Communication And Newspaper Essay

Racism and sexism were a major part of the 1950s and 1960s, with very few newspapers or magazines being able to maintain neutrality in their printed word against such hate. The Watts riots of Los Angeles in the movie, Heat Wave, involved attacks of a bigoted police force against black individuals who had very little education, were living in poverty, with most of the people having no jobs–with unemployment being higher here than anywhere else. Many of these individuals felt they were being prejudiced against, with only five of the actual 205 police officers involved in the riots being African-American. In the movie, the Los Angeles Times reporter was played by Robert Richardson, as white reporters were not allowed in the area, which was a reverse discrimination of the riot itself. The whole picture was about racism, poverty, desperation, and feelings of anxiety and striking out against the world with feelings of   â€Å"enough is enough.† It also is about how someone in the lead role of a intolerant and racist police chief can influence whole neighborhoods of the African Americans, leading them to feelings of hopelessness and despair, eventually leading to the Watts riot which led to even more riots across the country as people began rebelling against their treatment. The movie Crash was also portrayed in Los Angeles, and also involves racism and prejudice. If possible, in a more dramatic way it regards how people interact with each other and how they develop a first impression based on race or statement, forming feelings of prejudice. It seems as if the movie is totally about relationships and different races of people, telling how we get all messed up inside and form wrong impressions about things that maybe later on we would never consider. The role of Officer Hanson in Crash psychologically seems to continue from the raging police in Heat Wave, yet here it shows that behind the scene of their abusive personality, it shows another side of racism in a different form of view, even though it brings up more violence and maybe other things causing it. It is a step-up in the picture of how discrimination, racism, and sexism develop in societies and within individuals. It is not always a black and white scene, but has many variables involved in it. In Crash, the viewpoint changed from the reporter’s view on how something can happen like a riot of minorities, or a car hi-jacking, as portrayed to the public or world to see how something can develop from the viewpoint of the stereotyped races—eventually even seeing things from the viewpoint of the police and why they feel the way they do. The third way of thinking refers to the scene in the movie Come See The Paradise, almost as if completing the circle of prejudice and racism. The writer of Crash felt that intolerance was a collective problem that needed to be explored along with shared humanity, almost as a â€Å"gang effect.† In the movie Come See The Paradise, Jack McGurn is a union organizer in New York City that is parallel to the police in the other two movies in regard to status and position, but finds himself on the wrong side of the law, also similar to the car hi-jackers or the rioters in the previous two movies. Fleeing to Los Angeles, he becomes involved in the Asia-American world, which involves racist and sexist as the blacks or Japanese, but he is the one who is prejudiced against when he tries to marry Lily, an Asian-American woman, by her father. The state of California also is prejudiced by their relationship by refusing to marry them, which forces them to flee to Seattle where they can wed. Prior to the prejudice and rioting of the 50s and 60s, â€Å"Civilian Exclusion Order No. 92† became the forced removal of all Japanese and Japanese-Americans from their homes into detention camps, with very few actually knowing where they were going or why. After WWII was over, and the Japanese Internment was actually admitting to as a wrong–doing by the United States, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was passed to make sure that the Japanese Americans were repaid for being locked up like criminals, during a time when prejudice and fear took away the rights of our citizens because they were of another nationality involved in a wrong-doing. This was a time when citizens of the United States lost their rights because of who their race was against the power of the United States. They literally had to stand in-line to toilet, to eat, were told when to go to bed, etc.—meanwhile losing their homes, jobs and many family members. Needless to say, their dignity and pride were torn away because they were Japanese, not because of what they did wrong. Similar to the African-American racist riots in the 1960s, with many of the blacks forced into jail and torn away from their homes because they were black, the Japanese were treated just as bad. The African-Americans targeted were jobless, homeless, and drifting throughout life—which were automatic red flags for white police to pick them up. During the Japanese Internment, just being Japanese was an automatic red flag to be put in detention camps during WWII. With about 120,000 of these Japanese-Americans being forced into the camps, it was held in little regard that 2/3 of them were actually American citizens, and had rights under our Constitution, even though they were a minority group. They simply were unlucky enough to be Japanese during a time when the bombing of Pearl Harbor occurred, and they became the focus of the United State’s hate and prejudice. Living in the camps for three years under armed guards, this became a shameful period for our country when we had the audacity to treat our own people this way when they had done nothing wrong other than become a victimized race.   At one time, the Constitution of the United States actually protected the rights of our citizens, but the perfect union was not perfect during this WWII period or even later on, as the minority groups became a separate entity during the WWII as opposed to being a citizen of respect, as did the African-Americans during a later period, and is to this day. In my opinion, the similarity of the Japanese Internment period and the rioting of the 50s and 60s have changed very little, with one group locked up in detention camps and the other in prison. Both groups are imprisoned more due to race and color, by ignorant and bigoted individuals of authority who choose to separate themselves from their victims as beings of superiority. Very few looked at their victims and ask, â€Å"what kind of life did they lead before this moment, and what led to this?† and â€Å"do they consider themselves as criminals and doing wrong, because they were born Japanese or Black?†Ã‚   And did any of the answers justify the actions of their jailers? Race and racism is part of the United States and has very little to do with ethics or morality of the human race. Do we have room for a neighbor of another nationality? No—at the present time due to 9/11 the same thing is happening. How many people who are of the same race as the terrorist groups, are being punished by the United States and its citizen, being questioned in detention camps year after year, and with torturous techniques labeled as acceptable by our President? How different is this from the Japanese Internment period, or the locking up and beating of the African-American people simply because they were overly populated, living in extreme poverty, or uneducated? It is not†¦and we repeat history again and again, never learning compassion or empathy, which is why we are so popular with third world countries that are uneducated, poverty stricken, and over-populated—and who we are 100% prejudiced against.    Bibilography There needs to be the information here of the newspaper coverage, â€Å"the Readings,, of the Japanese-American Intemment during WW2 and the civil Rights movement of the late 1950`s,† which I do not have.