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Blindness: White Critics and Ethnic Films
While researching for a previous piece, I learned something that led me to this one. That’s the way it is sometimes — one creation leaves a trail to the next. Pieces flow, “one to the other” (Monsters…Maple Street) as if they’re forming themselves. The not-so-simple question of this piece is: How can a white person review an ethnic film, when their minds hinder them from actually seeing a film? How can they properly nominate films for prestigious awards if they themselves are unable to connect to the story/characters being presented on screen? How reliable are their reviews and nominations when ethnic groups are always at a disadvantage based upon white biases, privilege and emotional/mental connections that the white critic fails to achieve when viewing films that are not white?
Mirror Neuron System & Empathy
In “Can Racial Trauma/Racism Be Inherited?” we explored whether something other than nurture plays a role in both our physical and mental predispositions regarding racial trauma and racism. One interesting study from the University of Toronto Scarborough showed white people may indeed lack empathy. They hooked white people up to an EEG to monitor how their brains fired when…
