The Color of Fear

As I watched The Color of Fear on Thursday afternoon, it really struck me how unusually formatted the whole documentary was. The entire film was comprised of eight North American men sitting in an isolated room, where they talked amongst themselves about race and discrimination. Of the eight North American men, there were two African American, two Latino, two Asian American and two Caucasian men.

Toward the start of the film, the men talked mostly about “white privilege” and how that had a serious negative impact on most – if not all – minority groups. It was during this part of the discussion that something happened that really stuck out to me. Victor, one of the African American men, was talking about some of his frustrations in dealing with discrimination and racism, when suddenly he burst out into a full-fledged rant and didn’t hold back. He later noted that he initially didn’t want to rant, for fear of fitting into the stereotypical “angry black man” persona. However, he ultimately decided to shove aside his fear, because he realized that “if we do not give in to our full humanity, we are dead.”

Another part of the film that struck me as surprising was how David, one of the Caucasian men, appeared to be very sheltered, and had essentially no concept of the prevalence of racism in America. Pretty much nothing the other men told him helped him realize that he was at fault, until he finally admitted that he grew up in an environment that was highly racist, and that his own father would beat him if he tried to go against what he was told. It was at this point that David finally came to see how he was wrong, and, in a tearful state, promised that he would do anything he could to help out the minority groups.

Later on in the documentary, one of the Asian American men brought up the topic of interethnic racism within the context of white supremacy – essentially, the notion that minority groups can be racist toward one another. One example of this tension is the general thought that people of brown skin color – meaning, not darker-skinned African Americans – don’t have it “as hard” as black people. This would indicate that Victor, for instance, would not have to deal with as many struggles with discrimination as the other African American man in the room, because between the two of them, Victor had a lighter skin tone.

The last part of the film that really caught my attention was how Yukata, the Japanese American man, described how his family had to assimilate to fit into American culture so that they would not be thrown into the internment camps during World War II. In fact, they assimilated to the point where they wanted to appear as a “white” family, and his father even gave up his religion of Buddhism and turned to Christianity. Yukata then noted that he had started to get more in touch with Buddhism, in an attempt to bring back some of his family’s culture.

In essence, a significant portion of The Color of Fear was centered around the CRT term “passing,” or “crossing the color line and gaining acceptance as a white person.” This is something I think minority groups are subjected to all too often, and I believe we should all feel comfortable with being proud of our own culture, while still being proud to be American citizens. Racial identity is unique to everyone, and it’s important to be able to be proud of our original nationalities, regardless of where our ancestors came from. Putting others down simply because of the color of their skin is not acceptable, and this is something society as a whole needs to work on.