Half a century in American history and still counting

Half a century, from the Oscar-winning "To Kill a Mockingbird" of 1962 (and earlier*) through "In the Heat of the Night" (1967), "Driving Miss Daisy" (1988) to 2005's "Crash"--all winning the top Oscar in their respective years--to this year's likely Best Picture Academy Award winner, "12 Years a Slave," the United States has examined and re-examined and then re-examined the issue of racism (read:  African-Americans as victims).

This also doesn't include "Roots" (the TV series), "Sounder" (1972), "Do the Right Thing," "The Hurricane," "The Color Purple," "Malcom X," "Precious," "Armistead," "Jefferson in Paris," "Ray," "Hairspray,"  just a few films among the dozens which presented African-Americans being lynched, beaten, humiliated innocent victims of the bigotry and abuse meted on them by white persons.

I'm not sure how much one learns that is actually new from watching these films.

The appetite in the past three years for such fare as "The Help, "Django Unchained," and "The Butler"--each of which had domestic box-office grosses of  around $150 million--appears unquenched.  To me there appears to be a strong element of masochism.  Maybe I'm lucky I'm not Caucasian.  I don't need to atone or to keep flagellating myself.

When all is said and done, in my opinion, in 2013, people are so afraid of being even the remote possibility of being "racist" (whether in their own eyes or in those of others), that they go out on a limb to excuse behaviors that would be considered disruptive, disrespectful, discriminatory, or even criminal.

The result is a kind of reflexive paralysis:  "Don't go there."    "Maybe I didn't see [hear] what I thought I saw [heard]."   "I'm only a stupid white boy."    "I am a member of the oppressor class; therefore I have no right to criticize."  

I don't know about you but I don't think the future prospect of sitting in a plane with a group of loud, belly-aching, finger-snapping, shrieking people anymore appealing than allowing passengers to freely jabber on their cellphones.

It hasn't happened yet but in the current climate of so-called multicultural diversity, anything goes, oftentimes.

It seems to me that few people think to themselves:  Maybe there are other reasons besides racism for the percentage of African-American families living below the poverty line.  People's destructiveness may not have anything to do with me.   Cultures are responsible for the values (or lack thereof) that they inculcate in their members.

I find that the idea that slavery is to account for the behavior of African-Americans almost a century and a half later frankly ridiculous, a grotesque rationalization.

Maybe this half-century-long portrayal of oppression and exploitation only leads to a whole people to wallow in self-pity and resentment--with the encouragement of much of society.

* for example, Lorraine Hansberry's "Raisin in the Sun" was a Broadway hit in the late '50's.