Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism in our cultures creates barriers from one another and often causes us to form incorrect opinions about each other. With ethnocentrism come racial discrimination, stereotypes, and even harsh actions. In the film “Crash”, characters of different background face the negative effects of ethnocentrism.

The main stereotype featured in the film was of blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians and middle eastern. Our ethnocentrism causes us to immediately form opinions about those that differ from us. In the movie, the whites assumed that all blacks and Hispanics were untrustworthy and violent. This resulted in unnecessary violence. The whites asserted their superior authority by doing what they pleased to the other races. This was due to the corrupt society and how there was no attention addressed towards the minorities. Due to their ethnocentric beliefs, the assumed that people of the same race and class acted in the same manner, as well as believing that their race was superior.

In the film, blacks couldn’t do anything without being judged and stereotyped as being poor and dangerous. The white family and police officers didn’t trust the blacks and took advantage of their superiority. The Hispanics were also instantly judged by the white lady and Muslim man as an untrustworthy immigrant. The Chinese man was smuggling illegal immigrants from his country, which the blacks were going to sell. Everyone in the film made general assumptions about others solely because of their race. In the end, a black man was shot accidentally because the white man concluded that he was going to take out a gun. The Muslim man didn’t realize how wrong he was about the Hispanic man, which he didn’t know had a child and many responsibilities. The white woman realized she could only trust the one person she discriminated against most, the Spanish woman. Moreover, the black man finally stood up for what