it less impersonal, more humane, more neighbourly. Everyone is too absorbed in their own lives and problems to bother with another beyond the mere gossip and speculation level because it doesn't affect them directly. We can turn on the tv, probably feel a twinge of sadness at the news, then turn off the screen and sleep soundly.

In LBB, it made the point that we all like to spectate on someone else's life for entertainment and then leave and continue merrily with our own lives... but in a single instance that should the odds have the situation reversed and you're the spectacle, we demand that people understand and sympathize and empathize... quickly forgetting that we were part of that uncaring, untouched, unaffected group.

In Crash, another argument i found myself hearing that 'i'm being idealistic and that is the real world... don't be foolish'.

That is the real world because we make it that way. We created these problems, these stereotypes, these different phobias... and now that it's blown into something far greater than we can handle we remove our hands from the pot, sit back and point fingers of responsibility other than ourselves. I'm sorry but i don't believe shooting the hitchhiker was justified because you thought he was going to kill you due to paranoia. The conversation was easy going, now because of a stereotype and racial classification you suddenly feel threatened and decide to shoot the person in self defense. SELF DEFENSE is only a defense when reasonable force is used to protect oneself. That, my dear, is unreasonable in my book. Furthermore, if you felt so threatened, why pick the hitchhiker up to begin with. If we went around killing everyone on a mere whim of feeling slightly threatened and felt justified... where's the justice in those innocently killed? Furthermore, one might argue that indeed the hitchhiker was a bad person. He stole, he hustled, he had a gun. BUT he had an epiphany, one that every human is entitled to... one that i believe every human stumbles upon at some point in their life... one that enables change. He recognized his demerits and decided to turn his life around... Who knows what could've happened? We'll never know, because he was killed.

Good things have come from people with not so great beginnings and ambitions... as one of the calypso/comedians (i can't remember who exactly) artists from the show at the Trade Center said last night - he came from the ghetto and look where he is. Not everyone fell from the lucky true and landed on the road to rightness every branch down. Not everyone had the right people guiding them into the right paths... To pass judgement is not fair.

Furthermore, my stance on the subject is to beg to differ with those who merely want to blow hot air on the integral issues with the world. They're wasting oxygen to discuss the issue with such indifference. By such you absolve all rights to speak of the problem if you can't be part of the solution or offer one... One cannot exist here on earth as if by oneself.

P.S. as a last note on the movie talk... while it is true that I live in the Caribbean and am not directly exposed to racism to the extent portrayed in the movie, one cannot delude oneself into believing that it does not exist. Being ignorant about the matter doesn't mean that as a black person you won't get a D.W.B.(driving while black) somewhere else, or as an indian person you won't be stereotyped and classified automatically as a muslim terrorist, or being a jew, etc etc etc... Ignorance is not an excuse that shall protect from the harsh reality.. Nor does it aid in you helping fix the problem.

*sigh* maybe i am being idealistic...
Just watch the movie.
It's good.

~~~