Critical Study

Karin Danino
Prof. Robert Tumas
Assignment 2: A Critical study - English 1010
I agree with Kwame Appiah’s essay and his beliefs about racism, I believe that we all should move beyond racism and then all of us will be happier in the place we live in. We all should know that life is a onetime journey and we should make the best out of that journey.
Kwame Appiah brings in writing how difficult it is for race to be determined, especially to those who part of their family is from one race and the other from another. It is clear to see how cynical he is about identifying a person by a race, and showing hypothetically two brothers from same birth parents with two different race identifications. As Appiah describes it: “Two people marry. The wife has one Ghanaian and one British parent. The father’s parents are Norwegian. They have children of various shades, one of whom looks, to all intents and purposes, like an average Norwegian. My friend Georg agrees that the mother’s parents are of different races and contends that the Norwegian looking son is Caucasian, but his darker brothers are not.”(105) is this even possible to agree with? Two children from the same birth parents are being treated in a different way only because of their skin tone? After all they are growing under the same roof, with the same manners and the same guidelines, so why aren’t they the same race?
In the movie “Do the right thing” I can find the answer to Appiah’s statement: “If we are to move beyond racism we shall have, in the end, to move beyond current racial identities.” In one of the scenes in the movie a white guy steps on Bugging out’s new white Jordan’s, you can see how Bugging out and his friends are saying that this is a black neighborhood; what does this white guy have to do here? And you can see how they are referring to themselves as black. So how can humans move beyond current racial identities if they are referring to themselves in a racial identification? If we all are so bothered with racism, why are we using it towards ourselves?
Another scene in the movie is making my point clearer. Bugging out got himself thrown out of Sal’s Pizzeria for making trouble, then after a short conversation with Mookie he says: “Hey Mookie, stay Black!” This makes you think, is black really only a skin tone? Or is it a whole culture or behavior code? If it is not only a skin color, why is it a race?
The understanding that humans are treating themselves with “Racism” is amusing. We are the only ones that are really abusing this identification code, and, we might as well stop, then maybe we can stop carrying this “legacy” to our future.
I do believe that Spike Lee agrees with Appiah’s thoughts; through the whole movie you can see how cynical he is with black, yellow and white. He is making the movie on one of the hottest days in the summer to show us all how things are getting to the extent while people get hot and tensed. But, if we look closely, I believe he is trying to say that we are all human beings, and when we are hot we are angry and we are exploding, and this shows that there is no real difference between cultures or racial identities. Appiah says: “…I want to explain why American social distinctions cannot be understood in terms of concept of race: the only human race in the United States, I shall argue, is the human race.”(102) and this is exactly what we can see clearly in Spike Lee’s movie.
To confirm my point you can also refer to Radio Raheem’s part at the movie. During the whole film he is bothering everyone with no difference between their skin colors. He is fighting the Hispanics with the radio volume. He is walking the streets and bothering the three black guys with the noisy music. He is walking into the Pizzeria and bothering all of the customers and Sal with his radio. He is entering into the convenience store and bothering them as well. This is showing us that we all have the same feelings, just because Radio Raheem is black does not mean that his actions do not bother other black people. They all threat him with the same rage and they are all saying it out loud that his radio is bothering them. Which brings out the human race and not any other race identity.
Reading Appiah’s essay and watching the movie brought me to understand that we should not carry race in our mind. I believe that we should move beyond racism and then maybe the word Race and the definition of it will go away by itself. If we won’t use that definition in our minds and we won’t choose our way of living by those definitions we might be able to eliminate race and racism from our life and from our culture.
I know race is a definition we use for centuries but if every one of us will consider himself first as a human being and not as a part of a race, we are going to be equal to one another and not different from each other. By doing so, we can eliminate this way of identification from us and from our future, and raise our children without using race identity.