Racism
By Scott Shiffer
Recently, I have seen three movies about racism and other related activities. The titles are as follows: 1. City of God, 2. Hotel Rwanda, 3. Crash. None of these three films are for the week stomached, nor are they for those searching for pleasurable entertainment. Instead, they are respectively about the black poverty stricken drug dealers living in the projects outside Rio de Janeiro, the African Genocide in the country of Rwanda, and about stereotyping all groups of people, majority and minority, respectively.
In "City of God," one learns about the way in which children of the ghetto are brought up into gangs and into dealing and using drugs. This movie is extremely violent and includes multiple scenes where children are shot and where drug dealers are fighting. This film also exposes the ways in which the Brazilian police are in cahoots with the drug runners, selling them guns, and providing them with business. This film has less to do with racism than the other two, but it does show the oppression and poverty of a minority people group, and how difficult it is for them to get out of the status in which they are born. (note: this film is in Portuguese)
The movie "Hotel Rwanda," while PG-13, is still hard to watch. It tells the story of certain group of people living in Rwanda during the months after the assassination of the president Juvenal Habyarimana. Between the months of April and June of 1994, it is estimated that 800,000 people were killed. The killings were related to race. Both sides were black, but they were still considered different ethnically by the tribes themselves. The two groups there are the Hutus and the Tutsis. BBC News reported that "The two ethnic groups are actually very similar - they speak the same language, inhabit the same areas and follow the same traditions." Despite the similarities, the two groups became rather hostile towards one another after the Belgium's began to colonize the country in 1916. In the end, the killings were ethnically centered around one group believing it was superior to the other. To read more on this event, visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1288230.stm.
The final film, "Crash," actually takes place in modern America; California to be exact. This film is a situational movie showing how the paths of different people with different backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures, cross and bring out the prejudices of each person in this film. Like "Hotel Rwanda," you may not like many of the characters, but in this one, there is really no hero. The introduction to the film contains a conversation between two amateur car thieves who are the real life representations of the stereotype that blacks do not tip at restaurants. They then steel a car from a white woman and her husband. This freaks out the woman (of course) and she demands that the doors on the house be changed that very night. The locksmith is Hispanic, and the wife is prejudiced against him as a result of his race (this flows from the fact that she was robbed by a black person). Later the locksmith attempts to fix a Persian man's door and it does not work, so the Persian makes racial comments to the locksmith. Later this same night, one white officer molests a black woman in front of her husband on a deserted street downtown after pulling the car over without reason. The husband is later insulted by his wife for being afraid to be black and proud of his heritage. The next day, the officer is offended when a black woman will not provide special assistance to his father who is badly in need of hospice care. These types of events go on and on throughout the entire movie. Whites against blacks, Persians against whites, blacks against Puerto Ricans, Puerto Ricans against Asians, Asians against whites, the possibilities seem endless. So are we living in a world today that is virtual free of racism? Absolutely not. What about a country that has overcome its rugged past? Again, the answer is an emphatic no. This being the case, what are we to do about it?
Scripture:
Genesis 1:26-28 - 26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
And
Genesis 2:21-23 - 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23
The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,'
for she was taken out of man."
And
Genesis 3:20 - Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
Application:
The Bible clearly teaches that God made humans in his image and that both men and women equally represent God as human beings. It also teaches that Eve was the mother of all living. This means that if someone is a human, then ultimately, they descended from her. If all races have the same origin, that should settle the question for good. People are not to be racists. They are not to discriminate in business, education, marital relationships, trust, respect, or any other number of things. In fact, we should love and cherish the cultures and backgrounds of those who are different than us. We should learn from them and from there art. It is ok for a white person to enjoy a black musicians work; it is equally acceptable for a black person to enjoy a Latino persons work. Music has actually done more to break the racial barriers down than most any other form of art. Sly (from Sly and the Family Stone) was one of the first musicians to really understand this. Paul McCartney jumped on the band wagon soon as did a number of other artists in the sixties. However, like all good things, the liberator can become the oppressor. Recently John Mellencamp did an album called "Cutting Heads," which is about the issue of racism. In the title track, a black artist raps about how black artists should not be using the term "Nigger" to refer to one another.
Today, musicians and fans alike need to recognize that while we are not to stifle are cultures and backgrounds, that we must also be careful not to lift our ethnicity up to the point that it causes us to put down those who are different. The Southern Baptist started out as a denomination that wanted to send out missionaries who were slave owners. We have since repented of this awful sin, but we still see effects of it today. There are very few blacks in the Southern Baptist convention.
In the Old Testament people were condemned for marrying outside of ethnicity, but this was a religious practice not a racial practice. The Bible only condemned people who served Yahweh for marrying people who served other God's. This is no different than the New Testament idea that believers are not to marry unbelievers.
Let us continue to work together through our art and culture, and in our faith to break down racial barriers. Let us love one another as bearers of God's image regardless of what are color is or our status in life. Let us see people as beautiful in how God designed each one individually. Let us encourage our artists to continue to build bridges and not burn them down. Let us all show the care and concern for one another that we should have, that can only be a result of being a new creation in Christ.