crash essay

The negative psychological effects of racism in the world are significant. Racism poisons our society through the unnecessary and recessive hate and ignorance it brings upon us. The movie “Crash”, directed by Paul Haggis, shows us how racism can sneak up on you and subconsciously affect your decisions and the way you act throughout day-to-day life. Even the best of people can incidentally succumb to racism, as exemplified by Officer Tommy Hansen, played by Ryan Phillipe. Officer Tommy shoots Larenz Tate’s character, Peter Waters, when they get into an argument in his car. Tommy reaches into his jacket to pull out his statue of the Patron Saint of Travel but Officer Hansen mistakes it for a weapon he then shoots and kills Peter Waters. Officer Hansen murders Peter Waters off of racial instinct even though he is the poster boy of a non-judgmental person in this movie. “Crash,” teaches us a valuable lesson by explaining the characters lives and how they affect the decisions they will make, as well as the decisions we go about making in our day to day lives.
“… You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view (…) until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." This is a quote from “To Kill A Mockingbird,” written by Harper Lee. This quote gives us the same message as the movie “Crash” does. “Crash” shows how certain aspects of people’s lives affect the way they act in specific situations. You cannot understand the way a person thinks until you really consider things from their perspective. In “Crash” certain characters such as Farhad and Christine Thayer are hard to relate to, they seem like bad people from the audience and other people in the movies perspective, for instance Michael Peras character, Daniel Ruiz. Farhad and Christine Thayer’s actions are wrong from our perspective but from their own perspective what they did was right. Considering situations from other peoples point of view is an invaluable skill. It would