The film is definitely controversial and politically incorrect by today's standards--it was made in 1989 and so is nearly three decades old. Among other things, Clark frequently uses the word "nigger" to refer to African American students, including when addressing them. I kept thinking that the film would likely look much different if made today, even though it arguably depicts a true story and this is presumably how Clark dealt with other African Americans.
In a final assembly before the students are to take the state tests--after Clark has been working for months to reverse the trends at East Paterson--Clark (played brilliantly by Morgan Freeman, I might add!) says:
You are a bunch of niggers and spics and poor white trash.Then, referring specifically to the whites there, Clark says, addressing the African American and Latinx students:
They're just like the rest of you. They've got no place to go.This is part and parcel of a pep talk aimed at getting the students to bristle at how others see them and to take pride in themselves.
That assembly is the first time I noticed white students present at the school at all (except in the opening scene in 1967, when it was a primarily white school) because all of the action between Clark and his students centers around African American and Latinx students. But I thought it a good thing that the poor whites were acknowledged at this juncture, along with their presumptively dead end life prospects. The rhetoric I hear today so often suggests that white-skin privilege is going to carry even low-income, low-education whites wherever they wish to go. In reality, their prospects are often as poor as those of their Black, Latinx, and other minority counterparts.
I've been writing recently about the relative invisibility of white poverty and I've concluded that keeping poor and working class whites hidden and acting as if they share white privilege on par with more affluent whites may be psychologically soothing for affluent whites, but turning a blind eye to the problems of that community does nothing to solve those problems. Indeed, phenomena like deaths of despair suggest our general state of denial is only aggravating them.
In minority majority states such as California, it is incredibly difficult to imagine low income low education whites possessing a significant advantage over their African American and Latinx counterparts in advancing within society. In terms of employment, most jobs within California require a college education and knowledge of a second language (Spanish). Thus poor whites who lack a college education and knowledge of Spanish will have significant obstacles before them. Furthermore it is not difficult to imagine that some whites will be discriminated against within society by non-whites (reverse discrimination).
ReplyDeleteHowever portrayals of poor whites in the media and popular culture are never never made to reflects these possibilities. Over the long term ignoring the obstacles that poor whites face within our changing society will create more divisions and feeling of disenfranchisement.
First... I have never seen Lean on Me, so I looked up some clips. Morgan Freeman is pretty intense in that movie! I'll have to watch the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteI 100% believe that white privilege exists and I think that even poor whites maintain some trappings of it. However, I do agree that that the concept of white privilege is sometimes used as a blunt instrument to discount or sweep aside the concerns of poor whites. There is certainly nuance to when and how white privilege shows up for whites across class levels. However, I think that is a symptom of how conversations are currently playing out in society. There's a lot of focus on emotion and rhetoric... which is trumping nuanced analysis and empathy, particularly in media/online debates.
This post reminded me of the 90s' movie To Wong Foo, which is often considered a "classic" in LGBTQ circles. The film follows three drag queens, Noxeema, Vida, and Chi-chi—played by Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, and John Leguizamo, respectively—as they road-trip form New York to Los Angeles to attend a drag pageant. On their way to the west coast, their car breaks down and they find refuge in a small, rural town.
ReplyDeleteNoxeema, Vida, and Chi-chi are surprised at the accommodations they secure when they arrive. But they soon venture out and befriend a group of local women, who are planning the town's upcoming Strawberry Social. The event piques Vida's interest, who asks if there's "music and dancing." To which one of the women replies, "we use to have a hollering contest, but some people don't care for that sort of thing." Her response is supposed to elicit laughter. As the scene continues, Vida and Noxeema help the women develop a theme for the social, and then suggest they all take "a day with the girls." The latter provides Vida and Noxeema with the opportunity to provide each of the women a full makeover. And again, this rouses humor.
One problem with the film, however, is that a substantial amount of the humor is at the expense of the lower-working class locals, who are depicted as unrefined, and uneducated. Indeed, a running joke throughout the film is that they are so disconnected from the "real world" that they don't realize the new girls in town are men in dresses. Only in the concluding scene, when the townspeople come to the rescue of the three drag queens, does film mildly suggest the townspeople knew Noxeema, Viva, and Chi-chi were drag queens from the get-go, and that the locals were just being welcoming. But what good does that do, when the viewers have constantly laughed at their expense for the majority of the film!?
In short, as progressive a film as To Wong Foo may be on gender and sexuality, it is insensitive when it comes to class. In addition to the aforementioned, there's a scene in which a group of local young men are about to gang-rape Chi-chi, and another, in which a husband strong-arms his wife—enter Vida, who, ironically, rescues her by beating the husband up. Both scenes are supposed to impress upon viewers the sorts of townspeople Noxeema, Vida, and Chi-chi are dealing with: ones who are so backward they to resort to violence. Yet, rape and domestic violence are problems that afflict all class groups. So I’m not sure why the filmmakers felt compelled to include both scenes.
So what's the point? It seems it's socially permissible to make art that pokes fun at (rural) lower income folks because of their class, but that permissiveness fades with other groups.