Crash

Wow. I just saw the movie Crash. What an amazing, thought provoking movie. It was, in many ways, painful to watch.

Perspective.

Moving.

SO many amazing, powerful scenes. So many seemingly minor, yet incredibly thought provoking.

The odd thing about this world is that you can never really get inside someone else's head.

I could go in and describe scene detail by detail and analyze it (like I am doing on the phone with my mom right now..) but I can't because I don't know if you've seen it.

See this movie.

I like facts. I like dealing in facts. I like dealing with what is. The rational. The logical.

But the problem is we live in a world of people. And not all people are rational or logical or factual. People are emotional. People are opinionated. People often rely more on their beliefs then anything else. And no facts can change that.

If someone believes that one race is superior to another, their beliefs are going to create an alternate reality, despite the fact that no race is superior.

If someone believes that being gay is wrong, then it is their beliefs that are creating the reality.

If someone believes that people on the street have a choice, then their beliefs create the reality, despite what may be true for each individual.

If someone believes that a person with a tatoo is morally indecent or trashy, then every person they meet with a tatoo has entered into the reality of that person.

People's opinions, people's beliefs, create their reality. But that reality extends beyond their lives. It reached out and touches others.

People hurt each other, disrespect each other, call each other names, honk at each other, spread anger and hate... because they believe the person they are doing it to... what? doesn't have feelings? deserves it? Was a born a certain color? Lives a certain lifestyle?

If someone is pissed off and decides to pull a gun on someone, no amount of fact or logic or reason is going to change that situation.

But what I really liked about the movie is it wasn't all about death. Death isn't the only bad thing that can happen when people's opinions invade into other's lives.

This is the world that our opinions and beliefs are creating.

Are we happy with it?

When I was in high school, my friend wrote me a letter once. She has a child. She is white, and the baby's father is black. My friend was worried about being a good mom. She didin't know how to raise her daughter... in the black culture or the white. I thought that was the most ridiculous thig I had ever heard. I wrote back that she should raise her daughter to be herself. Why does she have to be raised black or white? My friend wrote back, "You live in such a bubble out there in California. The real world isn't like that."

That line resonates in my head to this day. What does it mean? I grew up rarely seeing racism. Or did I? Maybe I BELIEVED that racism didn't exist, so I never saw it. Maybe my beliefs made me just as blind?

When I see a movie like Crash, I want to think that it can't really be true. People don't really treat each other like this. Do they? It doesn't make sense.

But then I start thinking about beliefs that I have heard... "She has a tatoo, wow she must be pretty messed up" "Isn't being Gay totally sick?" "Asian drivers" "illegals working at the drive through."

Sigh. I'm not living in a bubble. It exists all around me. And whether its a choice (tatoo, piercings,) you were born with it (your race), or the jury's still out (being homosexual), not a single one of these things, in and of itself, is a reason for hate, meaness, disrespect. Its only people's beliefs that make it such.

I know people with tatoos who wouldn't hurt a fly, who are caring and respectful. I know Asians who are good drivers. I know Mexicans who have come legally to America and worked hard to learn English so that they could work at drive throughs. And I know gay people who are more family oriented and moral then many straight people I know. I've seen them. I've had their children in my classrooms.

Why the tendancy to have opinions that assume the worst out of people?

What good does that do? To make a more peaceful, humane, better society, wouldn't it be better to assume the best of people?

Think of it this way. If you go into a situation where you think negatively, how hard does the other person have to work to make you change your mind and view it positively? On the other hand, if you assume a positive view and need to change your mind, well, it is a lot easier to change your view to the negative then to the positive.

Another point the movie brought up is those within a certain stereotype who choose to perpetuate it. In this movie, blacks who continue to steal and rob was a major example.

Some great examples:
1) Anthony: That waitress sized us up in two seconds. We're black and black people don't tip. So she wasn't gonna waste her time. Now somebody like that? Nothing you can do to change their mind.

Peter: So, uh... how much did you leave?

Anthony: You expect me to pay for that kind of service?

2)
Anthony: Look around! You couldn't find a whiter, safer or better lit part of this city. But this white woman sees two black guys, who look like UCLA students, strolling down the sidewalk and her reaction is blind fear. I mean, look at us! Are we dressed like gangbangers? Do we look threatening? No. Fact, if anybody should be scared, it's us: the only two black faces surrounded by a sea of over-caffeinated white people, patrolled by the triggerhappy LAPD. So, why aren't we scared?

Peter: Because we have guns?

Anthony: You could be right.

And the response, later in the movie?
Cameron: [to Anthony] Look at me. You embarrass me. You embarrass yourself.

SO true. When people behave badly, they perpetuate stereotypes. WHen someone does something wrong, it reflects on their type. Someone commits a crime? Well, its becasue their black, or Mexican, or an Asian gang banger, or a spoile rich white kid, or poor white trash, or a punker with tatoos and piercings...

So what else needs to change? Not just people's beliefs, but people's actions. Represent. Remember, for every action you take, you are representing. Yourself, your family, your culture, your community, your "type."

And what about those who truly do represent in a positive way, but are still assumed to be "less then..." Keep fighting the good fight, people. Its a vicious cycle. Don't fall into it.

Where am I going with this? Sigh. I don't know either. Maybe that's why Crash "ended" the way it did. Kind of like this blog. It didn't really end.

Officer Hanson: Something else funny?
Peter: [laughing] People, man... people.