Race Relations

Despite our melting pot image, dangerous stereotypes, prejudice, and intolerance continue to infect American minds, and teens who are still shaping their worldviews are especially susceptible. Race Relations sidesteps the usual broad black vs. white conflicts to look at much more subtle, but equally harmful, forms of prejudice through four open-ended vignettes. In the first, two white girls speculate about the race of a new girl who is a light-skinned Latino. In the second, groups of African-American teens deal with "hue envy"--where the darkness or lightness of skin tone is perceived to be a factor in whether you make the basketball team, are attractive, or even if you're "black enough." In the third skit, an African-American girl getting ready for a date (who she says is tall, dark, and handsome) locks horns with her father when her date--a Caucasian boy (who has dark hair)--shows up at the door. Finally, in the most telling vignette, one teenage boy badmouths a particular ethnicity, and then is joined by a friend who happens to be of that race--an act that is repeated several times until a member of each major ethnic group is represented. At the end, they all happily go off to play a friendly game of basketball, their individual friendships obviously unaffected by their knee-jerk prejudices. With such interesting content, it's a crying shame that the production values are so shoddy, including home camcorder quality video, echoing sound, many single setup scenes, and scant attention to light, sound, or composition. Recommended, with reservations, only because this is sure to be a lively discussion starter, and because prejudice within racial groups is often overlooked in diversity education. Aud: J, H. (E. Gieschen)