Another Kind of Racism Essay

Racism is a disease. Spread by not exactly words and actions but by silence and inaction. In deuce stories presented in different media a novel and a movie racial discrimination is counterpane by people who feel they argon not racists, but who do nothing to prevent and come apart racism. The acceptedity is that it is easy to pret curiosity racism doesnt exist, yet every nonpareil practices it in some instruction. Those who k direct racism is molest and do nothing are the perpetrators of racism. They allow the disease to cling to a group and spread like s stop overing a sick yearling to preschool touching everything and everyone, infecting all. In T. C. Boyles book Tortilla Curtain, racism is present through come forward the book enough to exhaust the reader. In the movie break down, racism is one element of a complex plot. They teach the reader similar, compatible lessons. The mortala Delaney from the book and the Cameron from Crash both are used to depict conventional persons who claim to fight racism, stereotyping, and discrimination, yet when faced with a situation when it is direct toward them or someone near to them they allow racism to happen as if nothing was wrong.Following these people are dying morals and machination compassionateity. Delany is a white, affluent, born on the East Coast he now lives in Los Angeles. Living in a gated community had insulated him from the p everywherety that sur rotunded the very edges of the walls of exclusive neighborhood. During community meetings he does not want to hash out the increasing numbers of illegal immigrants he prefers to focus on the prairie wolf attacks. Until the accident he did not know his life would cross paths with an extrajudicial Immigrant. He had seen them only in the parking lots where they waited looking for work. He claims to not be a racist, to not be biased, and to not sort individuals at these meetings. As he claims this, his car hits a Mexican named Candido. Delaney so othes his scruples by heavy(p) Candido $20 blood money, explaining to his wife Kyra that Hes a Mexican. Delaney actions suggest that Mexicans are not people.More than 50 long time earlier John Steinbecks characters in the book The Grapes of Wrath diction the issue much of the same counseling, They aint human. A human universe wouldnt live like they do. A human organism couldnt stand it to be so dirty and miserable. Delaney prefers to pretend as if the Mexicans didnt exist, as the alternative is showing how he feels insecure and imperil by them. This is same way the character of the Hollywood Director Cameron in the same movie allows racism and harassment to occur in trend of him to his own wife. He allows her to be violated by a racist white snare. After his wife gets molested, instead of standing up against the cop and protecting his wife he grovels and thanks the cop for not giving him a ticket, Look, were sorry, and we would appreciate if you would just let us go with a w arning, please. (Crash, 2004).Delaney and Cameron are hypocrites being perpetrated from both ends of the spectrum they represent individuals directly touch by racism who fail to respond in a way that causes it to cease, and those indirectly make the racism to occur and spread. In the movie Crash this is shown by Cameron feeling cornered and lashing out against those slightly him in Tortilla Curtain it is shown when the main character gives up fighting against the walls and letting those around him decide for him what is right and wrong. By their silence they allow the racism to carry on around them.Individuals like those portrayed in these scenarios run the risk of causing an thoroughgoing(a) cycle of racism and bigotry that will not stop until someone stands up against it. Their fear feeds those around them. In Crash Cameron is confronted by fellow worker asking about an African American actor. This is gonna hard strange, but is Jamal seeing a speech coach or something?This i s supernatural for a white guy to say, but endure you noticed hes talking a lot less calamitous of late? And the answer is, No, I havent noticed that.At startle the character stands up to the racist questioner but in the end he gives up, he ignores why Jamal hasnt been sounding Black and goes on acting as if the words had not been said. In the same way later on a canyon fire is set accidently by Candido in Tortilla Curtain Delaney attacks a Mexican man who is being questioned by the police. Delaney looked round at his neighbors, their faces drained and white, fists clenched, pass water to go anywhere, do anything, seething with it, flub for it, a mob. They were out here in the night, outside the walls, forced out of their shells, and there was nothing to restrain them. (The Tortilla Curtain, 289)This occurs immediately after Delaney has attacked the handcuffed Jos Navidad, arrested under mistrust of starting the fire. Delaneys furious, uncontrolled actions and unexplainable anger towards the Mexicans has incited a full-on riot, with the evacuated residents of Arroyo Blanco ready to attack anything and anyone. The idea of the wall comes up in both movies, with whites being forced outside their walls, and their comfort zones. The results are frightening. The white citizens of the town have abandoned their ordered ways, Delaney has even abandoning his self-imposed rules he has indulged in alcohol. wholly have become more like the uninhibited immigrants they dislike and fear. In Crash the audience sees the hatred and racism feed on itself when two suspicious black men attack the District Attorney after complaining about racism towards them. The wife goes off on a rant after the attack and says many racial slurs and insults the locksmith. Her anger spills over into her husband who starts ranting as well. Why did these guys have to be black? I mean, why? (Crash, 2004). Like a disease, racism and hatred spreads from person to person impregnating their souls with bigotry and a blind sense of what is right.In the end both characters lose sight of what is right. More concerned about themselves than how their actions touch on those around them. Their arrogance in thinking that they are above the racism and bigotry has significant consequences. The infectious nature of racism in individuals who are intelligent, and who have power and influence, is the real danger. Their thinking is infectious, and once these thoughts are interior someones head they dont leave. It is especially desperate when these individuals are opinion leaders. These are characters in fiction, but in the real world, people like Delaney and Cameron should not be tolerated. They cause the spread of racism, creating an unending circle of pain and grief for everyone they touch and a wider circle affected by those whom they have touched.Works CitedCrash. Dir. Paul Haggins. Perf. Don Cheadle and Sandra Bullock. Warner Brothers, 2004. DVD. Frenken, Wiltrud, Angela Luz, and Br igitte Prischtt. T.C. Boyle The Tortilla Curtain. Paderborn Schoningh, 2007. Print. Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York Viking, 1939. Print.