MovieChat Forums > The Great Debaters (2007) Discussion > How Were Whites 'Demonized?'

How Were Whites 'Demonized?'


Everyone in the sharecroppers union was decent. In fact, it showed immense complexity, having the prejudiced pig owner rely on Washington's character, far more educated and connected, as leader. Such has been the case throughout American history; even throughout periods of deep-seeded racism and discrimination, there have been nuanced interracial alliances and encounters since day one. Everyone at Harvard and Oklahoma was decent too.

They showed lynching and racism because-shock--it existed.

Anyone who has a problem with this has a serious case of white guilt.

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Many parts of the movie made white people look bad, but thats the truth of the matter.

At the same time I was surprised that they actually had whites that could "tolerate" blacks in the movie. I didnt know any of them existed in the 30's, lol.

www.GirlsTalkinSmack.com

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Well, those pig farmers WERE bad. But I think the organizing sharecroppers all knew they had a lot more in common than their differences. It was a grim life.






God save Donald Duck, vaudeville and variety

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I agree with your Post 100%. I just finished up responding to this question on another thread, here is what I posted:

"Does this movie really demonize the whole white race? Or, does it show the wicked and evil of some members of the white race who use to lynch blacks in the south. Because I remember watching the movie and thinking about how well Harvard and the white population of Boston were represented in it. They weren't made to look racist or hateful, they set the Wiley college kids in a great dorm and made sure that they were comfortable. Did the whites not give the Wiley students a standing ovation when they won the debate? Did they not award them the prize in the movie. Was not the guy who met them at the train station, portrayed as a nice young Harvard student? Did whites not smile when they won? These certainly aren't demonizing representations?"

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Apparently, some of these people were never educated on the horrors of the Jim Crow south.

"everyone's entitled to my opinion"

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As a foreigner outside the US, I cannot understand the hatred the southern whites had towards blacks? Where did this hatred come from? What percentage of the southern population were like this - 80%, 90%, 95%?

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Okay, they basically hated blacks because they were free? Even 70 years after slavery was abolished?

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Steffan,

You should read up more on American history based on other sources. You are taking history lessons from a racist troll. The problem is a lot more complicated than he makes it to be.

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Im not going by any official history. Just movies like Rosewood and Mississippi Burning. It sounds like a complicated issue. Just hard to understand for a foreigner.

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Fifty years ago was 1958 before the Civil Rights or Voting Rights Act was passed and most places in the South were segregated. Also, right now theirs Jena and Katrina which shows that blacks still aren't treated fairly in the Twenty First Century.

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How were blacks treated less well than whites during Katrina? I don't think a hurricane can discriminate.

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I can't tell you how much I love this! You spend EVERY DAY thinking of me and what I might write here. Every day. I own you forever and there's nothing you can do about it.

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The people who were unable to evacuate New Orleans before hand were mostly poor and disproportionately black. The poor areas did not get enough help from the government in the evacuationa and then the government sent in soldiers who shot supposed black "looters" who were only getting needed supplies from abandoned grocery stores.

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But NOW it is the blacks who are doing the crime, the killing. Even you realize that. So what are we to make of you now??

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Wow - I really pushed your button. But here's the thing: We ALL know that blacks do the vast majority of crime. Even most blacks know this. There is more black on black crime than black on white crime.

YOU ARE THE PROBLEM, and we won't live near you so long as you stay the problem. We won't employ you either.

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@malkieva,puh--lease,

Bulls***---a lot of black folks wind up in prison due to profiling, being poor and black menas you don't have access to decent representation if you're innocent of a crime,and because they get watched more simply BECAUSE they are black, and due to negative stereotypes people have about blacks---always assuming that we have nothing *beep* better to do that commit crimes, when the great majority of us go to school (like myself) to work, and take care of our children. As a black woman, I'm tired of hearing that same bulls*** parroted out over and over again. How the in the living hell can black folks be doing ALL the crime if WHITE people are the majority? We are only ABOUT 13% of the damn pop., so that would mean that EVERY black man,woman and child would have to be criminals, which you KNOW is some utter and complete bulls***. That would mean that white people never commit ANY crimes, which you also know is utter and complete bulls***. This racist society has always framed black people as criminals or some other negative s***, no matter how law abiding we try to be. Yeah, there are black criminals that need to be locked, but stop acting like they're so much worse than the white criminals--a *beep* thug is a thug, no matter WHAT color they are.

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Don't get your history lessons from the Internet. You'll either get a black biased version demonizing all whites or a white biased version sugar-coating history.

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Stefan, the whole slavery thing is part of it but there is prejudice everywhere. Im sure you have it in your country, its no different. People will hate people just for being different and usually it has more to do with how they see themselves.

www.GirlsTalkinSmack.com

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Actually is was 246 years of bondage slavery, and another 100+ years of Jim Crow, including share cropping, and tenant farming.

I find, in being black, a thing of beauty: a joy; a strength; a secret cup of gladness. -Ossie Davis, Actor

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Don't speak for "most whites". Speak for yourself.

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About 98% of the white southern population felt this way...particularly in places like Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi!

I find, in being black, a thing of beauty: a joy; a strength; a secret cup of gladness. -Ossie Davis, Actor

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<<"Does this movie really demonize the whole white race? Or, does it show the wicked and evil of some members of the white race who use to lynch blacks in the south. Because I remember watching the movie and thinking about how well Harvard and the white population of Boston were represented in it.<<

No, it does not demonize them. This was their character and behavior. The movie objective was to show some of trials and tribulations black people went through but particularly what the Wiley College students experienced when they encountered some white people.

Note the movie is about many Historical FACTS! Many white folk acted just as the movie portrayed them. These types of incidents really did occur in the south.

I find, in being black, a thing of beauty: a joy; a strength; a secret cup of gladness. -Ossie Davis, Actor

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I really feel the movie showed the realities of the south.People were angry these blacks less than 100 years ago had been their slaves and now they were free,i think southerns truely resented that and of course they made blacks life hell.It is reality.Even today many white southerners still havent progressed much in terms of truely embracing different cultures nationalties,im from the south and the way they were potrayed in the movie id most definately accurate.But then,the whites in the north were alot friendly because of course the north was agiant slavery in the first place so it made no sense for them to have hatred towards blacks.

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I agree with the OP. This movie most certainly did not demonize whites, even though it very easily could have. There were good whites and bad whites, which is true to life at the time. I think the movie tried to tell the true story.

And I loved it.

Life comes at you fast, but you can't cry about it.
"Dan Otto"

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just another movie made by a bunch of *beep* i n monkeys!!

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They don't have "WHITE GUILT" they are holding a "WHITE QUILT" over their eyes, because they'd rather not see the truth.

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No whites were "demionized." This was the way it was period.

Too many of my fellow whites want to think Lincoln freed the slaves and then they had to wait a 100 years to sit at a lunch counter. Rape, violence and murder (those crimes they love to stereotype on blackfolk) was being committed by whites upon blacks for hundreds of years with impunity, for the most part. My wife's family is from South Carolina and they have horror stories as recently as the 50's and 60's.

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It isn't such a big deal either way if whites were demonized in the film, but I do think this film's lackluster box office can in part be attributed to the overall lack of ANY decent white characters. Think about it. Even in movies like 12 Years a Slave you had Brad Pitt's cameo as the guy who wrote the letter, or the northern whites that seemed like okay people. In The Help there was Emma Stone's writer and Jessica Chastain's ditzy housewife that were solid white characters. In Selma there was a nuanced semi ally like LBJ and other whites sympathetic to the Civil Rights Movement. But here? There aren't really any decent white characters at all.

Who do we have here? Either racist, anti union sheriffs and TX Rangers, or the redneck pig farmers that humiliated Forest Whitaker, or white privileged douche debaters. There aren't any sympathetic whites in the film, or even minor white protagonists. For a film that was trying to be a prestige Oscar flick, you need some white people to go see it.

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