Categorize Me

Are you racist? I like to think I'm not. However, society breeds certain mentalities in everyone and depending on how successful society is on this front the degree to which we generalize people because of their ethnicity, social status, or other attribute could be great or small. These sweeping oversimplifications of people are the cause of severe issues within society; but how do we keep from falling into racial discrimination patterns? There are ways to peacefully fight discriminatory tendencies that we face every day in America; Paul Haggis's Crash displays how this behavior perpetuates, often starting with a small action perceived in a negative way and continuing to grow in consequence and vibrancy, as well as how it can be solved, by not reacting to such negativity and therefore ending it or transforming a negative interaction into a positive consequence of that action.

Perpetuation is the easier and ergo more natural response to discrimination than stopping it. The projection of negative internal feelings on to others by the vast majority of characters within the story are quickly covered up with the defensive and selective use of stereotypes which in turn perpetuate discrimination based on racial, socioeconomic, and other such grounds. One web of hate begins weaving when Shereen (Marina Sirtis) is threatened. Farhad, her husband, steps forward to protect his family from the prejudices of people by acquiring a firearm. As he referenced the earlier incident concerning his wife, he explained why he had to purchase a gun to Dorri. "I should let crazy people do what they want to us?" No, and the way he saw fit to protect his family was by purchasing the gun to enable him to fight back if another encounter arose. This fear for his family drove him to buy the firearm, a negative consequence resulting from the negative action of his wife being t

hreatened.

While purchasing the gun, Farhad (Shaun Toub) is confronted violently by the gun store owner (Jack McGee) when he begins speaking a foreign language to his daughter Dorri (Bahar Soomekh). Upon hearing a language he did not understand, the gun store owner was afraid of the unknown, thinking about the events of recent history - September 11th, 2001. Linking these foreign sounds as well as his different ethnicity to the mass murderers that drove planes into the Twin Towers and "incinerat[ed] my friends", he becomes angry and apprehensive. His reaction, like Farhad's reaction to his wife's threatening, was a negative response to what he perceived as a negative action; his retort was to throw Farhad out of the gun shop to keep the gun out of the hands of a person he saw as a threat. In this way, the action that he perceived as negative turned into a negative consequence, perpetuating hatred.

Dorri remains calm throughout the incident, responding to the flow of negativity by rejecting to contribute to the hollering. After her father is dragged out of the store, she turns back to the gun store owner calmly, though irritated, and finishes the business of purchasing the gun for her father. Remaining composed for the situation, she neutralizes it. Dorri houses the initial example of turning negative actions into non-negative consequences. Rather than allowing fear to dominate her, she decides to react to the situation in a rational manner a" by not bickering uselessly. Though the action seems a small and simple one, this is the action that ended the drive of hate from one situation to the next.

Returning to the family store, it becomes evident as the family is locking up that the door to the store won't close and lock properly; prone to feeling vulnerable after his encounter with the gun store owner, Farhad calls in a locksmith to fix the problem. The locksmith Daniel (Michael PeAa) puts in a new lock, then tells Farhad that the door has to be replaced. In turn, Farhad claims that Daniel is trying to cheat him, yelling as Daniel leaves because Farhad still feels susceptible to being deceived. Due to his argument with the gun store owner earlier that day, Farhad still has the bad taste of mistrust on his tongue and, afraid of being swindled, takes the gun store owner's role in the previous argument: he starts throwing out accusations simply because Daniel is unlike he is and his fear makes way for hate based on unpretentious differences. Daniel explains to him that he isn't trying to cheat him, doing his best to remain unruffled; finally, he asks Farhad to just pay

for the lock and that he won't charge him for the time. Farhad continues to rant, so Daniel crumples the receipt, throws it in the trash can, and leaves without pay, neutralizing the situation. Farhad's fear of being cheated drives him to scream at Daniel who, in turn, decides that the best way to handle the situation is to be rational, realize Farhad was not going to pay, and leave. Though Farhad's intent was to attack Daniel and to make him submit to his hate, Daniel walked away from the situation, deciding that having to pay for the lock himself was better than enduring being called names when all he was trying to do was help. By walking away from the argument, he ended the perpetuation of hate.

When the store is broken into, Farhad blames Daniel and searches him out, gun in hand, firing at Daniel. Farhad is terrified for himself and his family; the store had been their whole means of survival. Taking his gun, he sought to solve "the feeling of human powerlessness" (Griffin) by striking back at the person he believes could have stopped the break in from occurring: the locksmith. Seeking Daniel out, he waits for his revenge patiently. Demanding the money to re-establish his store, he becomes furious when all Daniel has is fifty dollars, claiming that he "took everything" from him and that fifty dollars was not nearly