Freedom to Prejudice & Ethnocentrism

Hello all, it's 11.36 PM now. An attempt to work out a reasonable post for this week might fail but I'll still give it a go.

I was scouring the Internet and Googling and YouTubing around a moment ago for a valid piece of information for this post. I had a sudden bout of inspiration when I looked at the words "Attitudinal Barriers to Intercultural Communication" on page seven of our lecture notes. It reminded of the show called "Freedom Writers". The only time I managed to catch it was only on HBO, and I haven't watched the full movie myself. Nevertheless, the movie was published in 2007, and I'm assuming the book could already have been out earlier.

"Freedom Writers" is about this teacher (Hilary Swank) who joins a school whereby the racial and cultural differences are more than evident. The presence of gang violence, discrimination and hatred for the other race leads to distinct segregration amongst the students in the class she is assigned to. Concerned about their future (and education) and how they are continually exposed to such brutality almost everyday of their life, she comes up with the idea of letting them write in journals, while giving them the option on whether they would like her to read them or not. This seems to be a viable solution to help these teenagers see the underlying similarities they all share and piece them together, creating a cohesive and stable society at the end.

The clip below can be said to be the one that offers most coverage of the movie. One of the key elements of this is the concept of prejudice. Prejudice refers to the negative social attitude held by members of one group towards members of another group. In this case, negative interpretation is evident. The racial segregation is obvious in the way how these teens position their desks in class - those of the same color/race sit together in a group of their own and create invisible boundary lines that the other race isn't supposed to cross. Furthermore, this clips talks about the issue of "color" (4:24 - 5:10); that white people have the power and authority to do anything they want, just because they're white. This is the mentality that these teens hold, which therefore leads to all the conflict and gang fights. 

Ethnocentrism is also another concept we can derive from these clips so far - and it refers to the belief that one's culture is superior to all others. Consider this phrase taken from the movie - 

"We kill each other over race, pride and respect. We fight for our America."

If this is so, then what is the real definition of "our America"? A place with no Blacks, no Asians, or a place without the Whites? Ethnocentrism takes a view that one culture is better than all the others, and this is another mentality that the students in these films hold. They do not see that all this killing and discrimination has trapped them in a vicious cycle - for they think they all are different, when actually what is inside of them is the same - and that is the fear they have for their own future. 

Finally, the clip below shows Hilary Swank taking on a different approach in class. Her main aim, as you will see, is to show these kids how similar they all are despite their race or color or culture.

I'm done :)