CRASH

The movie,"Crash", focuses on many common gender/racial issues that are present in today's society. The one thing that had a huge effect on me was Ludacris's character. It is not unknown to the educated person today that African Americans have suffered a great history of racial oppression and discrimination. It is also, not uncommon for people of that caliber to hold grudges against the ones who provoked or still enforce that frame of mind on their race; but this one character seemed to take everything to an extreme. His race's background of terrible racism fueled the tank for his stereotypes and negatives observations of the world. For use of examples, he explained that "a black man" shouldn't be listening to country music because it was the music of their oppressors. His friend countered that argument by asking if rap was "appropriate" for a black man to listen to, and then proceeded to recite lyrics that had no apparent meaning to anything relating to pro-race. He also used riding the bus as an extreme example to show that black people are not as fortunate as others, and therefore are made fun of by being viewed as they ride the bus. Although some resentment towards other races are somewhat appropriate and might be expected, I felt as if this character took it to an extreme level.