Reflection 2

What does it mean for a person to be “multicultural?” Does a “multicultural” person have to relate to diverse cultures? Reflect upon them and accept them? Throughout the semester, the Film 150 students have been asked to analyze the ways in which visual media proposes or tries to challenge the status quo surrounding the issue of race and ethnicity in the United States from the perspective of Caucasian artists and those of color (African-American, Asian, Latino, and Native American.) In the process of this enlightenment on cultural diversity, I found it is quite apparent that the lens on a camera is able to capture what is being presented in front of it, but does that necessarily entail full truth? Ultimately, the images that we see in the assigned films do not have to shape the way we view others. In other words, the media mimics stereotypes and reproduces archetypes that follow the assumptions that illustrate the social groups that are present in our society.

If I traveled to 35th and Lisbon every Monday and Wednesday and assigned stereotypes to everything I saw in the media to real life, my experience at Our Next Generation would have been much different; African-Americans are characterized as criminals, gangsters, and drug dealers growing up in “the hood” in many cinematic instances. The Walnut Hill community is known to be an impoverished area and its outer layer- what is visible to the eye during the first glimpse of the sight- would support this fact. Nonetheless, I know that this is a mere portrayal of a person, or one group, out of a whole nationality. Many of the children I interact with at Our Next Generation are loving and nurturing people who have been taught by others to be this way. Most of my time was dedicated to two different girls- one was Asian-American and the other was African-American. I got a chance to meet both of their parents at the beginning of the Thanksgiving dinner that Our Next Generation held this year. Not to my surprise, both of their parents were kind souls who repeatedly thanked me for helping their girls throughout the semester. It was heartwarming.