Nelson Mandela Movie Commemoration Day Reflection

For Nelson Mandela Commemoration Day, I attended both the "White Like Me" documentary viewing and the keynote address by Tim Wise. The "White Like Me" movie was very interesting and honestly, quite eye-opening for me, despite me being an African-American. While I am already well aware of the racism that non-whites experience every. Day here in the United States, as well as how things came to be. And why there is still racism, there was a lot that I learned in just over an hour from this documentary. The movie went on to explain how there is plenty of systematic ways that the government has oppressed black people.

In the documentary, there are a few white students asked about their knowledge on racism and white privilege. Every single student responded that they knew that racism happened, but they do not think about it often because it generally doesn't affect them. One girl even said that she tends to get slightly disappointed when applying for a job to see that the employer is "an equal opportunity" employer, and that she assumes that there will be "affirmative action" used to pick employees.

After the viewing of the documentary, there was a discussion panel between the viewers and a few members of the staff of the University of Southern Indiana. One student mentioned that she was aware of her "white privilege" but insisted that there was also "black privilege", citing the actor Will Smith and his family, and how well off that they are.

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However, it was soon established that the success of the Smiths have nothing to do with them being black, and that they would probably be even more successful if they were in fact white. At one point, I mentioned how my family is very diverse and that I've gone to school with a diverse group of peers, but having moved to Indiana and transferred to USI, it is pretty "white" here. This is also my first semester having an African-American professor, which I can really appreciate as a black student. It just strikes me as odd how I never noticed the lack of diversity in my professors until they actually became diverse.

The keynote address with Tim Wise was a truly remarkable experience for me. Mr. Wise quickly mentioned how talking about race can be very uncomfortable for many people, and that these things needed to be discussed anyway. He describes his childhood as him being the only white person among his peers, and that he associated himself with black culture because that is what he was raised in.

Even though he is a white man and he can acknowledge those privileges that he has as one, he became aware of the distinct racism and discrimination going on around him, and he fought back. Even with raising his children, he noticed that racism and bias is sometimes subconscious, and that he wanted to make the world a better place for everyone, starting with his two daughters and educating them on race relations.

Attending both of these events made me a better person by the end of the day. I am a history major, and I am very well informed on the racist history of our country, but in just a few hours I learned so much more that puts things in an entirely different perspective, and I can only imagine how eye-opening these two events must have been for those not that interested in history, or even simply white students who don't experience racism.

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