Racism and its Inevitability as Portrayed in Crash Essay

capital of Minnesota Haggis disperse was 1 of the biggest movie hits of 2004. Wining three Oscars at the 2005 Academy Awards, this fool is undeniably written in film history as one of the bigest of this generation. Often described as a movie to the highest degree how lives of disparate tidy sum intertwine through a twist of fate, crack is largely about racial tensions perhaps non only in its location of Los Angeles, California but in the whole of America. The movie features a whole slew of constitutions who has different racial backgrounds and who act in harmony to the pressures they in relation to their cultural backgrounds.Although around of the characters ar interesting, I strand Detective whole meal flour wet (Don Cheadle) and Officer John Ryan (Matt Dillon) as the well-nigh noteworthy ones. Not only tolerate the actors portraying them delivered powerful performances, they have alike shown enough background and at ages justification as to wherefore they ac t they way they do. As such, the following paragraphs will analyze both(prenominal) characters. Los Angeles, California, the place by which the Crash characters move in, plays a great part in graham amniotic fluid and John Ryans judgwork forcet, beliefs, and actions. plenteous with mint from different bunks, Los Angeles allows for interaction among people of varying cultures. It sets up direction for Graham Waters and John Ryan to practice their racial tendencies. Basically a melting pot if differing cultures, Los Angels is the immaculate environment by which any character can feel racial superiority or inferiority. Graham Waters and John Ryans smaller environment that of the one set up in a law of nature station is also highly-effective in influencing the characters own(prenominal) biases.In both characters cases, it gave them a reason to feel superior, hence providing the perfect justification for ones preference of leaning (or not leaning) towards people of their own race. Graham Waters is shown as being preoccupied with a case against a livid fling off who shot a sable cop. Even with the white cop killing three wispy men already, Graham Waters still finds it in himself to deliberate on whether the killings be justified or not. The work place that this particular character was apt(p) is the best setting to allow him the luxury of suspending judgment and possibly eliminating preferences all over his fellow bootleg people.John Ryan, on the other hand, was put in a position where he thinks it is okay for him to physically abuse a half-African woman and actually turn away with it. His being a police officer magnified the way he performed his racist acts nonchalantly. A close at hand(predicate) look at the lives of both characters under scrutiny reveals how much their ad hominem history has affected the way they make judgments. Although of African-American descent, Graham Waters found it in himself to actually try and be forgiving to peopl e of Caucasian heritage.This is because his family is poor and he experienced first hand having a drug-addict for a mother and he witnessed how his younger brother grew up to be a criminal. Growing up in a tumultuous black environment may have afflicted Graham Waters to not revere people of his own race. It has, in part, allowed him to think of blacks and whites as somehow equal. Yet Graham Waters is not devoid of racist tendencies. He has a partner, the Latin-American Ria (Jennifer Esposito). Despite working in male-dominated world and salty in a sexual relationship with Graham Waters, Ria is still discriminated by the very man she sleeps with.Graham Waters never pins her country of arising right. And Graham doesnt seem to mind. A perfect exhibit of how Graham can be at quantify racist Professor redbreast Lackoff of the University of California claims that not caring how someones background is a display of racial contrast (Williams, 2004). The latter part of the film also r eveals why John Ryan has been very negative towards people of other races. It is rooted to his comes line of products demise. Shown as deeply concerned regarding his fathers health, one is wont to assume that John Ryan is indeed fond of his father.His actions so become a bit clearable when it is revealed that his fathers business collapsed after local policies favored businesses owned by the minority. As this had come up effect on his familys heart, John Ryan naturally harbors anger (perhaps also hate) towards those who caused him and his family discomfort. Yet both characters are thrown into events that eventually lead them to wad abandon their own individual(prenominal) beliefs and act differently from how they normally would.Graham Waters, who was supposed to champion impartiality between blacks and whites, chose to act against the white cop by concealing an evidence that might have helped the cop in question. This was done through Jake Flanagan (William Fichtner) using Grahams brother as a bait. By reminding Graham of the possibility of Peters chequer if Graham does not withhold the evidence, Flanagan is successful in pushing the black cop in acting against her own personal belief that the white cop should be given a fair trial.One of the most dramatic moments of this Haggis film is when John Ryan once again crashed into Christine, by that time he acted a hero and not anymore a villain. perceive how Christines career was in danger, John Ryan put his life on the line and saved Christine from a blazing car accident. In a moment of crisis, John Ryan abandoned his prejudice and actually risked his own life to become a hero for someone he used to malign. I believe that both Graham Waters and John Ryan were racists or at least had racist tendencies.John Ryan, most especially, had shown racial discrimination with his incessant negative commentaries and actions towards people who are not of Caucasian descent. Graham Waters, on the other hand, may sho w his racial tendencies in more tough ways yet it is still undeniably there. He has shown numerous times that he will choose to help someone of the same race over someone who is not black. Personally, I have not experienced any major racial discrimination but I postulate to feeling that there is a racial tension hovering around federation. I see it everyday and even practice it myself.Racism is seen in ways people choose their friends, in the cliques that are formed in school, and in the comments we make everyday. The media is one of the easy reference points of how racism prevails nowadays. There are times when headlines would shout a persons race when talking about particular crimes. The news may say, A black true cat murders a woman or Asian men rob a bank but never (or very, very rarely) will it brandish, White khat kills family or Caucasian steals money. This may not be personal attacks on me but I take them as large manifestations that racism still does exist.Racism, th ough, has changed a lot through the years. Thankfully, because of the way the world hold ups acquiring smaller thanks to the Internet and its ability to bring people from both ends of the world closer racism has been greatly reduced, or so I would like to believe. I say that this is the case because people are acquiring to know those from other races better, thus eliminating some preconceived notions about a whole race. Of course, there is also this adverse effect because people get to interact with more people, racism is spread to more races.In America, for example, racism before was centered only on the blacks versus whites. Today, though, we see racial discrimination applied against the Chinese, the Filipinos, the Hispanics, and a lot more. Paul Haggis aim in creating Crash was to demonstrate the fact that racism is still very much overriding in these modern times. He wanted to paint a society that is still very much hinged on their racial biases. Haggis wanted to yoke that perhaps this may not be totally eliminated because everybody comes from different cultures and different backgrounds that dictate what and how they think about themselves and others.Sadly, racism is an inevitable fact of life but it is a fact that we can all strive to keep at a minimum by taking time to understand each others histories.REFERENCESHaggis, Paul. (Director). (2004). Crash Motion picture. United States Bulls Eye Entertainment. Williams, Brandt. (2004, August 08). The n-word. In Minnesota Public Radio. Retrieved August 19, 2007, from http//news. minnesota. publicradio. org/features/2004/06/28_williamsb_nword/.