Lines

My favorite movie when I was younger was "Save the Last Dance". This was such a different movie at the time because it put a white girl in a black situation, where it use to always be the opposite. Putting a black youth in a white school or town. It almost seems more dangerous to put the white girl in this situation, maybe that's why it's always been the other way around. Making the black youth fit in to this white society, kind of the way black people are expected to meld into white America instead of just having them belong. Maybe this is a wrong way to look at the world, but it's hard for me to not look at the world this way. If you're black, you're different.

The reason I thought of this was because of the movie "Guess Who" which stars Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher. In this movie, Bernie's daughter brings home the "white boy". It's not as scary as going into a whole school, but the situation is scary because it's a big deal to fit in. Ashton has to find a way to fit into this girl's family because he is going to spend the rest of his life with her. At first, Bernie does not like Ashton and it seems like it is simply because he is white.

My favorite scene in the movie is when they are all sitting at the dinner table and Ashton mentions black jokes. Bernie dares him to tell some of these jokes, so after some prodding Ashton does so. Everyone is laughing because the jokes are cute, innocent and funny. The last joke Ashton tells is, "What are three things a black man can't get?" "A black eye", to which people laugh, "A fat lip... and a job" At this last one everyone gets angry. Ashton's girlfriend's grandfather actually wanted to beat him. Where he crossed the line? An awful truth? Maybe that last one wasn't funny because it's something that really happens? They shouldn't have gotten upset because they made him tell the jokes and clearly he's not racist; he does have a black girlfriend. But where is the line? And do we often cross it? Someone told an awfully racist joke in front of me once and I was mortified because the person told it like it was a funny joke, and it was not funny. It was about lynching Obama... how is that funny? It wasn't okay and he was oblivious to that fact. Would that joke have been okay had he not said it in front of a black girl?

But, anyway. I think this was a good representation of the awkwardness that can happen between people of different races. Ashton meant well, and not all people do, but this awkwardness needs to subside in order for things to get better, at least that's what I think. Things only become more comfortable with open communication.