Crash: Let's Not Talk About Race

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on October 26, 2005.

In my recent review of Waking Life, I argued that Richard Linklater's film was not pretentious (and, by extension, not contrived). Nevertheless, it remains true that producing a movie with an "obvious" message or theme is risky because such productions open one up to critical derision and ridicule. Such is the risk that Paul Haggis took with Crash (2004), an ambitious "ensemble" movie with a star-studded cast playing various characters who, um, "crash" into each other during two days in Los Angeles. The theme is obvious: race. The message is obvious: Racism is bad, and we are all complicit. And yes, the movie has its contrived moments that lack nuance (ironic, given Haggis' desire to discuss the issue of race in more nuanced terms).

Nevertheless, Crash grew on me as I watched. Perhaps it was because the script, despite its problems, kept me interested. After all, Haggis makes sure that the characters all intersect in a complicated urban web so that we can't help but wonder who's going to run into whom next. In addition, crime and law enforcement serve as the context in which the characters interact, and the advantage of the cops-and-robbers motif is that it almost always gives characters something interesting to do. (That is why I used to watch television's Law and Order—and a couple of its spin-offs—on a regular basis. Admittedly, the writing and acting of said franchise are mediocre, but the fascinating legal and criminological elements kept me going back for more.)

Yet, despite my generally positive feelings about Crash, I still wished that Haggis were more subtle. If he wanted to make a clear and obvious statement about race, then he should have written an essay or filmed a documentary. If he wanted to produce a drama, then he would have done better to focus on writing a more sophisticated, nuanced script—with characters that had more depth—and to allow the theme of race to simmer slowly. Instead, we are thrown immediately into a pot of boiling water and have little context in which to understand the characters. (Haggis essentially breaks one of the classic "rules" of good storytelling by having the characters explain too much. Don't talk to me, Haggis; show me.)

So, what about the issue of race? Unfortunately, I am coming to the conclusion that Americans will never be able to talk about "race" in anything approximating a dispassionate, reasoned discourse. In addition, perhaps our very attempts at discussing race are doomed to failure because we constantly find ourselves fumbling around, unsure of what to say and how to say it.

Let's first look at the term "race": We seem to be unsure of what it means. Even if we follow a simple, junior-high methodology (i.e., looking up the term in the dictionary), we come up with some ambiguous results; according to Merriam-Webster Online, "race" can signify, in part, "a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock" ["stock," eh? — that seems pretty biological]; "a class or kind of people unified by community of interests, habits, or characteristics" [this sounds cultural, rather than biological]; and "a division of mankind possessing traits that are transmissible by descent and sufficient to characterize it as a distinct human type" [we're back to biology]. And how does the dictionary definition of race differ from "ethnic"? The latter is "of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background" (my emphasis). So, according to Merriam-Webster, "race" is both biological and cultural and is somewhat akin to "ethnicity." Just looking at the definitions of the two terms, we can see (1) why people use them interchangeably and (2) why we seen unable to distinguish biology from culture.

Of course, the biology vs. culture divide is a hot potato. At its ugliest, racism manifests itself in the categorization—and subsequent treatment—of humans according to perceived physical characteristics. The "discipline" of eugenics, popular in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, was one logical outcome of biological racism. While eugenics is roundly criticized in most of today's academic and popular press, it is interesting to note the resurgence of biological explanations for human behavior; it doesn't take a vivid imagination to realize what intellectual minefields these lines of enquiry can generate. One example, of course, is Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (1995), which sparked a massive controversy that is still with us today.

Even if "mainstream" Americans end up rejecting (again) biological explanations, concluding that they are incorrect or immoral, we still have to deal with the trickier question of cultural racism (which is what Crash is all about). Even if one completely rejects the notion that there are "innate" biological differences between people groups, then how does that person deal with cultural expressions not to his/her liking? It's one thing to say that you're not going to judge someone by his/her physical characteristics, but what if you don't like a particular cultural artifact? Does a dislike of hip hop make one a racist? (Though, as many of us know, some of hip hop's most prevalent fans are white.) Or what about the classic Culture of Poverty argument, which states that certain beliefs, habits, and practices contribute to one's economic state — thus, one is poor because one's culture inclines him/her to poverty. You see where this can go; it doesn't take long before someone asks whether an ethnic group's cultural practices facilitate that group's poverty. Hot potato indeed. (Check out columnist Cathy Young's recent commentary on this very topic.)

So what is a Christian to do? How do we move "beyond" race? The New Testament presents us with two illustrations regarding our responsibilities to those we regard as "others": Jesus' inclusion of Samaritans in His ministry (e.g., Lk. 10:25-37, Jn. 4-1:26) and Paul's entire mission to the Gentile world. In both cases, we see God calling us to move outside our cultural (racial? ethnic?) spheres in order to witness, serve, and befriend. Thus, the issue of racism is not tangential to Christian ethics, but rather, an intrinsic part of it.

Yet, our discourse on race is so often scattered, contrived, and fake, especially when whites do the talking. On the one hand, we have the defensive posture: Somebody, somewhere, lodges an implication or accusation of racism, and the white person fires back that he/she is not a racist, that someone is seeking "preferential treatment" and "playing the race card." The defensive posture can take a more aggressive turn, as when some sarcastically call for the celebration of "European-American" heritage or for the development of "European-American Studies" curricula in colleges and universities.

On the other hand, we see the seemingly staged scenarios of whites who make public confessions of their racism and who set up programs of racial reconciliation. I certainly cannot—and have no right to—judge the intentions of those who engage in such activities; however, I can't help but wonder whether such practices mainly serve as catharsis for the penitent, desperate to shake off the fetters of White Guilt.

So what should Christians, particularly white Christians, do? It seems clear that biological racism, a judgment of another based on his/her physical characteristics, should be soundly condemned. It is almost impossible to imagine a scenario in which biological racism would be morally justifiable.

The issue of culture is a bit trickier. It seems that cultural practices that are morally neutral (i.e., that have no moral consequence, one way or the other) should play no role in how we judge another's character. In addition, cultural stereotypes that are exploited in order to mock a particular racial/ethnic group should be condemned. However, cultural judgments that are not moral but rather, aesthetic (e.g., dislike of hip hop or anime), should not be classified as racist since a preference that is genuinely aesthetic is (at least theoretically) not based on any racial/ethnic animosity.

Finally, I suggest that an antidote to our contrived discourse on racism is to avoid "discussing" the topic altogether. Let us not strive to talk about "racism" in a purely abstract sense; let us not hold staged sensitivity workshops that merely serve to alleviate White Guilt or to fulfill a political (rather than moral) agenda; let us be careful to avoid confessing our racism in overly public forums, lest we only receive our worldly reward (Mt. 6:5-6). Rather, let us reserve our energy for condemning and rectifying racial injustice when we find it in real, specific instances. Such a response would require more effort—and involve more risk—than we realize.