We had a little discussion in class about a month ago where we looked at the question if we have progress in the last fifty years in lessening racism. We listed a few examples that showed this progress. But, there was one thing afterwards that I thought of regarding this question. I thought of the documentary, Prom Night in Mississippi, that I watched this past summer. This documentary, which was filmed in 2008,talked about a high school in Charleston, Mississippi, where there was two separate proms, one prom for the white kids and one prom for the black kids. In 1997, actor Morgan Freeman, who lived in Charleston, made a proposal to the school board that if they had just one prom instead of separate proms, that he would pay for it. But, this proposal was rejected. But for the 2008 prom, Morgan Freeman decided to do the proposal again and this time, the proposal was approved. He also told the kids that he would pay for the prom if they put together an integrated prom. They gladly accepted this. But when the idea of an integrated prom came about, many of the white parents were furious and spoke up about their racist views that they held for their entire lives. Some said that integration of any kind didn't allow for individuality, and some said that they wouldn't change their views for nobody. Some of the white parents were trying their best to push their kids away from the integerated prom and pushing them to go to the parents' proposed separate white prom. Even, one kid, when he was interviewed for the documentary, had to have his face covered so that his parents, who were racist, didn't find out about his true views. Many of the kids ended up becoming furious with how the parents were acting. The kids said things like that the white parents had to get over this racism and that it was so stupid that the parents were making such a big deal out of this. With all of these things, this showed that the racism was definitely bad in this town. When looking at the different forms of racism that were discussed in one of our readings, it seemed to me that most of these parents, who were racist, held old-fashioned racist views. I can't recall if there were parents who held aversive racist views, but there might have been. Even through all of the parents bickering as well as other people in the town, the kids had a very successful integrated prom.
This documentary also related to the studies that were conducted in one of our readings, "Change of Heart." It definitely related to its studies about the generation gap which said that younger Americans were more likely to accept other races than the older Americans. This is definitely shown in the documentary with racist parents being furious over an integrated prom while many of the high school kids feeling that an integrated prom is a good thing. This could based on the kids being taught in school that interacting with people of a different race is a good thing as well as some of the students already dating someone from a different race. This documentary as well as the reading gives us an eye-opener that racism is still a big part today. Even though, I do agree that we have done many things throughout the years to lower racism. But like the documentary and the reading shows us, that there is still some progress that needs to be made in order to keep lowering racism.
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It is mind-boggling that adults will set this kind of example for their children in this day and age. It is promising that these kids will not follow in their parents footsteps. This reminds me of another example of fairly recent racial bias and how progress probably still needs to be made. The film American Violet was based on a case that took place in Texas 1999-2002. For many years groups of African-Americans were targeted by the local DA in drug sweeps. Many of the people arrested were innocent but coerced into plea agreements. They were then convicted felons who were no longer able to vote, receive housing and food assistance, etc. The ACLU came in and chose one victim to represent in a racial bias case. The charges against her were eventually dropped and these types of arrests were no longer tolerated in this community. The statistic on how many innocent people across the US accepting plea agreements in this situation was staggering, something like 75%, possibly higher.
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