Lessons From Cinema

Wow!!! I just returned from watching the movie Green Book and perhaps I'm wowed because of my call to ERASE Race, but I think that this movie will impact everyone who watches it in ways particular to each of our individual experiences in life.

Spoiler alert: The movie makes the point that to judge people by what they look like on the outside tells you very little and often nothing about who they really are on the inside. It is a typical 60's civil rights/freedom venture, but it explores the territory from a refreshingly different angle and the acting is superb. It was refreshing to leave the theater and feel like you had been educated, informed and entertained. It was reminiscent of how I felt after watching Hidden Figures, the movie about the dark-skinned women working in NASA who played a key role in getting us to the moon.

Like Hidden Figures where NASA seemed surprised by the mathematical skills of the dark-skinned women, Green Book showed us that stereotyping any population based on skin color is futile. In Green Book the "Italian/white" man was telling the "black" man how to eat fried chicken, while the "black" man was telling the "Italian/white" man how to act and speak properly.

Then a really salient point was made when the "Italian/white" man was pulled over in the deep south and the officer called the "Italian/white" man a "half/n-word," Identifying that hate simply utilizes color for convenience and once that issue is removed, it will use the next available differentiating factor. The quote of the movie was riveting when uttered with perfect timing, "genius is not enough, it takes courage to change hearts."

My trips to the cinema have been most rewarding and educating when looking through the lens of humanity. Zootopia, The Incredibles 2 and the aforementioned movies

are all quite helpful in understanding the complex human dynamic of hate among human populations. So in case you haven't done so, take a trip to the cinema or download these movies off of Netflix and think about the message that these movies are sending to you about humanity. It might seem that we have a long way to go but, these movies will inspire you and give you hope that we

can one day get there and if nothing else, make you aware that there are others who think like you and believe that we are all one race and can one day live in harmony. ERASE Races is working on it now.