Race Leads to Unfair Personal Value Judgment

The world of race relations is complex. Race often leads to unfair personal value judgment one and other. A person’s character and intelligence is often determined and judge by their race, in strangers’ eyes. People of different races often has only one character in other people’s eye, and are often base on the stereo-types of that race. These misunderstandings lead to unnecessary conflicts between people of different races. Examples of unfair value judgment that lead to unnecessary conflict is shown in pervious examined text: “Crash”, “Othello”, and “To Kill a Mocking Bird”.

Race causes wrong and unfair value judgment of people to people. In “Crash”, in the scene, where the locksmith, which is a Mexican, was doing a job for a white couple. The white woman believes that, because he is a Mexican, he mist be a gangster that will keep a copy of their keys and rob them later; and she request to her husband to have the keys change again straight afterwards. Throughout the film, it is shown that the locksmith is a good family man that does his job and has a good temper towards un-polite behavior of others towards him; which is absolutely different from what the white woman thought he is. In “Othello”; Othello is accuse for marrying a white girl (Desdemona), which is in-appropriate, because black men are all evil and bad and don’t deserve a white girl (according to others value judgment towards black men). Desdemona’s father, Brabantio accuses Othello of stealing his daughter and said that Desdemona “is abused…by spells and medicines” (II,i,60). Brabantio believe that Othello has charmed and abuse Desdemona, and that he is a moor, a bad, evil man; and Brabantio made all these judgment and accuses all bases on one fact, that Othello is a black man. Through the play, we can see that Othello is not that kind of person Brabantio think he is; and he did not charmed and abuse Desdemona. Both examples from “Crash” and “Othello” demonstrate the wrong value judgment of people to people base on their race, which is unfair and could cause complication in people’s relationship with these wrong racial-impressions.

Race causes conflict that is unnecessary, either physically or verbally. Examples of unnecessary conflict are shown in “Crash”. In the scene at the beginning of the car crash accident, a Hispanic woman and an Asian woman’s car was crash. Both the Hispanic woman and Asian woman accuse each other of being the one the blame in this accident. The Hispanic woman think that it must be the fault of the Asian woman, as Asian’s is usually being claimed as bad drivers in the western world; and therefore the Hispanic woman thinks that this Asian woman must be a bad driver and causing this car crash. The Asian woman also accuses her to be a bad driver, and the reason is base on her race. The verbal conflict between the Hispanic and Asian shows that they both see each other as racial stereo-types; and this verbal conflict might not be as dramatic, if they are both of the same race. Also in another scene of “Crash”; where two black men robbed a white couple. It started when the white women of the couple first saw the two black men; she immediately thinks that these black men must be gangster and robberies, because they are black. On the other side, when the two black men saw the white women hide behind her husband; they immediately think that she must afraid of them being robberies, and that she must be racist because she is white. The two immediate person value judgment from both sides caused the conflict, as the black men are angry white people must think that all blacks are robberies; and as the white women had thought, the two black men robbed them. This physical conflict is unnecessary and won’t occur if they are the same race; or that both of them do not have this racial-impression in both of their minds.

Unfair value judgment may lead to unnecessary conflict and sometimes, these conflicts can cause tragic events. In “To kill a Mocking Bird”, a black man – Tom Robinson has been accuse for raping a white young women; which the truth is, that white young women was making sexual advances towards Robinson. Robinson’s lawyer – Atticus has show and proven significant evidence that shows Robinson’s innocence, but at last, Robinson was still convicted and was executed. This tragedy is cause by race; is cause by the fact that Robinson is black. At the beginning of this case, except for Atticus, nearly no white people believe that Robinson is innocent; they all believe that a black man who is willing to help a white woman, the black man must be wanting to take some advantage off that woman, as blacks are all wicked. No matter how Atticus had fight for Robinson, he is already convicted in the beginning, because he is black, and no one will trust him. If it is not race, this tragedy might not happen. Another example; in “Crash”, the scene where a white police let a black man on his car to have a free ride, and then killed him of misunderstanding that the black man wanted to kill him. This example is very similar to the pervious one; although the white man wanted to help this black man, but at the very beginning, as the black man got into his car, the white man did not trust him at all. When the black man tries to show the white man a toy, the white man thought he is pulling out a gun, and killed him immediately. This tragedy is also cause by race; the black man was not trusted at the beginning, because he is black. The misunderstanding of the race of black, cause two black men’s death in pervious examples, which is very tragic and shameful.

Race makes people have the wrong impression to people of another race base on the well known racial-stereotypes. These wrong impressions, wrong value-judgments are unfair and lead to many conflicts that are unnecessary, and tragedies that are avoidable; these makes the relation of people of different races very complicated. Examples are shown in text; of how avoidable conflicts and tragic events happen, because of race. There will never be an end to these problems, until we stop dividing ourselves into different groups, and until we treat all human as one race.