Racism in Film

The matter of racism is a very sensitive in the film/movie industry. Many directors have different approaches when confronting it. The lives of the directors themselves play a key role in addressing racism. Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List is the story of a German business man named Oskar Schindler who saves the lives of 1200 Jews during the holocaust by convincing Nazi members that he needs the people to work in his factory. Though a Nazi party member himself,  Schindler knows the value of a human life, Jewish or not. Spielberg has great knowledge of this event in history, but what makes him more connected than most is that his family were oppressed by the holocaust. His Jewish background helped him direct what it would be like for the Jewish workers at the time. Another example of a director with background to the movie is Spike Lee and his  work, Do the Right Thing. Spike Lee set up an average day in the streets on Brooklyn, New York. In this setting, people of different ethnic backgrounds such as blacks, Hispanics, and Italians interact with each other. When some problems happen around the community, racial tensions start to build up. Spike Lee new of this problem himself because grew up in Brooklyn. He himself had similar experiences with racial tensions when he was a child and adult, so he used that personal background in his films to bring up the problem with racism.

Sports in Racism

I am disgusted with calling myself an American after watching 42, Glory Road, and Remember the Titans and how racism ruled society. Throughout our nation's history, there has been racism towards all races, especially towards blacks after the Civil War. An example of this has been in sports. The sports of America in the past was highly segregated, with white (being the major form of entertainment and professional standards) and black leagues. Baseball was one example of a segregated sport. The professional teams were made up of white men, whose teams were well managed and funded by wealthy backers. However, there was an underfunded league for blacks, whose games were not taken seriously and just served as a means to play baseball for Negro players. This was the way of life in America until a player named Jackie Robison, a negro player who played in black leagues, was drafted into the major league on the Brooklyn Dodgers. This was the first case of a black baseball player on an all white team. This was taken seriously by crowds of baseball fans whose views still discriminated against blacks. They believed that blacks were not capable or fit enough to play with white players, and Robison had to take not only racial slurs and hateful shouts at games, but being threaten and pressured to leave the game. However, Robison pushed on and in 1948, helped win the World Series for his team. Similar cases of mixing blacks with white teams happened in other sports too, such as football and basketball. Overall, the change between two different leagues separating blacks and whites and joining the two was a long and challenging process. During present times, there are still racial tensions in sports, but mostly because of a player's performance and not the color of their skin. There is still more effort to be done with the total destruction of not only racism in sports, but in our society as well.