Movie Babel

http://paramountvantage.com/babel/ - trailer and videos of movie can be seen here

The movie Babel that was produced by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu in 2006 and stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett focuses on common racial issues that are currently going on in the world today. The area of the movie that I would analyze is when Richard, Brad Pitt, is in a Middle Eastern country and his wife Susan, Cate Blanchett. While they are there, two middle-eastern kids who were playing with a rifle shot Susan who was on a tour bus. In order to get the necessary help and attention, Richard yells at everyone to call the United States Embassy and get a helicopter sent there stat. He also wanted everyone to stop what he or she was doing and take them to a hospital. The event is broadcast across the media and it is stated that a terrorist shot an American tourist.

This part of the movie directly relates to the idea of white privilege introduced in chapter 2 Capitalism, Class and the Matrix of Domination from the book Power, Privilege and Difference by Allan G Johnson. Richard feels that he has a right to the best hospital and help as he would in America. He it is hard for him to realize that he does not have the same privilege as he would if him and his wife were in the same situation in America. In the country that he is in, he is seen as the foreigner and his white status does not help him.

Also, Johnson talks about how money gives someone power and privilege, which are all stereotyped towards white men. In the movie, Richard tried using money as a way to get things accomplished. He tried to use his money as another way to increase the likelihood of getting medical help for his wife.

Another example of white privilege in the movie can be seen through another white couple on the tour bus. Like most middle-eastern countries, it was extremely hot and dry. They were starting to run out of clean bottled water and a middle-aged white man in particular was becoming dehydrated, which made his wife extremely worried. It seemed that since he was white also, he also felt like he had the power to control the situation and to leave Richard and Susan in the village if he wanted to. He did end up giving Richard a certain amount of time before he said they were leaving. The middle-aged man took control, and did not leave the decision up to the bus driver. By doing this, the middle-eastern bus driver was being noted as inferior to the wants and needs of the white man.

The movie as a whole shocked and disgusted me. There were so many racial stereotypes played out that ended up hurting the characters in the movie. I didn’t like how the middle-aged white man took control of the situation and left Richard and Susan behind. I feel like he wanted to keep going more because he was uncomfortable with the new and unfamiliar surroundings than he was with lack of water and the amount of heat. If I had been him, I would not have left them there by themselves.

Family Guy

http://www.familyguyx.net/watch/104/Padre_de_Familia/

The main focus of the Family Guy episode entitled Padre de Familia is about immigrants and their struggle in America. The show starts out with a Veteran’s Day celebration. Peter then decides that he wants to be a stand-up American citizen, which resulted in him accusing every person of a different race/ethnicity of being an illegal immigrant. Eventually, he find out that he is also an illegal Mexican immigrant since his mother had him in Mexico and never filled out his birth certificate in the United States. From there, he tired getting a job, but with little success. He went to work for Mr. Pewterschmidt, Lois’ father, where other illegal Mexican immigrants worked. Finally, Peter forms a riot in order to get equality for the immigrants, but in return the immigrants tells him to go home. I choose this Family Guy episode, because it focused entirely around people of different races and their treatment they faced by being illegal.

One of the first parts of the show, an elderly man was singing “God Bless America” with a choir of boys. However something that seemed odd to me was that all of the boys were white. This reminded me of chapter two Drawing the Color Line by Zinn. There also white people created themselves as being better and superior to people of color. To me, a choir of all white boys is giving the message that one should be white to be a citizen of America and have power.

Even though the immigrants in Family Guy were Mexicans, I could see a strong relationship to the novel Kindred by Octavia Butler. Mr. Pewterschmidt was shown to be the “master” to the immigrants or “slaves”. The Mexicans lived out back in little shacks similar to the cabins that the slaves in Kindred lived in. Both the slaves in Kindred and the illegal immigrants had a close family-like bond to one another.

With Mr. Pewterschmidt being the master of the house, he ordered Peter to drink his own blood and Peter had to do it even though he didn’t want to, which again was similar to the slaves doing everything that the white plantation owner wanted. Knowing what they were and were not allowed to do also reminded me of The Ethics of Living Jim Crow by Richard Wright. He had to listen to his bosses not matter what in order to keep his job just like the immigrants in the show. Finally when the illegal immigrants tried to revolt, Mr. Pewterschmidt threatened to deport them, and teased them with the idea of becoming legal citizen. The slaves were also afraid of being “deported” or sold in their case. In the book, Rufus also held the idea over Alice that he would free their children if she listened to him.

I usually enjoy Family Guy and find it full of jokes. Now when they play episodes like this, I still find it funny, but I see it a different way now. It actually did irritate me to see the choir of all white boys. It made me wonder why they couldn't make it a mixture of races and still get a similar comedic effect. I feel that this show was similar to the Avenue Q song that I had analyzed before by the way that both made a large emphasis on whites have the power and privilege.

Firehouse Dispute

Firehouse Dispute Raises Racial Tension in St. Louis

By MALCOLM GAY

ST. LOUIS — An African-American firefighter’s complaint that he found a stuffed monkey hanging by its neck in his firehouse last month has become a stark reminder of this city’s troubled racial legacy.

Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently ruled out a hate crime in its inquiry into the complaint, the incident has pitted many of the city’s black firefighters, who say the toy was meant to evoke a lynching, against their white colleagues, who say the monkey was simply hung up to dry after being found at a fire scene.

That explanation has not satisfied Capt. Addington Stewart, chairman of the Firefighter’s Institute for Racial Equality, a fraternal organization that represents all but a few of the department’s more than 300 black employees. “What I know is what I saw,” Captain Stewart said, describing a strap wrapped around the neck of a stuffed monkey dangling from a coat hanger. “I take that to be unconscionable.”

The episode might have remained an internal squabble were it not for the recent demotion of the city’s first African-American fire chief, Sherman George, which came after Mr. George publicly refused demands by Mayor Francis G. Slay to promote a group of mainly white firefighters. Many of the city’s black leaders have lined up behind the former chief, who resigned soon after being demoted.

In demoting Mr. George, some of those leaders said, Mr. Slay brought St. Louis race relations to a new low. Some started a petition drive in support of a mayoral recall.

“Sherman George was an African-American in one of the highest positions in the mayor’s administration — he was an icon,” said Alderman Terry Kennedy, chairman of the Aldermanic Black Caucus. “To push him out like that? You’re not doing anything but causing trouble.”

The current controversy has its roots in a lawsuit filed in 2004 by a group of black firefighters who raised accusations of racial bias in the promotion examinations for firefighters.

Mr. George, 63, was not a party to the lawsuit. But after a federal judge ruled last spring that the exams were valid, Mr. George declined to promote 28 firefighters — 4 of whom were black — to the rank of captain, and five captains, two of whom were black, to the rank of battalion chief.

“I never said anything about black and white,” said Mr. George, who had advocated for an alternate testing system. “I don’t believe that the tests gave the applicants an opportunity to demonstrate the skills and abilities necessary to be an officer in the St. Louis Fire Department.”

In what became a months-long public showdown, Mr. George declined repeated calls from Mayor Slay to promote the firefighters. The chief cited a 2005 ruling by the state appellate court giving him sole discretion over promotions in the department.

But when Mr. George missed the mayor’s Sept. 14 deadline to make the promotions, City Hall demoted him to deputy chief.

He retired from the department on Oct. 12, and has filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“They placed me in an untenable situation,” said Mr. George, who says his demotion came with a $20,000 pay cut that reduced his pension. “They knew I wouldn’t work under those conditions — I couldn’t work under those conditions.”

Mr. Slay said he was sensitive to the racial politics of demoting Mr. George, who as a child picked cotton and rose to become a popular symbol of African-American success in a city where many black residents, who make up more than 50 percent of the population, are mired in poverty and crime.

“The bottom line is that he failed to comply with a direct order,” said Mr. Slay, a Democrat. “We tried to be very respectful of the situation, but when it came down to it, we had a court decision, and we had people on these lists, real people with families that were forgoing a lot of money. It created a tremendous morale problem.”

Many black firefighters criticized Mr. George’s removal, but members of Local 73 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, which represents nearly all of the department’s roughly 400 white members, applauded the move.

“The department was not at all harmonious under Sherman George,” said the president of the local, Chris Molitor. “A test was given. We wanted promotions to be made.”

The political crisis deepened in November, when the mayor’s office named a white battalion chief as Mr. George’s successor instead of a higher-ranking African-American candidate.

“The mayor has stabbed the black community in the heart,” said the Rev. Douglas Parham, president of the Clergy Coalition of Metropolitan St. Louis, a group of more than 60 African-American ministers, and the leader of an effort to recall the mayor. “This tells me that the mayor of St. Louis sees the chief of the fire department as a white man’s job.”

In an editorial last month in The St. Louis American, the city’s largest black newspaper, James H. Buford, president of the Urban League of St. Louis, wrote, “Racially, the St. Louis community has been mortally wounded by the turn of events.”

The renewed strain on race relations comes as the city, after years of stagnation, is making economic strides. The downtown area has received roughly $4.5 billion in public and private investment since 1999, Mr. Slay said, and is home to many newly renovated lofts and more than 80 new restaurants and retail shops.

“Downtown is going great,” Mr. Slay said. “We’ve got more invested in neighborhoods all over the city, including predominantly African-American neighborhoods. I’m also talking with a lot of leaders in the black community about what we need to do to bring this city together.”

But Mr. George’s demotion, coupled with downtown’s revival and a public school system that recently lost its accreditation when it was taken over by the state, has some politicians from the city’s poorer North Side voicing fresh accusations of mayoral neglect.

“There’s no development in North St. Louis,” said State Representative Jamilah Nasheed, a Democrat who represents the city’s predominantly black 60th District and has called for Mr. Slay’s removal. “You cannot develop downtown St. Louis and leave North St. Louis looking like a shack.”

Not all black leaders view Mr. George’s ouster exclusively through the lens of race, and some say he presented the mayor with a serious insubordination problem. But those who support Mr. Slay note that given the city’s troubled racial past, the mayor handled an impossible situation poorly.

“People have the notion that St. Louis is in the Midwest, but it’s one of the few Midwestern cities that had slavery,” said Alderman Kennedy, whose black caucus has not taken a position on the recall effort. “Many of us have raised the issue of the racial divide, but I don’t think it’s been heard. So when it comes to important issues that may be complicated, it tends to fall on racial lines.

“So, is this a racial issue? Yes it is. Why is it a racial issue? Based upon the history of the city of St. Louis.”

On the New York Times online website, a recent article was posted that concerned racial discrimination within the city of St. Louis. Malcolm Gay wrote the article Firehouse Dispute Raises Racial Tension in St. Louis on January 5, 2008. It started out with the description of a black firefighter seeing a stuffed animal hanging from its neck, which could possibly be considered a racial hate crime. The black firefighters of course viewed it as being related to racism while white firefighters claimed the toy was hanging up to dry off after a fire. The possible cause of this event may stem back from the fact that St. Louis’ first African American fire chief, Sherman George, would not give promotions to a group of firemen that were predominately white. George said he did not give the promotions because they did not perform any tests that accurately showed their skills as a firefighter. Because George did not promote the men, the mayor demoted him. There is a large controversy as to whether or not the demotion was racially based. One point that strongly suggests that is it is that a white man was promoted to his position over a higher ranked black man. I choose this article because I it reminded me of the Jena Six and I felt extreme sympathy for the ex-fire chief.

The image of a stuffed animal hanging from its neck immediately brought to my mind a noose. The event that the Jena Six experienced from the movie seen in class can be directly related to this. In Louisiana where the Jena Six happened, one black boy sat under a tree where white children normally sat. The following day, nooses were seen hanging from the tree. In the firefighter happening, the black fire chief did not comply with what the mayor wanted. Later, the chief saw a stuffed animal hanging by its neck like it was hung. Both are direct messages that can be seen that the white community saw the black people as not knowing their place and that they need to listen to the “white man”. In both places historically, slavery was legal for a while, which also makes those acts more likely to be racially directed.

Also, the white firefighters, the mayor, and supporters of the mayor were showing signs of denial and resistance that Johnson in chapter 8 Getting Off the Hook: Denial and Resistance talks about. The mayor denied that the demotion was racist. With the mayor’s white privilege, he was able to say that there were large improvements happening in St. Louis that benefits everyone. He tried to sound like everyone was benefiting even though over half of the black population in St. Louis lives in poverty and crime.

I could see where the black community would take a stuffed animal hanging by its neck as a racial hate crime especially with the history of racism and slavery in the city. What made me the most upset about this article was the fact that the black man did not get the position of fire chief. I believe that if the mayor wanted it to truly look not race related, he would have given the job to a well qualified black man, instead of a lower-ranked white man. Coming from a small town, it’s hard to imagine dealing with racial issues like that. I would never be afraid of loosing my job because of my race, but it’s sad to think that some people of other ethnicities have to.

Gumby Cartoon - Pokey's Price

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I1jksPYZPc

I saw a clip of a Gumby cartoon on youtube. After seeing just a clip of it, I decided to watch the whole episode. In the episode called the Pokey’s Price, Gumby, the main character, and Pokey, a horse, travel back to pilgrim times at Plymouth, Massachusetts. The two discover that the pilgrims are starving. Pokey happens to come across to baskets of corn and gives them to the colony. But suddenly Native Americans arrive on the seen and want to be paid for their corn. The Indians that Pokey will do as a payment. When Gumby and the pilgrims go back to get Pokey, they shoot at the Indians, which then give Pokey back and settle for a few knives and beads in exchange. I choose this cartoon because I used to watch it as a child and was curious as to what I was exposed to at a young age.

The first thing that came to my mind after viewing this cartoon was the ideas mentioned in chapter 2 The “Tempest” in the Wilderness: The Racialization of Savagery of the book A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki. Takaki talked about the origins of the term “savage”. It originally started with the Irish being classified as savages by the English simple because of their daily actions and level of intelligence. From there though, the term related more to color of a person’s skin. The Native Americans were the next ones to be called savages. In the Gumby cartoon, the Indians were shown “savages” by being depicted as not knowing how to speak the English language correctly, violent by shooting arrows, and greedy by not sharing with the pilgrims. The Native Americans were seen negatively in this cartoon with the pilgrims not being at fault at all, which in fact it completely the opposite.

Both Takaki and Zinn in their writings talked about how the Native Americans were treated unfairly by Europeans. In Zinn’s chapter 1 Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress in his book A People’s History of the United States, he talked about how the native people were tortured, beaten, and even killed for Columbus’ profit. The Indians’ land, food, and resources were all taken from them, which they received no payment for. Zinn tried to get the reader to understand that history has different points of view; all of which need to be looked at to see whole event and not just one side of it. The cartoon showed a kind caring white community, which is not true when looking at the historical facts around how the United States started, which is obviously from the whites view of the event. Indians on the other hand would see it a completely different way.

I was appalled seeing this cartoon. I remember growing up and loving to watch this show after school. The more I look back at my childhood, the more I realize that I was taught all along to believe that the pilgrims and the Native Americans were friends who helped each other out. By becoming more knowledgeable, it sickens me to see a cartoon like this where the Native Americans were stereotyped as being dumb and violent. I hope that children will learn at a younger age what really took place during those times.

Avenue Q

Princeton:
Say, Kate, can I ask you a question?
Kate Monster:
Sure!
Princeton:
Well, you know Trekkie Monster upstairs?
Kate Monster:
Uh huh.
Princeton:
Well, he's Trekkie Monster, and you're Kate Monster.
Kate Monster:
Right.
Princeton:
You're both Monsters.
Kate Monster:
Yeah.
Princeton:
Are you two related?
Kate Monster:
What?! Princeton, I'm surprised at you! I find that racist!
Princeton:
Oh, well, I'm sorry! I was just asking!
Kate Monster:
Well, it's a touchy subject.
No, not all Monsters are related.
What are you trying say, huh?
That we all look the same to you?
Huh, huh, huh?
Princeton:
No, no, no, not at all. I'm sorry,
I guess that was a little racist.
Kate Monster:
I should say so. You should be much more
careful when you're talking about the
sensitive subject of race.
Princeton:
Well, look who's talking!
Kate Monster:
What do you mean?
Princeton:
What about that special Monster School you told me about?
Kate Monster:
What about it?
Princeton:
Could someone like me go there?
Kate Monster:
No, we don't want people like you-
Princeton:
You see?!
You're a little bit racist.
Kate Monster:
Well, you're a little bit too.
Princeton:
I guess we're both a little bit racist.
Kate Monster:
Admitting it is not an easy thing to do...
Princeton:
But I guess it's true.
Kate Monster:
Between me and you,
I think
Both:
Everyone's a little bit racist
Sometimes.
Doesn't mean we go
Around committing hate crimes.
Look around and you will find
No one's really color blind.
Maybe it's a fact
We all should face
Everyone makes judgments
Based on race.
Princeton:
Now not big judgments, like who to hire
or who to buy a newspaper from -
Kate Monster:
No!
Princeton:
No, just little judgments like thinking that Mexican
busboys should learn to speak goddamn English!
Kate Monster:
Right!
Both:
Everyone's a little bit racist
Today.
So, everyone's a little bit racist
Okay!
Ethinic jokes might be uncouth,
But you laugh because
They're based on truth.
Don't take them as
Personal attacks.
Everyone enjoys them -
So relax!
Princeton:
All right, stop me if you've heard this one.
Kate Monster:
Okay!
Princeton:
There's a plan going down and there's only
one paracute. And there's a rabbi, a priest...
Kate Monster:
And a black guy!
Gary Coleman:
Whatchoo talkin' 'bout Kate?
Kate Monster:
Uh...
Gary Coleman:
You were telling a black joke!
Princeton:
Well, sure, Gary, but lots of people tell black jokes.
Gary Coleman:
I don't.
Princeton:
Well, of course you don't - you're black!
But I bet you tell Polack jokes, right?
Gary Coleman:
Well, sure I do. Those stupid Polacks!
Princeton:
Now, don't you think that's a little racist?
Gary Coleman:
Well, damn, I guess you're right.
Kate Monster:
You're a little bit racist.
Gary Coleman:
Well, you're a little bit too.
Princeton:
We're all a little bit racist.
Gary Coleman:
I think that I would
Have to agree with you.
Princeton/Kate Monster:
We're glad you do.
Gary Coleman:
It's sad but true!
Everyone's a little bit racist -
All right!
Kate Monster:
All right!
Princeton:
All right!
Gary Coleman:
All right!
Bigotry has never been
Exclusively white
All:
If we all could just admit
That we are racist a little bit,
Even though we all know
That it's wrong,
Maybe it would help us
Get along.
Princeton:
Oh, Christ do I feel good.
Gary Coleman:
Now there was a fine upstanding black man!
Princeton:
Who?
Gary Coleman:
Jesus Christ.
Kate Monster:
But, Gary, Jesus was white.
Gary Coleman:
No, Jesus was black.
Kate Monster:
No, Jesus was white.
Gary Coleman:
No, I'm pretty sure that Jesus was black-
Princeton:
Guys, guys...Jesus was Jewish!
Brian:
Hey guys, what are you laughing about?
Gary Coleman:
Racism!
Brian:
Cool.
Christmas Eve:
BRIAN! Come back here!
You take out lecycuraburs!
Princeton:
What's that mean?
Brian:
Um, recyclables.
Hey, don't laugh at her!
How many languages do you speak?
Kate Monster:
Oh, come off it, Brian!
Everyone's a little bit racist.
Brian:
I'm not!
Princeton:
Oh no?
Brian:
Nope!
How many Oriental wives
Have you got?
Christmas Eve:
What? Brian!
Princeton:
Brian, buddy, where you been?
The term is Asian-American!
Christmas Eve:
I know you are no
Intending to be
But calling me Oriental -
Offensive to me!
Brian:
I'm sorry, honey, I love you.
Christmas Eve:
And I love you.
Brian:
But you're racist, too.
Christmas Eve:
Yes, I know.
The Jews have all
The money
And the whites have all
The power.
And I'm always in taxi-cab
With driver who no shower!
Princeton:
Me too!
Kate Monster:
Me too!
Gary Coleman:
I can't even get a taxi!
All:
Everyone's a little bit racist
It's true.
But everyone is just about
As racist as you!
If we all could just admit
That we are racist a little bit,
And everyone stopped being
So PC
Maybe we could live in -
Harmony!
Christmas Eve:
Evlyone's a ritter bit lacist!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9CSnlb-ymA

The musical Avenue Q has a song entitled Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist. The musical being a comedy is trying to make a joke out of all of the racial stereotypes commonly believed. First Princeton who is white asks Kate who is a monster if all monsters are related. From there a black man by the name of Gary Coleman enters and is also confronted with the idea that he too can be racist at times. Finally, the song ends with a middle-aged white man and a woman of Asian decent coming in. Of course, they are also accused to being racist. Throughout the song, common stereotypes that are often associated with a racial or ethnic group are mentioned. I have seen this musical and I was able to find the lyrics online along with a live video performance of it on youtube. When I originally saw this show, I saw shocked at the crude humor it used, but I found it funny. But the more I thought about it, all of the stereotypes mentioned I have seen people use to stereotype others in actions or in conversation. People subconsciously stereotype others and this was one of the first times I saw this issue being brought up, which is why I choose this piece.

One statement that stood out to me in the song said, “Jew have all the money”. In the article How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says about Race in America by Karent Brodkin, more information is given as to how that stereotype even started. When Jewish people were first immigrating to the United States, they were discriminated against similar to other different racial/ethnic groups. One fact that is rarely ever mentioned is the fact that Jewish families placed a strong emphasis on hard work and education. Anyone that works hard and obtains a good education will succeed and most likely make a lot of money. That idea has been skewed to the now current assumption that Jews are have a lot of money because they are stingy, and not because they worked hard to earn it.

With one saying, “The whites have all the power” and the black man saying “I can’t even get a taxi” shows the idea of white privilege that is still present in America.

Johnson in Capitalism, Class and the Matrix of Domination brings up the idea that the white population has certain privileges over other races. The privilege stems not only from skin color, but also from gender and social status. African Americans are still being looked at as inferior in some cases, which may in doubt actually make simple things harder like getting a taxi.

I after analyzing the contents of this song, I found it to be rather depressing, because I know that these are stereotypes that still affect individuals everyday. With me being white and the stereotype that they mentioned that whites have all the power made me a little more aware of the privilege that I do have. This song also made me think of what it must be like to be negatively stereotyped and what differences that would have on my daily life. I feel somewhat guilty that I still find the song funny. It makes me wonder if people of other races find it as entertaining.

Students Imagine Little Rock, on Film

By DIANA MARSZALEK

SCARSDALE

THE differences in experiences for a group of Scarsdale eighth graders and the famed Little Rock Nine — the African-American teenagers who risked their safety desegregating Little Rock’s Central High School 50 years ago — are so vast that drawing comparisons would be futile.

Not only do the 13-year-olds in Kathleen Connon’s English classes at Scarsdale Middle School live in a largely protected and affluent community, but there is also one glaring difference: There isn’t a single black face among them.

Yet the 86 Scarsdale students have strived to comprehend on both intellectual and gut levels what it took for the Little Rock teenagers to brave hatred and potential violence to attend school, primarily by recreating the experience in films.

The 15-minute movies (Ms. Connon’s four English sections produced one each) were inspired by “Warriors Don’t Cry,” the 1994 memoir by Melba Pattillo Beals, one of the nine Arkansas students, and a school visit last October by Terrence Roberts, another one of the Little Rock Nine.

The movies — which have garnered interest from various school and government groups as well as Manhattanville College graduate students — are an offshoot of English and social studies curriculums that focus on concepts like victimization, courage and morality, as well as historical events from post-Civil War Reconstruction to recent hate crimes in neighboring Westchester communities.

The students wrote, directed and acted in the films, and did all the hands-on production work, like filming, editing and creating a Web site where the films are shown.

The Scarsdale teenagers, who gave up weekends, nights and a snow day to create the films, readily acknowledge that their movie-making endeavor was a far cry from desegregating a school. But they said the intensive weeklong effort of recreating an important event in the civil rights movement helped them delve deeper emotionally into a slice of history than they would have in more traditional studies.

“Anyone can learn about history and have an understanding of what happened,” said Emma Miller, who while playing one of the Little Rock Nine faced enraged segregationists on the set. “But when I was being chased by an angry mob, I felt fear.”

One question that warranted some soul-searching, they said, was just how realistic the students’ portrayal of the events in Little Rock was.

Laura Laumann, one of the actresses, said she grappled with whether she had the right to portray the hardships of an African-American girl. “They actually had to live it,” Laura said. “I’m just acting.”

Then there was the question of whether to use the racial slur often used by segregationists at the time. After discussion among themselves and consultation with teachers and the principal, the group decided to put the language in for reality’s sake.

Ms. Connon has had students make films before, but not on a subject like Little Rock. In the past, Ms. Connon said, she has had students make movies on contemporary and classic literature, teenage health and historical re-enactments, like events from the Depression and the ’60s. Some students made movies based on the themes of earlier discussion: bullying, character building and moral courage.

While technology, including moviemaking, is a standard part of Ms. Connon’s curriculum, the Little Rock films sparked a particular interest and intensity in students that Ms. Connon said she had not seen before. Students put aside chatter to communicate intensely about the films on computer chat lines they created, shared pizza at one another’s houses while working and orchestrated everything from camera shots to costumes, she said.

“I’ve taught ‘Romeo and Juliet’ for 20 years, but there was something about this that had a movement and a momentum that said we should go for it,” Ms. Connon said.

The students attribute that to a range of reasons, from garnering sympathy for others’ causes to the knowledge that there is potential for change.

Asher Stockler, who directed one of the movies, said he felt hopeless reading Ms. Beals’s memoirs because he knew there was nothing he could do to alter history. Asher, however, said he became “less helpless” after creating a film he hopes will deliver a message to others.

“You can’t prevent what happened,” he said, “but you can prevent this from happening again.”

Students Imagine Little Rock, on Film by Diana Marszalek, written on March 9, 2008, is an article I found on the New York Times online that deals with current middle school aged children studying the history of the Little Rock Nine. Ms. Conner who is an English teacher at the all white Scarsdale Middle School requires her students to produce a 15-minute movie every year. This year the movie had to be a recreation of the event that took place in Little Rock, Arkansas with the Little Rock Nine, which were nine black students who tried to desegregate a white school. The students had to write, direct, and act in their films. The students had to decide where or not to include the racial language that was said at that time. They ended up using the vulgar language to be historically accurate. Through this experience the children got a better idea as to what African Americans went though during those times and it definitely made more of an impact them. I choose this article because this made me happy that a teacher was finding a new way to teach this subject.

The movie Eyes on the Prize: Awakenings 1954-1956 talked about the various events that African Americans experienced and had to go through in order to receive equal treatment. It talked about sit-ins at diners that blacks would partake in, Rosa Parks and the public bus system, lynching, and also the Little Rock Nine. Every student at Scarsdale Middle School could have been required to watch this film in order to learn about what happened at Little Rock, Arkansas. Instead, their teacher took it one step further; she made them learn about it and then remake it into a movie.

In Eyes on the Prize: Awakenings 1954-1956, it showed how the state troops were used to keep the black children out of the school. Mobs of angry people were shown standing outside the school doors, which also prevented the kids to get into the school. It wasn’t until the president sent the federal troops in that the black students were allowed to be educated in a white school. Not only did the students as Scarsdale Middle School have to learn all this information, but they had to act it out. One of the actresses in the movie said, ““Anyone can learn about history and have an understanding of what happened, but when I was being chased by an angry mob, I felt fear”.

I was amazed that a teacher at an all white school made the students make a movie about the Little Rock Nine. After learning in class about the Jena Six incident that happened in Louisiana, I lost a lot of respect for small predominately white communities. However, this article gave me hope that not all white communities would react in the same way as the school where the Jena Six are from. It makes me wish that my one of my teachers would have required this type of assignment from my graduating class, which was also predominately white. I believe that the students probably got to learn about the history of racial segregation in a completely different way compared to just learning names, dates, and events like in a normal history class. It is good to know that the injustice that was done to the African Americans in the United States is not being forgotten or overlooked.