Introduction
In the present day, hundreds of majority and minority groups peacefully coexist in the limited space, daily interact and cooperate for survival. However, there still exist invisible boundaries between them, associated with majority’s prejudices against the less represented as well as the latter group’s wrongful identity and convictions. Short stories “What’s in a Name?”, “Indian Education” and the short movie entitled “The Lunch Date” clearly demonstrate the same concepts of cross-racial relationships. The characters’ thoughts, emotions and behaviors point to several major ideas, common for the three works: firstly, the belief that “minorities are always guilty”, secondly, the idea that minority identity is erroneous by itself and implies an inferiority complex, common among minority citizens.
Description of the similar ideas in the movie and short stories
First of all, these commonalities are articulated by the actions characters take in the three pieces. For instance, in “The Lunch Date”, the female protagonist doesn’t even try to find out whether the food the Black man is eating is what she has recently purchased. She simply sits down and begins eating from the plate, proving by her behavior that the man has probably stolen her portion and is now enjoying it. In addition, when she comes back with a cup of coffee, she takes the first sip, so that it is possible to assume that the minority man is trying to redress a wrong (De Vos, p. 108; Rea and Irving, p.178). In Indian Education, it is written that the main character’s teacher regularly punishes him, as he is guilty by default: “Betty Towle, missionary teacher […] made me stay in for recess fourteen days straight. “Tell me you’re sorry, “ she said. “Sorry for what?” I asked. “Everything”, she said and made me stand straight for fifteen minutes, eagle-armed with books in each hand” (Alexie, p.135). As one can assume, the boy is treated as guilty simple for being Indian and being himself, as there are no records about Ms.Towle penalizing other students in such a cruel way. In this case, the protagonist is a scapegoat, who should pay for his peers’ mischief. Furthermore, the main character is made guilty for kissing a white girl, i.e. for paying attention to the majority female: “ After that, no one spoke to me for another five hundred years” (Alexie, p.137). Thus, both peers from his racial group and whites reject him after he begins a relationship with a white girl. In Gates’s short story, the protagonist’s father is mistreated purely on the basis of his racial background, so he is guilty for being African American.
Cognitive and emotional evidence from the film and the narratives
The minorities’ inferiority complex is shown in the “Lunch Date” through the non-white character’s behavior: even after the strange woman sits down close to him and begins eating his lunch, the man raises no scandal and willingly shares his food with the protagonist. In “Indian Education”, the evidence suggests that the main character constantly seeks self-establishment: e.g. , he violates a taboo by kissing his white girlfriend, tries hard at school to prove he’s a capable student (Alexie, p.138) and continues to participate in the basketball competition even after he begins to feel sick. Similarly, in Gates’s short story, the protagonist’s father intentionally visits the predominantly white café in order to demonstrate he is equal to racial majority. Such excessive striving for self-assertion proves the presence of inferiority complex in the members of minority community, as they work harder in order to show they are able to become “decent” people like the whites are. Thus, they behave as if they are basically “inferior”.
Character behaviors as evidence
Emotions and beliefs, expressed (or not expressed) by the characters, are also illustrative in terms of the two omnipresent ideas. For instance, in “The Lunch Date”, the female protagonist’s face demonstrates the mixture of indignation, surprise and confidence after she encounters the minority man eating her meal. Her first thought, or dumb question, directed to the antagonist, is probably “How dare you?”, which means, she is at first not able to believe that this ostensibly impudent African American is encroaching upon her food. Therefore, basically labels him as guilty and inferior, given that she is shocked by his behavior and even does not try to look around or consider the possible explanations of the situation. At the end of the film, she is surprised equally strongly as she finds her own serving untouched on the next table, so she even did not suppose that the African American man might not have stolen her lunch. The African American’s inferiority complex is shown through the lack of emotions on his face during the initial encounter, so it seems like he accepts the white women taking his property as normality. Moreover, he offers her coffee with quite obliging expression, probably feeling glad that the white woman is willing to have a lunch with him. In “Indian Education”, the protagonist’s teachers believe he has guilty eyes (Alexie, p.136) and suspect him of drinking alcohol when seeing his advancements during the sports competition (Alexie, p.138), assuming that all Indians start drinking early. Therefore, the main character is accused of alcoholism on the basis of the prejudice that all Indians are drunkards since their adolescence. The evidence of the minorities’ inferiority complex is described through the amazement and triumph both Alexie’s and Gates’s protagonists feel when joining the “white” world: the Indian boys realizes he is a winner after having kissed the white girl, whereas the African American child is proud to inform that his father has access to the café, which no other Blacks can enter. Moreover, in Gates’s narrative, the boy’s father also accepts Mr.Wilson’s arrogant and discriminatory tendency to naming all African Americans “George” as a normal state-of-art and says nothing against (Gates, p.6).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it needs to be noted that these similarities are identified owing to the representation of both majorities and minorities in the three works so that it is possible to analyze and evaluate the positions of both groups as well as their interactions (Irving, p.179). In addition, the characters of whites and non-whites are shown as contrasting (De Vos, p.109) , i.e. in “The Lunch Date” the African American man’s fidelity is opposed to the white woman’s defiance. Finally, as Rea and Irving note, that there is a number of common points in majority-minority relations as depicted in the American cinematograph , due to the fact that these works reflect the real life (Rea and Irving, p.179), in which discrimination and disparaging treatment of non-whites still exists and minorities should accept them as encouragement of becoming socially equal to the dominant group.
Works cited
De Vos, G. Tales, Rumors, and Gossip: Exploring Contemporary Folk Literature in Grades 7-12. Libraries Unlimited, 1996.
Rea, P. and Irving, D. Producing and Directing the Short Film and Video. Focal Press, 2001.
Alexie, S. “Indian Education”, pp. 135-139.
Gates, H. “What’s in a Name?”, pp. 5-7.