The movie Freedom Writers relates to True Notebooks with the topics of race and racial profiling. In the beginning of the movie all of the students were sitting in groups with their own races. None of them wanted to interact with another race and they stayed seperated until the movie progresses and they start interacting. In True Notebooksthe groups have mixed races. Usually in a prison setting everyone sticks with their own and they don't interact with others unless there is a fight or something serious. In the writing group everyone is cool with each other, but this is only in the writing group. When they aren't in class they dont interact and can't because of the different groups that they belong to.
What would cause this kind of seperation? Considering that we've worked really hard to fight this division, what is making this still happen?
ReplyDeleteThere are so many movies where we happily show people mixing and getting together, but do we see this in our culture? I'd love to know, Jaymee, what you see in the real world and whether or not you think this--this shared humanity and mixing groups--happens in the real world.
Well in the movie the separation was caused by what the students were taught from their families and other members of their race. Going back to the past with slavery, white people were taught that blacks were below them and should be treated as such; blacks believed that they were of lesser value due to this treatment, so they acted like they really were less superior. But, in all actuality everyone is equal; it just, sometimes, depends on your education and what you were taught as you were being raised.
ReplyDeleteI went to Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, Il, which is predominantly white; it's supposed to be one of the best schools in Illinois. Its brother/sister/cousin school is Waubonsie Valley, but this school is not seen in the light that Neuqua is seen in. Why? Since Waubonsie is in Aurora, there are more minorities, and people label Waubonsie as worse than Neuqua because of this. Both of the schools teach the same subjects and everything is the same except for the location and the student body. Now this is not an assumption it is fact that when the boundaries changed for the high schools, white families moved farther into Naperville so that their children what have to attend Waubonsie with the minorities. The boundaries changed because a third high school, Matea Valley, was built and this is where they put the overflow of minority students. Even my younger brother, who is going to be a sophomore, assumed that Waubonsie was worse than Neuqua because of what he had heard through friends.
When I moved to Naperville in 2004 I was a freshman at Neuqua. I felt sooo out of place coming from Richton Park, a predominantly black suburb. I was one of the few black students there. During lunch I would see everyone sitting in groups, everyone who looked the same would be together, so of course I sat with the black students. Being the person that I am, though, I began meeting people of other races and becoming friends with them. I think having too many of the same type of people around can become annoying and boring. I personally like to have a mixture of races of friends because you may look different from this person or that person, but you could have so much in common and you wouldn’t know it unless you spoke to that person.
So yes, I do believe that mixing cultures does occur in the real world but not as much as it should or could, and think this is because people are either stubborn or just stuck in their ways and don’t want to change their surroundings.