Crashing Through Strereotypes

“We go through our lives without interacting with one another, not bumping into each other on the streets, and the only way we come into contact with people in Los Angeles is if we crash into them” (Haggis).  In the Academy Award Winning film Crash, Director and Screenwriter Paul Haggis intertwines the stories of eight characters’ lives, and demonstrates, through the collision of these characters lives, how prejudice is still pervasive today, and is still held by people from different cultures, races, social classes, and ethnicities.  The YouTube video “Asians in the Library” posted by the University of California Los Angeles student March 11, also showed viewers that despite our progress in granting equal rights and for all citizens and the social progress that has been made thus far, racism and prejudice are still pervasive issues in today's society.

When I first saw the video, I could not help but ask “Does this girl really go to UCLA-which is thought to be an elite institution in the greater part of LA?” This video, although I mentioned before could have been used as a teachable moment, also sadly points out that prejudice and racism is still pervasive today.  I believe that ignorant and prejudice behavior like Wallace’s continues to exist in part because of the way our society is structured. Having been born, raised, and gone to school in Los Angeles I have come to the realization that the main problem with this city is that we live our lives in a very isolated fashion. We are alienated in every act we perform whether it be when we are separated in cars as we drive past each other on the freeway, or while walking on the streets with our headphones in our ears listening to our ipods, or talking and texting on our blackberries and iphones. These behaviors we have adopted prevent us from interacting with and understanding each other, and as a result we fail to appreciate and accept each other’s differences or find our similarities.

The population of Los Angeles is known for being extremely diverse. Los Angeles is made up of people of all different races, religions, and cultures, many of whom speak many different languages. Although many cultures overlap they do not always do so without difficulty. Los Angeles, which was originally more than 70 percent Anglo, is now more than 48 percent Latino and only 31 percent white, 11 percent Asian, and 10 percent black (Taper- How’d we get here). As a result of this growing diversity, each such group builds up an “us” versus “them” mentality which, in turn, fuels prejudice and heightens racial and social tensions.

In order to prevent future incidents like this from occurring we must not only look to the administration in the University to teach their students prescriptions and proscriptions of appropriate behavior, but also we must put a stop to our isolationist behavior, break the “us” versus “them” mentality, and give value to, learn from, and interacting with every voice (Bradley). By breaking this ongoing pattern of prejudice that exists amongst the Los Angeles population we will begin to see that we are not all that different from those we drive or walk next to on the street.  Instead we will find that we are very similar. By breaking this isolationist pattern of behavior, we will in turn breakdown the walls that we put up around us and begin to adopt tolerance and acceptance of those who are different from us. Only then will we truly be able to, as a society, and as a city, have the right tools to success and peace. Paul Haggis, in Crash, teaches us that the only way to solve our problems in Los Angeles, is to rid ourselves of our isolationist mentality and behavior and “[interact] with one another” by seizing the moment when we “[bump] into each other on the streets” to merge, instead of crash, our different cultures, races, social classes, and ethnicities.