Half of a Term Paper

Alyssa A. Barajas

Dr. David Preston

Expository Composition

November 12, 2013

The Visual Side

            Racism exists. It’ out there, day by day, year by year. History repeats, and not only does it repeat, it repeats even worse than before. Slowly but surely everything happens in cycles, and slowly but surely racism will repeat itself, whether we change our ways or not racism will come around again. It may not be as severe as it was back in the day, but in my opinion, it will get there. Maybe not in our generation, but eventually it will get so bad, the 1900’s will look as if it was just the beginning.

            I decided to write my term paper on not only racism, but stereotypes as well. Many of our racist comments, thoughts and actions come from the media. Whether it’s social media or the television, movies, or the internet, racism is everywhere. Early on, little kids emulate their parents; what they say, how they act, and how they treat others, whether it’s different races, genders or ages. We learn from a very young age, what type of race we like, what type we don’t like, and every feeling in between. It’s the sad truth, but it is the truth none the less. Now days, the media is involved in the everyday life of an American. Also happening in our culture, people, and kids mainly, mock the actions of actors and actresses. If a little child sees something on television that they like, you better believe they will mirror what they saw no matter how wrong or inappropriate it was. It is the same with racism. If someone on TV calls a black person a n****r, more ways than not, a child will develop those

Barajas Page 2

speech habits, and no justice is served there. With that being said, it is safe to say that the media is a huge contributor to racism and stereotypes.

            While beginning to research my information on this paper, I decided to turn on the movie The Blind Side, produced in 2009. This movie was a huge hit, won many awards, and what not. This movie though, is mostly well-known for the story line. No this paper will not be a “movie review” or a “critics must see opinion blah bah blah.” No. The Blind Side is the epitome of racism. I chose this movie as my main topic, because this movie shows every single example of racism, stereotypes, and White people versus Black people and so on. I don’t need to go into the story line of this movie to get my point across. Although some scenes from the movie help with my explanation of how media can influence our thoughts on racism and our actions in reducing our problem. The main characters are “Big Mike” and “Mrs. Tuhoy.” Big Mike is a homeless African American who is a junior in high school. He attends a very wealthy, high class high school, made up of mainly Caucasian descendants. Mrs. Tuhoy, a very wealthy mother of two that attend this school, takes Michael under her wing, and welcomes him into her home. Oh, did I forget to mention that this young man is over six feet tall, and as dark as night, who lives in what many people think of as “the projects?” Yeah, your thoughts just changed. How did I know that? Well of course they did. Its unconsciously embedded in our brains, that a white woman can’t open her home to an unknown black man, who she has no knowledge of what so ever. Even though, this man is an amazing human being, no one knows that, she didn’t know that when her actions overcame her thinking patterns. Our whole lives we have lived as hypocrites. Obviously no one wants to own up to it. Heck, I wouldn’t want to be known as one. But it’s true. We all preach,

Barajas Page 3

“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” and “we make our own decisions and we choose to learn our patterns we live.” Well that’s all bullshit. I will sit here and tell you, I am a hypocrite. I say things that I don’t abide by sometimes, and yeah I don’t take my own advise. I’m human, just like every single person reading this paper and I make mistakes like everyone else. Heck no will I walk down Main Street, at ten o’clock at night, and invite an unknown black man into my house. Yeah this movie inspires me to be a better person, but I will never do that. Why? Because I have been taught since I was a baby that the situation described is not a safe one. Obviously it’s not safe, but not the reasons many jump to. I could go around and take a survey, and about half of the people would not even care about what race the man was. Their main concern was the fact that I didn’t know the person at all. But the other half, the other half is the half I am focusing on. They would jump to conclusions and say, because he was black, or because he was whatever race is had previously mentioned. Those same ten people I can go up to at a different time, and ask them a very random question pertaining to outer and inner beauty. I guarantee that each one of the ten will respond with some cliché answer, relating to the “Don’t judge a book by its cover” thought. Like I said before, we are all hypocrites. The same type of response I gave in my example actually happened in a few scenes in this movie. As I pointed out before, this movie is placed in a very wealthy city, mainly populated by wealthier Caucasians.  Some of Mrs. Tuhoy’s girlfriends have the same response as those five hypocrites in my early example. They questioned Mrs. Tuhoy’s judgment, character, and her family’s protection. Not because this man was unknown, or because this young man was an underprivileged homeless, no, they didn’t even think twice about that. What they did think about was the fact that he was a very large black man. His

Barajas Page 4

ethnicity comes up quite often in this movie. The plot goes on, to actually prove most of the community wrong, in the sense that Mr. and Mrs. Tuhoy were very kind and generous to let this boy into their home, and into their family. He becomes a star athlete at the high school, and becomes very popular because he is an all around great kid. The movie begins to feel a bit cookie-cutter. Until one huge scene that comes back to the racism thinking. The Tuhoy household is accused of partaking in the brainwashing of their adopted child. The NCAA then accuses the Tuhoys of corrupting Michael into going to Ole Miss, which is their Alma Mater, instead of Tennessee their rival. This scene is huge in the movie, due to the fact that the Tuhoy household was “too good to be true.” How in “God’s name,” could a white family take in a black young teen, without getting anything in return? How is this even possible? Apparently that’s what the community was thinking, since that’s who tipped off the NCAA in the first place. The movie continues on with warm scenes and loving moments, but my topic is still in the game. This movie is a prime example of racism against the Caucasian families and the African American descendants. 

My examples can continue on further, but my point remains the same: racism exists everywhere. Whether we like to admit what we think we know or not, it’s out there. It’s the sad truth, but somebody has to exploit the issues to make it relevant in our society.

Barajas Page 5

Bibliography

I based my term paper of an original movie, The Blind Side by John Lee Hancock. I used all my original wording and thoughts. Since this paper is based off of a movie, and not off of the internet, I can not provide a works cited page.