Martin Luther King,
Jane Elliot and
Hitler
Outwitted
He
drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic,
rebel, a thing to flout
But
love and I had the wit to win:
We
drew a circle and took him In!
Edwin
Markham
1852-1940
I
saw the movie Crash in 2004 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375679/fullcredits
when it was released and immediately knew it
would be a thought provoking film. The movie made me confront the fact that we
all have prejudices, biases and preconceived notions about people.Ageism,
sexism, or homophobia, we all like to think we are broad minded but are we
really? I think it is important to identify these prejudiced and not pretend we
don’t have them.
For me, this movie raised issues of racial profiling.
Although I was born in Sydney, Nova
Scotia I don’t feel very connected to Cape Breton.
I don’t have a Celtic background and I don’t relate to fiddle music, don’t
speak Gaelic and don’t have coal miners or steel workers in my background, none
of the stereotypes. I guess I am struggling to find my identity in a community
that is so full of stereotypes.
It
was interesting watching Crash after our class discussion on the text,
“Situated learning Legitimate peripheral participation” by Lave and Wenger.
http://www.amazon.ca/Situated-Learning-Legitimate-Peripheral-Participation/dp/0521423740/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329434135&sr=1-1 Professor Plumb asked us to take note of
the communities of practice. With this filter, I felt like I was watching a
different movie. As I began to takes
notes, I noticed patterns as if people were moving in a series of concentric
and sometimes overlapping circles. Each group was using their biases and
prejudices to shield themselves from the other group. People organized themselves into groups
according to culture, social status or old world hatred. It seemed to be fueled
by fear. No one saw a person from the other group as a human being with hopes,
dreams and struggles of their own. As a visual artist I began to form pictures
in my mind of how I could depict this on a canvas and what colours I would use.
I
remembered a trip a took to Boston in the 1980’s.I
stayed in the notorious Dorchester district. I
did not know it was notorious at the time. It was a hot summer day and I took the
children to the corner store for ice cream. When their mother returned home at
the end of the day she went ballistic. She said there were youth gangs that
robbed and raped people in that neighborhood. If I needed something at the
store, I should drive with the windows up and the doors locked, without the
children. I was a long way from Cape Breton Island
both literally and figuratively!
I have been mistaken for a Mi’kmaq woman and have been
asked for my tax card in a store. When I lived in Montreal an Arab friend of my partner chided
me for not being able to read the Arabic newspapers. “How come you can’t read in your own language?”,
he asked indignantly. I had a similar
experience when I was in Israel
studying the Holocaust. Some Jewish American women on a bus asked me to read
the Israeli newspaper and translate for them. I often get asked by people I
don’t know, if I am Italian, Greek or Lebanese and then exasperated they will
exclaim, “What are you then?” I don’t
understand why it is an issue and would never ask someone about their ethnicity.
It is too personal bordering on racist and it makes me uncomfortable. I guess
in some ways, without meaning to, I have been walking in the shoes of many cultures,
none of whom I belong to.
Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can.
Nothing to kill or die
for,
A brotherhood of man.
John Lennon
Imagine
Yoko Ono, a conceptual artist, has just produced a
fabulous film I have been using in my Grade 4 Art classes called, “My
Hometown.” It attempts to unite people rather than emphasize cultural or
geographic differences.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375679/fullcredits
In this movie, she asked children to consider the world as a series of hometowns.
Everyone in the world belongs somewhere. She promotes the technique of
exploring how powerful our minds are when used to create a peaceful world. To
think of every member of the human community belonging to a hometown somewhere
on earth discourages alienation and war. It is a beautiful sentiment.
The movie Crash makes me think about identity. At what
point are people considering to be part of a community? Why do we care about
someone’s skin, hair or eye colour? What should pigmentation define us?
Jane Elliot an elementary school teacher in the United States
tackled this notion with her students after the assassination of Martin Luther King.
He had talked about his dream of the day when skin colour wouldn’t matter
anymore than eye colour. Her students
could not understand why someone would be murdered because of their race.http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
She devised a
controversial experiment that was documented in the movie, Eye of the Storm. http://janeelliott.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=J&Product_Code=JE-26
In this film, she divides her class by eye colour. She gives children privileges
on alternating days according to brown or blue eye colours. She notices the
test scores go down on the day the children feel they are not the top group due
to eye colors.
King and Elliot had very similar philosophies about eye colour;
they thought it should not matter. Hitler thought it did matter.
The notion that a person
is superior due to eye and hair colour may seem preposterous these days but it
was a guiding principle during the Nazi era. Hitler anti-Semitism was based on
the idea of a Jewish race which was propagated by him. There is only one race
the human race but he found ways to divide and conquer.
In my view there are enough divisions in society but
people always seem to break down into groups. When I worked in the justice
system, I noticed that even in prison inmates formed groups such as bikers, African
Nova Scotian, Mi’kmaq, Newfoundlanders, Cape Bretoner etc...Everyone was united
in their hatred of sex offenders, even the murderers felt superior to them.
In a school cafeteria, students sit in groups of popular
girls, jocks, etc...I guess it is human nature but when does it become harmful?
I think we would be more productive if we embraced our differences and learned
to accept other cultures customs and beliefs. I embrace Dr. King’s dream as
well as the former Beatle John Lennon words “Imagine all the people living life
in peace.”
Hi Diane,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that even though you were born and raised in Cape Breton, you don’t always feel like you belong to any group. My husband is from Toronto and moved to Cape Breton 13 years ago. People are forever asking him about his last name and where he is from. He feels that he will never truly be connected to Cape Breton because he wasn’t born here; he isn’t a ‘Cape Bretoner’. The longer he lives in Glace Bay the more he understands the Cape Breton culture and the Cape Breton way of life. However, no matter how hard he tries to fit in he feels that he will always be an outsider.
The film Crash shows an immigrant family and some of the challenges and ordeals they face while trying to fit into a community and survive in a new country. I can only imagine the difficulties they faced while trying to run a business and become part of a community.