Abstract In most cases, stereotypes are founded upon faulty information and assumptions. In this text, I concern myself with instances of stereotypes and discrimination. In so doing, I discuss my reaction to the movie “Crash” and highlight specific scenes that, in my opinion, best bring out the subject matter of my discussion.
Prejudice and Stereotypes: The Movie 'Crash'
'Crash' brings out the various cultural and social differences that humans encounter in their day-to-day operations and depicts how these differences affect their instincts, impulses and the perspectives they hold about members of other groups. Prejudice and stereotyping come out as the drivers of perspective in today's society and are viewed as thoughts that everyone has felt at some point in time.
The movie begins with a Muslim man attempting to purchase a firearm from a store owned by a White Caucasian. The storeowner handles the customer with a negative attitude because of his religious background. The seller's negative attitude is triggered by the stereotypes he holds about Islam, which drive him to immediately associate his customer with the Islamic terror group Al-Qaeda -- through whose actions thousands of innocent Americans have lost their lives.
In this particular scene, the shop owner predisposes the behavior of violence towards a Muslim customer, and in so doing, brings out the concept of prejudice. Prejudice has been in existence and has been a serious social concern for a long time. However, the issue ought not to be as significant in the twenty-first century with the high levels of education and information access the world enjoys today. The actions of a small group cannot be used to make judgment about an entire race or larger group.
Prejudice and stereotyping often lead people to make wrong judgments about other groups and can be a source of unnecessary conflict and unrest. I say this with a lot of confidence because I have a black friend (let us call him Allan) who has lived in Miami, Florida for a decade. Miami is one of the most culturally diverse towns in America and which I can, say for sure, ought to rank amongst the top five with regard to stereotyping. Allan, at one point, had to cut links with a friend (let us call her Grace) who had just moved into the neighborhood simply because she was white, and Grace's family just wouldn't stop seeing Alan as this vulgar, not-presentable (owing to his love for baggy jeans), spoilt kid who was a 'bad influence' to their daughter.
This occurrence me embrace the fact that stereotypes, once adopted, do not just remain internal; rather, they go ahead to influence behavior, and in so doing, give rise to discrimination and society inequity. This implies that in order to effectively reduce prejudice and stereotyping, efforts would have to take into account the social context within which such stereotypes are built.
The extreme form of prejudice is bigotry, in which case a person is driven by hatred to commit crime. The movie "Crash" depicts this quite clearly in the scene where whites rascals break into the business premises of a Muslim, completely vandalizing it. Acts such as these are deemed to produce racial divisions, and at times, lead to serious consequences such as injury or death. "Crash" demonstrates how even the smallest stereotype can yield disastrous effects.
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