Mississippi Burning

At school, we watched the movie Mississippi Burning and later received an assignment to reflect on the movie. I chose task 5: to reflect on a quote expressed by one of the characters about why racism had such a strong presence in the community the movie took place in. I chose this task because I thought it was a very interesting task, because it showed the racism from a different perspective, and also because there was a lot to write about this topic.

In the movie Mississippi Burning we clearly see how strong racism was in the southern United States during the 1960's. One of the characters, Mrs. Pell, talks about how it came to be this way. She says that people are not born racist, but that they are taught to be racist from a very young age by their parents and teachers.

I think the quote shows that most of the white people in the southern United States were not born bad people, they were "brainwashed". When you are young, you usually believe everything your parents tell you. If your parents told you that blacks were worth less than whites, you would not know any better than to believe them. When these young children grew up, they would in turn teach their children what their parents had taught them.

I do not think that Mrs. Pell was a bad person. I think she just felt helpless and followed the standards of the society she lived in. She says, "It's ugly. This whole thing is so ugly." This shows that, deep down, she did not agree with the racism. However, she did not want to turn against  the town and all the people in her life. Her husband, for one, was a very hateful and violent man. I believe that Mrs. Pell was  afraid of him and what he would do if she turned away from the racism.

Mrs. Pell was just an average white southern American. She followed the standards of her community out of fear. She was not a bad person. I think her character portrays how many southerners felt at this time. Mrs. Pell says, "People look at us and see only bigots and racists." This shows that she did not like the situation, and felt that she was misunderstood. I think Mrs. Pell was a normal person who had been affected and influenced negatively by her community her entire life.

You can read more about Mississippi Burning here.

Deep Ecology

In Searching 10 we read about some of the strain that humans are putting on the earth through our way of life. We read about pollution, and how it is threatening life on earth, as well as the danger we are inflicting on our planet's wildlife. This closely relates to what we have been learning about in RLE: Arne Næss and his "deep ecology".

The term "deep ecology" was invented by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss. Deep ecology centers around seeing the connections between all living things, and between our own lives and nature. One important aspect of this philosophy is that humans are no more important than other creatures, and that all living things have the same right to live on this planet undisturbed. Despite this, humans have lived as if they are superior for ages, and have not always treated nature with the respect that they should.

We find many examples of how humans have mistreated nature in the texts we read about pollution and wildlife on pages 214-216 in Searching 10. For instance, poisonous gases from factories have risen into the air and turned acid rain into a common issue, a result of man's industrialization. Another example is how humans nearly hunted the buffalo in North America to extinction.  Deep ecology focuses on putting ourselves in the place of all the creatures we are hurting, and to only intervene with nature when it absolutely necessary in order to meet our needs for survival. We are clearly not doing that. Only by recycling the Sunday edition of the New York Times, 75,000 trees could be saved each week, and yet so many people simply throw it in the trash. It is only a matter of caring enough to put it in a recycling bin instead. Deep ecology says we need to stop and think about how our actions will affect nature, something many people do not take the time to do.

Deep ecology is all about preserving our planet and to remember that we are no more important than all the other species that exist on Earth. Through our current way of life, we are seriously endangering nature. Pollution, hunting, and destroying animal habitats are threatening wildlife, and we are causing damage to the earth that could eventually become a threat to humans. We need to start to think more along the lines of deep ecology, and not put such a strain on our planet.

Sources: Searching 10
              Horisonter 10