Crash

Without a doubt, racism and discrimination are still active issues in the world. Most people have come to realize that discriminating against others because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, or anything else is just flat out wrong. Others on the other hand, proudly display their ignorance and continue to discriminate by causing harm towards others both physically and emotionally. Some of these occurrences are so blatant that it hurts while some are in our faces and we don’t even see it. In Michael Omi’s essay In Living Color : Race and American Culture, he argues that racism is an overt and inferential feature in our lives that is on-going. As an example of what Omi discussed in his essay, here is an analysis of an implicitly racist and stereotypical scene from the 2004 movie Crash, which is 36 hour account of how the lives of a multiracial cast of people trying to overcome certain fears become intertwined with each other.
In one particular scene towards the end of the movie Crash, Ryan Phillippe’s character displays his true colors in a situation with Larenz Tate’s character. Earlier in the movie Phillippe’s character, a young white police officer with the LAPD, presented characteristics of an officer that was only concerned with what is right and what is wrong when it comes to the law, showing that racism and treating someone badly because of their skin color was not his thing. Everyone got to see for themselves that Phillippe’s character was a covert racist.
In this scene, Phillippe sees Tate’s character, a young black guy, hitch-hiking for a ride in the Valley. Without apprehension he gives him a ride. Tate expresses his gratitude, and making conversation, Phillippe questions Tate about “what’s happening in the Valley tonight”. Tate tells him ice-skating but what Phillippe doesn’t know is that Tate was just involved in an armed car-jacking that involved a politician the day before and he was involved in an attempted car-jacking earlier in the day. Phillippe criticizes Tate’s answer because he finds it hard to believe that Tate, a black man, would participate in an activity such as ice skating even after he is fed an alibi by Tate. He makes an accusation of Tate “having fun” instead of ice skating, referring to the fact that he could be out causing trouble. An instance of covert yet overt stereotyping. Being that he is a trained LAPD officer, Phillippe gives Tate the once-over and sees that his shoes are muddy and his jacket is torn. Phillippe quickly becomes suspicious of his new friend. Tate sees a religious figure on the dashboard of Phillippe’s car and begins to laugh. He is laughing because earlier in the movie, when he and the character played by rapper Ludacris car-jack the politician and his wife and Tate puts his religious figurine on the dashboard and Ludacris acts as if its taboo. Not knowing about this previous situation, Phillippe becomes uneasy of Tate’s laughter. Offended, he questions Tate about his laughter and his response is “people” referring to Ludacris’s actions the day before and thinking about the overall actions of people in general. Phillippe doesn’t find anything funny and since he is steadily becoming uneasy, he tells Tate to get out. Tate doesn’t see what he has done wrong so he takes offense to Phillippe kicking him out. He constantly tries to get Phillippe to tell him what he’s done wrong but he won’t. He just wants him to “get the f*** out” of his car. Realizing that Phillippe thinks he was making fun of him in some way, he reaches inside of his pocket to show him the figurine from the situation that sparked his laughter. As a precaution, Phillippe orders Tate to remove his hands from his pockets. Still offended, Tate refuses. He continues to take the figurine from his pocket even though Phillippe keeps warning him, and as he does this Phillippe draws his gun---thinking Tate was going to shoot him---and shoots Tate.
Phillippe is taken aback when he realizes what Tate was taking out of his pocket. Tate wasn’t going to shoot Phillippe. He was ready to explain his laughter and the reasoning behind it: a religious figurine and the beliefs and actions of people. Phillippe was so quick to judge Tate based on his muddy shoes and torn jacket. There could have been many reasons behind Tate’s appearance but all the officer saw was a suspicious-looking and acting black male. This scene expresses the hidden racism and stereotypical assumption that lies within a character who seems least likely to feel or behave this way. Phillippe shooting Tate was more than a defensive reflex. It was an action based on confined feelings of discrimination.