[Shirlee]

I have heard many people applaud the movie The Green Mile. The whole time I sat through it, while I appreciated the performances, I was uncomfortable. I felt it was blatantly racist. Am I the only person who feels this way? I feel like I am an island. I am white; I would like responses from other races.

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Name : Shirlee, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 46, City : Rochester, State : NY Country : United States, Occupation : librarian, 

[Rob]

You aren't the only one who feels this way, but you have to remembaer that it's OK to show white people as racist thugs - at least this is what is portrayed in the mainstream media. It seems that every time race relations seem to be going great, a movie like 'Mississippi Burning' (great movie) is created, then 'Hurricane,' then 'The Green Mile,' etc. The thought of judging people on what race they are hasn't even crossed my mind, and I find it offensive when movies show the opposite. Police officers are always portrayed as white men who harass blacks, when there are tens of thousands of black cops, too. I plead to those in the mainstream who really want race relations to be positive to perhaps show how races can get along and help one another.

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Name : Rob, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Catholic, Age : 28, City : Warren, State : MI Country : United States, Occupation : Architect, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[annonymous]

Shirlee: I empathasize with you. However,I dare ask you and other whites: weren't you listening when all the great religious and civil rights leaders were beseeching the majority in this country to understand that racism cuts both ways? Did you think it was pure rhetoric when they told you that as long as one brother is treated unjustly, we are all victims? Are you (and the rest of us) spiritually deaf to the ideas of Karmic debt and the notion of Collective Consciousness? While you as an individual may not exercise or harbor racism in your heart, that does not collectively exnorate you from the consequences of it. Perhaps, it is unfortunate that it is popular to bash the majority in these contemporary times. Without malice, I tell you welcome to my world. Now, personally you are experiencing what every minority in this country has lived their entire lives: shackled by unjust stereotypes and unwarranted criticism and ridicule. Now you are a victim of the collective consciousness in a conscious state.You are experiencing firsthand the injustice of being judged by the color of your skin soley and not your value as a individual human being. It is suffocating, demoralizing, and inhumane.What is even more ridiculous is the spiritual lunacy of this whole mess.In Truth,in spirit we are one. In the spiritual realm there is only sameness. We are one.Differences do not exisit. This pitiful illusion we're currently experiencing in this physical plane is manufactured in own small human brains.The evils of our ism's in this world is the result of spiritual amensia. We're asleep metaphysically. We have forgotten who we are. We are the children of God, and God doesn't have a color. Too bad it takes crisis for us to intermittenly awaken ocassionally and question the nightmare we're living.

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Name : annonymous, Gender : F, Race : Black/African American, Age : 34, City : Detroit, State : MI Country : United States, 

[Floyd L.]

If judging people on what race they are never crosses Rob's mind, he is to be both commended and recognized as a truly exceptional American. Our national history and psyche have been so infused with race that it is diffiicult to see how any engaged American could possibly escape it. To deny the fact of such influences is to deny one of America's most profound realities. This denial can invite skewed perceptions, such as 'race relations seem to be going great.' Perennially, race relations in America have been substantially lousy. Mean, ugly and deathly things have happened in the name of, or because of, race. The only way of getting around that fact is to ignore it. While basking in that fact is non-productive, only through understanding it, its myriad manifestations and its consequences do we stand any chance of getting out of our debilitating racial rut.

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Name : Floyd L., Gender : M, Age : 59, City : Memphis, State : TN Country : United States, 

[ACC24028]

Just from having seen the previews, the very premise made me uncomfortable enough to decide not to see it. The central idea of this movie seems to be an updated version of the 'Noble Savage,' that someone dark-skinned exists to 'save' whites from themselves because they are 'naturally' virtuous (presumably because of having endured the hardships whites put him through) compared to less-virtuous whites. Really, this is an attempt to replace negative sterotypes of nonwhites with negative ones of whites, as well as setting up an impossible standard of behavior for nonwhites to live up to. We shouldn't have to 'save' whites, we've got enough troubles of our own. Both groups should be insulted by this. We would all be better served by more realistic and nuanced attempts at portrayals of BOTH whites and nonwhites.

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Name : ACC24028, Race : Mexican and American Indian, City : W Lafayette, State : IN Country : United States, 

[Mandi]

There is a lot more truth in movies like 'Hurricane' and 'The Green Mile' than the two of you seem to be aware of. The statement in Rob's response, '...just when race relations are going great...' is an example of the problem that still exists. Race relations aren't 'going great.' Blacks still face acts of violence, prejudice in the legal system and oppression in the workplace. I don't know what's so 'great' about that, except that perhaps you don't feel it directly affects you. This is why these movies need to be shown.

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Name : Mandi, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Baptist, Age : 21, City : Boston, State : MA Country : United States, Occupation : student, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[K.R.]

I too saw 'The Green Mile' and found racist overtones (or undertones, if there is such a term) in the film. But unfortunately this kind of thing is seen all too commonly in the media today. This brand of racism may seem harmless because it depicts blacks or other nonwhites as being guileless and gentle, instead of wicked and depraved. But actually, because it is more subtle, harder to spot, and less likely to provoke outrage, it may be worse than more explicit and harsher racist protrayals. This, I think, could be due to the fact that not only does it convey all the negative ideologies inherent to racism (e.g. racial superiority), but it is also expressed in a condesending way.

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Name : K.R., Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Religion : Christian, Age : 22, City : Atlanta, State : GA Country : United States, Occupation : Student, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[Tiffany H.]

Did it grate on my ears to hear John Coffey talking in that 'Yes massa' dialect? Definitely. But was it historically accurate? I think so. As for the film being racist to white people by portraying them as the bad guys: I don't think so. Sorry to say, but at that time many white people were the bad guys. This film reminded me of the true story of a family cousin who was lynched in Louisiana for the rape and murder of a local white girl with whom he had been friends. It wasn't until he had been hung on a bridge directly in front of a church that the truth came out: She had been murdered by her white stepfather. The whole white town came out for the spectacle. The sherrif was quoted in the newspapers as saying he just couldn't keep the mob from coming in the jail to collect him (my cousin). This didn't occur in centuries past, but during the same time period as The Green Mile's setting.

Depicting historical realities doesn't mean you are capitulating to stereotypes. Just because we don't like what happened in the past doesn't mean we should deny its existence. Besides, Tom Hanks, the other hero of this story, is hardly the image of the 'evil white man.'

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Name : Tiffany H., Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Disability : Hearing-impaired, Race : Black/African American, Religion : Catholic, Age : 25, City : East Lansing, State : MI Country : United States, Occupation : Medical Student, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class, 

[Erik25241]

I agree with the first response as far as it goes, but the inital question wasn't necessarily referring to the negative portrayal of whites, but possibly to another bothersome aspect of a certain type of race-oriented Hollywood flick. Disclaimer: I haven't seen The Green Mile, but it appears to follow a long line of movies--To Kill a Mockingbird, Mississippi Burning, The Ghosts of Mississippi, to name just a few--set in the South which depict every black as a poor, helpless victim and every white as a demonic, racist fiend; and only when the liberal Northern white (or the sole nonracist Southern white) comes to town to rescue the black folks is all made right and the bad guys punished. Even where a film gives us a heroic, initiative-taking Southern black person, the audience gets his/her story through the eyes of an audience stand-in: the white, righteously liberal visitor who avenges or otherwise earns the respect of the strong black man on behalf of all righteous, movie-ticket-buying white folks. The ads and reviews for The Green Mile certainly seem to play into this well-meant but racist and embarrassing story pattern. Thanks for reading...

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Name : Erik25241, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 36, City : Ann Arbor, State : MI Country : United States, Occupation : Law student, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, 

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