Media Reflections: Against African Americans: Michael Moore
Click to viewIn Detroit, a black man was killed for holding a VCR remote (gun?).
A man was killed for holding a hairclip (gun?) and even a spatula (gun?).
4 police shot 41 bullets at a man for holding a wallet (all 4 saw a gun?).
Michael Moore stages a switch from people's old wallets to BRIGHT orange
wallets. Jerome Richardson was shot for holding his keys (thought it was a gun)
and and another was shot for holding a chocolate bar, mistaken again, for a gun.
Michael Moore pointed out all these mistakes were only made in the case of....
a black suspect.
Where does this hidden prejudice come from? Is it from the culture we grow up in? Would the same mistakes that have occurred in America be present in other countries? It is quite possible that are culture is the reason for such prejudice. Would an African American male be shot by mistake in a country such as Africa? Or Japan? And why exactly didn't any of these police officers try to be 100% about the "gun" in these mens hands before taking their life? Is it because they are naturally "individualistic"? They don't see the group goals (of the entire country) over the self perhaps? And another question raised by the amount of the people participating in the events in front of the NY police department: could it be considered collectivism that these indivduals have banded together, at the possible detriment to themselves (arrested for "loitering" or something), to prove a point (the point being that black men were shot and killed while holding various objects other than a gun).
Interestingly enough, Japan and China both have a reputation of collectivist idealogies in their society. One particularly prejudice one, is not allowing anyone other than "insiders" inside of some establishments.
