The God of Small Things

The movie “Crash” is unlike any other movie that deals with race relations, throughout time there have been many movies that focus on racism but most just deal with the tensions between whites and African-Americans. “Crash” is quite different, it takes many different facets of racism and shows how it is cut both ways. With its multi ethnic cast, Crash walks viewers through the lives of whites, blacks, Latinos, Koreans, Iranians, criminals, Police Officers, the rich the poor, a the powerful and the powerless. All of whom are defined by racism. One character in particular stood out to me throughout the movie and that was Police Officer John Ryan. The actions of this character exposes another example of bigotry in law enforcement which in the end is replaced with a sense of heroism in his acts towards others.

One scene in particular that stands out to us when we think of the movie “Crash” is towards the beginning when Officer Ryan pulls over a black upper class couple after catching them participating in some sort of sexual act while driving. We immediately see the police officers bigotry toward the couple as he treats them as some form of criminals, forcing them to step out of the car and searching them. He gets to the black women and completely violates her by touching her inappropriately right in front of his partner and the womans husband. Ironically neither husband or wife utter a single complaint because of the power this white police officer holds over