In my opinion, race is powerful because we allow the differences in our ethnicities control how we think of each other. Throughout history, minority ethnic groups have been mistreated and denied their rights because they didn’t share the same skin colour as the white people. Race is powerful because we are afraid of the things that differentiate us instead of embracing them because ultimately race is just a skin colour. Underneath it all, we are all one and the same. The documentary serves to show people that race doesn’t really matter so it shouldn’t make a difference.
Mr. Dhamer is of the opinion that race has its good and bad side, but it seems to do more harm than good. The Dahmer family experienced the full brunt of racism as Mr. Dahmer was killed and his store and home burnt. This is one of the negative effects of racism. It leads to the loss of innocent lives. It also results in the loss of human rights for minority ethnic groups as blacks were not allowed to vote and were at some point in time only employed as slaves.
If the tables had been turned, the Europeans’ opinion would have been taken into consideration and the outcome would have been completely different. The judicial system as well didn’t operate in the best interests of society as whole. This is yet another negative effect, corruption. The Dahmer family case took over thirty years before they finally got justice. The real criminals here went scot free because they were of a different ethnicity, they were European.
Even in this present day, racism has not been completely eradicated. Minority ethnic groups still have to do double the amount of work to get noticed or to achieve the same results as the Europeans.
References:
www.understandingrace.org/history/timeline/movie.html
