The movie Rosewood portrays how African Americans were terrorized by white people of the town. One part of the movie relates to a boy who is white, and his best friend he plays with is black. The father of the white boy teaches him to be racist, and forbids him to play with the African American boy. The father tries to instill his racial beliefs onto his child, and wants him to dislike the black people of the community.
There was a few witnesses who saw what really happened to the white women, but the witnesses kept quiet in fear of retaliation. The witness was a black women who knew the white family, and did not want any harm to come to her or her family for speaking out. The hunt was on for the black man who allegedly attacked her, and this caused a huge problem for the black people in the neighborhood. Many of the black women and children had to flee from the community to keep from getting killed. The white folks were on the hunt for the blacks, and wanted to punish them for their actions. The slaughter of Rosewood had been kept under the radar for many years until the details were released decades later. This movie was controversial and showed how hate can take over a community because of one’s skin color. The movie portrayed the outrageous beliefs that had occurred in that time period, and shows how different the beliefs are in today’s society.
In the time and era that Rosewood occurred the racial aspect of the community was heavily regarded as a race as social construct. The story portrays how racism can build in a community. The movie also communicates that different feelings towards white people and black people. The town heard the story of the black man beating a white women and began to social conduct racism in the community. One incident caused a hate crime and murder because of a social stance of racism.
Another aspect of racism is the movie called Malcom X. “This movie shows how a struggling life of an African American can impact the choices in life” . The movies has a lot of lows that is moving in a sense of achievement, and bravery. White privilege is present in this movie as a way to condemn and ruin life. The KKK had burnt down the house of the African Americans and had later killed the father of the family. The KKK showed dominance and privilege of being white in the act of attacking the black family.
In the movie Malcolm ends up getting in trouble with the law as he got older. He had robbed and committed crimes that led him to getting put in prison. His sentence was based on structural racism. The Judge sentenced him to one year for committing the crimes, and seven years for committing the crimes with white women. This era of time shows how racism effected prison sentences due to race. If a white man had done the same crime he would not had received the additional seven years for committing crimes with a white female. This type of punishment would also be considered as white privilege. The whites had more privilege for court sentencing and punishment than the African Americans did.
While Malcom is in prison he finds himself turning his life around and studying religion. He believes that white people are all bad and that African American and Muslims are good people. He was practicing the double standard of morality in regards to one race is better than another race or group. Malcolm had believed this for several years until he took a trip with his Muslim groups to another geographical location. He then met people who were of different race and skin color. He felt these people were nice, and were considered to be likeable people. When Malcolm came back from his trip he had a change of heart, and decided all people were likeable and had goodness in them.
Even though Malcom had went through the hard times of being African American; he changed his way of thinking towards all people. He could have let the racism bother him, and retaliate against it, but he chose another path to take. Malcolm had to take different paths to get on the one he finally found peace with in regards to racism. The beliefs his father has taught him about white hate, and unworthiness was something he chose to disobey. The methods of racism in this movie relates to every aspect of race. The movie portrays how white people are racist to black people, the unethical standards of how black people are treated is disturbing.
Malcolm was murdered in the mid 1960’s, but died with his new beliefs in regards to race and society. Speculation is that he was killed by an ex member of one of the groups he belonged to, but not certain. The racial contract is shown amongst the KKK members, and how they contract to harm the African Americans because of their race. Malcolm had come from witness’s first-hand what racism can do to a family, and he still chose to turn his life around. He could have continued to rebel against the racism that people threw at him, but he didn’t.
Work Cited
Ebert, R. "Malcolm X." Malcolm X (2015): 1-8.
