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Uprooting Racism

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Submitted By thelab22
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Gray Areas
White Man’s Burden is a film directed by Desmond Nakano, which shows altered differences among the white and black race. With accordance to Paul Kivel author of Uprooting Racism, racism is displayed by the good and the bad: between the light and dark. Different criteria shown in this film such as police brutality, work area segregation, separatism and the myth of the perfect family have become known to us as institutional racism. All of the noted prior differences are noticeable within the characters of the film. Thaddeus Thomas is a black upper class business owner; who shows great amount of separatism and segregation from the work area. While Louis Pinnock, a white struggling company worker faces police brutality and problems that affect his family and home. Although, the two men might be family oriented; they are examples of America’s institutional racism problems, between the colored and the whites.
Kivel briefly explains in the chapter “Separatism” (90); how black people cater to whites, the way being white has benefits and how some white folks feel unsafe when they are within a group of colored people. Thaddeu’s worker set the perfect example on how “Most people of color spend a tremendous amount of time and energy taking care of white people” (Kivel 91). His maid did all the housework, took his personal correspondences and answered all his calls in regard for him. Thomas Thaddeus has many great benefits that contribute to him because of his race. In his housing area, people of color aren’t socially allowed, “White-controlled institutions and individual discrimination have created this lack of choice.” (Kivel 91) Family is believed to be a unit, in which people love each other, care for one another and protect each other: Family usually conveys a good feeling. According to the perfect family myth, Louis Pinnock isn’t considered a good head of

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