New York City. Comprised of millions of people from different countries, cultures, ethnicities, and religions. It’s a heterogeneous mixture where people with similar cultural backgrounds stick together for the familiarity. Yes, we do like feeling safe with people who share similar views, ideals, cultures, etc., and the majority of us are open to others. Being integrated yet separated are both good and bad things. Integration helps us to get along and understand each other or it can create tensions between races. Separation can keep a community together yet cut off from others – also creating tension. “Mad Hot Ballroom” and “Do the Right Thing” show us different ways how integration and separation can bring us together or tear us apart.
“Mad Hot Ballroom” is a documentary of a ballroom dance program that takes place throughout the five boroughs, and there is a competition to see which school has the best dancers. The film documents a few schools from the hundreds that participate in the program, focusing on their background, environment, and the students’ thoughts. In a way, we are given the opportunity to see the students’ thoughts and views on different topics. Being pre-teens ( I assume that is the range of the students’ ages), they can be mature for their age: girls talking about characteristics they would want in their man and a girl talking about topics most adults would assume children would not know about. There are times when they do talk about topics that most adults assume the students would talk about: cooties, girls and guys talking about the opposite sex in terms of who is cute and the sort. There is a wide range of topics that kids talk about. In addition, the documentary also shows the students’ backgrounds in a subtle manner. We are shown the backgrounds. We do not hear about their backgrounds. In one school, we see the teacher and her students going into clothing stores such as Rainbow and Conway to look for clothes for the competition. In another school, a girl goes into her own room furnished with a TV, bed, closet, desk, and other amenities and takes out a nice dress from her closet for the competition. These contrasts show us the different economic backgrounds the students come from. We also see the different ethnicities that come together to dance. In one school, we see only the hispanic community and the effects of the program. Near the end of the documentary, we hear the principal talking about a girl in the competition who used to go to the office often because of her attitude and actions. Now, with the ballroom dance program, the girl has not been in the principals office since. Because of the programs, the students are given the opportunities to do something they like to so and thrive doing so. In another school, we see blacks, whites, asian, brown, and others dancing together. In the beginning of the documentary, we see some hesitation as students pair up, but later on there is less hesitation, as we see in one part where the dance instructor tells the students to switch partners in the middle of the dance. Furthermore, dancing has brought the different communities together for one goal: ballroom dancing. Yes, there is the competition, but the students learn to love the act of dancing itself and the competition is an added incentive to become even better. It is through the one program that so many communities are integrated together without any violence.
“Do the Right Thing” shows us the different views the communities have on each other. After Vito’s and Mookie’s argument, we then listen to the different races stereotype each other with racist comments. And yet, the community in Brooklyn is still living together with the tension building up. Throughout the film, we do not see a single store owned by a black person although there is a radio DJ who is black. We do not know who owns the station but the way the radio DJ talks is smooth and calming. Personally, I feel that he may be the most detached because even though he talks with the people, like Mookie when he deliver’s the chicken parmigiana, he is still blocked off from the community behind his glass wall. This separation between one man and the rest of the community may show how each race is separated from the other and the tension between them silently grows everyday. I still see this tension in today’s society. I still hear racist remarks that people make. It’s can be difficult to differentiate the jokes, but it’s easy to hear the distaste and anger a person has towards the “other.” This movie puts the racism out there. It puts it directly to peoples’ faces. We can’t deny ever having been racist because we all are, whether we like it or not. To be able to accept the fact, can be the way to slowly rid of it, but the stereotypes will never be fully eradicated.
Personally, I can relate to “Do the Right Thing” really well because I have seen racism in my childhood. When I was young, I couldn’t speak nor read well. My mind was still figuring out the languages: tagalog, ilonggo, and english. In the end, my teachers told my parents to speak english so I could communicate with others. It never worked out. That act just screwed my mind over. I could have learned three languages, but instead, I learned one with a mix of the other two. Anyway, I couldn’t communicate or understand well. One day at school, I was in Pre-K and I was standing with my big, fluffy jacket because it was cold. A white girl came up to me with her posse and said stuff to me. I could tell she was angry because of her tone and she started to choke me by wounding the string of my hood around my neck. The incident wasn’t long but when I look back I feel rejected, wronged, violated, shunned, hate, and anger. Even the lunch lady didn’t believe me when I tried to tell and show her the girl who choked me. The lunch lady only had a quick word with the girl. This was the only serious incident that happen to me. This most probably affected me and my view of the white people because I was surrounded by them for most of my life. I didn’t really know about any other ethnicities except through TV shows and their portrayals of them. There is so much more to this story that I don’t know how to tell it. Or maybe I just don’t want to continue it. But in high school, I met so many people of different ethnicities and races that I didn’t feel isolated or alone. I made friends whom I still keep in contact with today. Because of one of my friends, I don’t feel that animosity towards white people because it’s not all of them who are like that. I can’t generalize a group of people’s actions for the actions of the whole. It’s unfair to those I haven’t met, but I’ll still feel wary towards people in general because of all the mental beatings I have taken.
I honestly do not know how to end this. It has become personal, but not too personal. But in a way, we all have to live in a balanced society of integration and separation – or try to. The ideal is to live without racism, but the real is that we do. We just need to accept it. Once we accept that racism is still there, we can slowly take steps. We shouldn’t take anything personal because what do they know? Not much. Just laugh it off because there is no need to dwell on it and cook anger and hate. Just shrug it off.
