How The Stereotypes In The Film Race The Power Of An Illusion

First and foremost, I'm deeply disturbed by what transpired at the National Policy Institute conference over the weekend. It's rather apropos that we are covering the topic of race at this moment. I'm furious but inspired (now, more than ever) to continue on this journey of justice studies as part of my personal commitment to be an ally for minorities. I wish that every person had the privilege of taking this class, the knowledge we're gaining is one of the most powerful tools we can use to combat the ignorance of white nationalism.

The purpose of this paper is to expose some of the stereotypes present in the film The Matrix, directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski. In order to accomplish this we shall see that although The Matrix is considered to be a film about rebellion, it contains several stereotypical portrayals, which actually make it a film that supports the status quo. We shall also see that the African American characters in The Matrix (the Oracle, Tank, Dozer, and Morpheus) are all depicted in the stereotypical servant roles. Furthermore, the women (Trinity and Switch) in this film are portrayed stereotypically; that is, they are either reduced to a caring/nurturing role or they simply help make up the background (they

Hidden Figures, an extraordinary film that shines light on women existence and their intelligence. The women, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan used the power of their intelligence to decipher complex math calculations, computer language to build rockets that other could not see. Throughout the movie racial descrepancies were vividly clear, but these eager women had something to stand for. They dared not let the words of bitterness deter them of their worth.

This is interesting to me in that though everyone looks different, we are al vary similar at a the DNA level. Our differences are not so great. There are two historical perspectives on race and ethnicity among geneticist. One is that is a cultural and historical construct with no biological significance, meaning that there is entirely unique to a particular ethnicity. The other argument is that there are biological differences between different ethnicities. As the human genome was being sequenced, different frequencies of genes variants related to disease susceptibility, drug metabolism, and environmental response were found among different populations (). Even though there is a small difference in DNA from person to person, there is some biological distinction. The variations of these genes tend to be similar among certain

The PBS series “Race: The Power of an Illusion” effectively works to expose race as a social construct and deconstructs the false notions that race is a biological marker. The series first discusses that all human beings originated from Africa but dispersed about 70,000 years ago to various places in the world. As a result of this migration, people were spread to different locations throughout the world with different environmental conditions that affected their physical traits. It was many years after the migration in which people began to display these new physical traits such as slanted eyes, fair skin, and differing hair textures. While the series notes the physical changes that occurred during the migration it also emphasizes that race while it may seem apparent in skin color and other physical features has no real biological basis.

Race is a social-constructed terminology where it categorizes people into groups that share certain distinctive physical characteristics such as skin color. However, race and racial identity is unstable, unfixed and constantly shifting, as race, typically, is a signifier of prevalent social conflict and interest. Although, many, particularly anthropologists and sociologists, argue in the aforementioned point of view, some – mainly white population -- believe that racial characteristics are biologically inherited.

If you strip away the flesh of the body, we would all look roughly the same. As humans we all have the same number of bones, we all bleed, we all feel pain, and we all have relatively the same brain. The ideal thought is that race is just skin deep. A white male should not be treated better than a black male. Both the black and the white guy have thoughts, feelings, and aspirations of greatness. It should not be assumed that the black male is more likely to end up being a thug, and that the white male will be a doctor. Both should be thought of as having equally likely chances of being considered a success in society. Both the white male, and the black male are human. If you looked at their skeleton, their brain, or their heart you could not tell the difference between the two. However, our society looks at race as if it is almost animal. Somehow black people are seen as a different animal, than a white person.

According to Charles Mills, race matters and is a category reflecting custom. These customs are broken down to racial classification matters. We as individuals associate race as a cluster of attributes. These attributes include physical and psychological/moral facets. When it comes to physical attributes, we focus more towards the skin, bone structure, hair color, and all biologically substances that human beings have naturally acquired. On the other hand, Psychological

The question that seems to be an ongoing topic of discussions is whether or not biological differences has any scientific validity when relating to race. The concept of race was established over the years based on physical features and variations of skin tone. These variations stem from environmental conditions causing slight variations in our genome. The essence of Homo sapiens is the same with slight variations in the DNA strands know as alleles. These variations are what cause physical differences that make up what we have defined over the years classified as different races. The variations have not evolved enough to prevent reproduction amongst the races.

Throughout the video, Race: The Power of Illusion, it describes how the human eye identifies race by physical appearance, which includes skin color, hair texture, and body shape. However, in this video, we learn that genetics can tell us something completely different. Our genetics can help determine that an individual can have a genetic makeup of more than one race. Alan Goodman, an anthropologist, said the following, “to understand why the idea of race is a biological myth requires a major paradigm shift.” I do agree with his statement. Our society is so focused on race and that a person’s skin color automatically associated them to one specific race. After watching this video, I believe that this is false. People have genetic makeups of

Race is not a biological reality because there are no indications of some biological DNA that would have a certain outcomes of a race. The variation in skin tone comes from the mix of certain races. For example, the mix of black and white would result a skin color of Latino. However, the mix of white and yellow (Asians) will most likely result a child having more essential characteristics of white people. It is impossible to classify humans into races because human is making a new race every single moment from the combination of two people who come from different races. Light skin and dark skin have a lot to deal with the temperature, latitude and langtitude of the region. It could be characterized by a regions, instead of ethnic groups. Race

Physical features do not always explain the person’s descent. They could have many different cultures and not even know they have one of them. People believe everything they hear without doing any research on the matter. People ignorantly say that they are strictly one race. They do not understand they can have multiple descents. In the article “Why Race Isn’t As “Black” and “White” As We Think” by Brent Staples, he explains “The result that knocked me off my chair showed that one-fifth of my ancestry is Asian.” (Staples 325) This shows how little people know about themselves. Most people go based off their skin color; this is why people do not do any research on the

I am very impressed by the concept of you and Justin's visual timeline. During undergrad, I was Communications major who used creative visuals for everything so it’s always nice to see what others come up with. In addition, the two events I enjoyed from your timeline were the Model Cities Legislation and the Race Riots, which were opposite chosen events amongst Team Four. I recall from episode three of the documentary Race: The Power of Illusion, the narrator mentioned that prior to the Fair Housing Act of 1968 “urban renewal was supposed to make cities more livable, [yet, conversely] 90% of all housing destroyed by urban renewal was not replaced. Two thirds of those displaced were Black or Latino” (California Newsreel, 2014). One can only

The main purpose of the video, Race- The Power of an Illusion, is to determine if DNA and what people believe is race have anything to do with one another. In the beginning of the film there is a classroom full of students who are about to do an experiment. The experiment is to analyze each students DNA and see who’s DNA in the classroom is relatively close match to each students DNA. Another big topic that comes up in the film is race.

Werner Herzog, a well-known figure in the world of German cinematography, is accredited for his creative use of local perspective, to show what he coins as “ecstatic truth”, as well as his focus on people with unique dreams, careers, and outlooks. In his documentary Encounters, he explored the population of the people working and living in Antarctica and tried to figure out why said people were drawn to such a cold and desolate place. The film featured stock footage with no narration and one-on-one interviews with repeated questions (Where are you from? Why are you here?). The documentary itself began with an introduction about how the film wouldn’t be about your typical “fluffy penguins” of Antarctica, but rather the people there and the