Crash

I finally had the opportunity to view the movie Crash, recent winner of the Academy Award for best picture. I found the film very thought provoking on a variety of fronts, however, one scene in particular struck me.

Throughout the film, you get to know a character who is an reflective/thoughtful African-American man who is the brother of a city lawyer and a car thief. You also learn that he does 3 things which the film portrays as uncharacteristic of a black man 1) he loves hockey, 2) he has a developing interest in country music, and 3) either he is Catholic, or simply has an interest because he carries around a St. Christopher statue that he puts on the dashboard after he steals cars. Anyway, in the scene which interested me, an off duty white police officer, a young idealist who has recently raised complaints about racism on the LA police force, picks up the car thief who is hitch hiking. In the course of the conversation, the black guy mentions that he was in the area of the town ice skating because he had always wanted to be a goalie. The white idealist doesn't believe him. The black man says he is developing an interest in country music which once again the white guy doesn't believe. Then the black guy looks up at the dashboard, and there is the same statue that he always carries around. He just starts laughing. The white guy gets angry and tells him to get out of the car, he thinks he is being mocked as no black man, likes country music and wants to be a hockey goalie. The black guy says to hold on as he reaches into his pocket to get the statue that he always carries of St. Christopher. At that point, the white guys tells him to keep his hands where they can be seen, but he keeps digging in his pocket to get the statue. As he pulls it out of his pocket the white guy shoots and ultimately kills him. The statue falls out of the black guy's hand.

As an observer, you sit there stunned. How could this happen? The complete disconnection between two people is perfectly illustrated. It is as if each of them approached the other through the socially constructed stereotypes they had been socialized to believe and when the black man in particular, did not meet the stereotypes of the white man we end up on very uncomfortable ground, where we don't know how to act or relate. In spite of the evidence otherwise, we act on our stereotypes. In the off duty cop's mind, the black man was obviously in the area of town, not to ice skate, but to rob or be involved in some sort of criminal activity.

How do we see persons with disabilities? What stereotypes to we bring to our interactions with them? What do we do when they do not meet the stereotypes we have for them? For those of us who are working to change the Church, what negative stereotypes do churches and those in leadership bring which result in the demise of those they would claim to help. In reality, the white cop was apalled at racism when he saw it. In the same way, the Church speaks of all people being equal and loved by God. But ultimately, when confronted with a real person, the white cop's racism came through as well. He wasn't specifically harassing people, and was even trying to help people who had been victims of racism (another of the movie's powerful scenes). But inside, he was capable of killing another person largely on the basis of his racist stereotypes which were just below the surface. The church also has discriminatory stereotypes, particularly about people with disabilities, which are "killing" people through their exclusion.

In the same manner that Crash expertly puts the finger on racism and race relations, we must do the same with discrimination against persons with disability where ever it might appear, but particularly within the Church.

McNair (fcbu)