PSY317 Weekly Reflection: Mississippi Burning

Mississippi Burning

 Mississippi Burning depicts the real life events of racial prejudice and discrimination that once happened in United States between the black and white people in the 1960s. It was shown in the movie that the racial prejudice and discrimination happened was mostly due to the fact that lack of understanding where assumption and ignorance was the biggest cause of the hatred against each other.

So, what was the cause of racial prejudice and discrimination in the first place? From the movie, there were few viewpoints I have gained. 

In the movie, it was also trying to send a message that racial prejudice and discrimination were not something we born with but something that were taught since young. When the leader of Ku Klux Klan was giving the talk to provoke  the hatred against the black people, the director attempt to show the faces of the younger generations, their reactions and actions where the eventually was just following the examples of the adult there. 

There was a story told by Agent Anderson in the story about the actions of his father on the neighbour which is black. I understood the story in my point of view as that Agent Anderson was trying to convey the message on the cause of racial prejudice and discrimination was nothing but the emotion of envy towards the others.An emotion that occurs when the person lacks of the another's superior quality where it can be achievement, possession of asset and even talents. This emotion leads them to unhappiness and dissatisfaction in their life due to the fact that someone who is not in their social group is superior than them. In order to gain back the integrity and feeling of superior, they began to develop racial prejudice and discrimination to feel good of themselves. 

The another viewpoints I have gained in the movie was the violence used in the movie. Proper legal procedure was not able to detain the clan members of Ku Klux Klan in the movie due to unfair judgements. Agent Anderson had to used his own unique way which included many illegal actions and behaviours including violence to successfully detain the Ku Klux Klan. Although, the Ku Klux Klan was all successfully detained in the movie, it did not solve the racial prejudice and discrimination immediately within Mississippi. The influence and the racial prejudice and discrimination was still there due to the lack of understanding of both races. Violence was just able to solve the surface of the problem but not the core of the problem. I believed that education and mutual understanding is still the essential way to solve racial prejudice and discrimination between races.

Social identity theory was very relatable in the movie where people tends to increase their own self-image by enhancing the status of the group that they belong (Tajfel, 1979). In the process of enhancing their own social identity, social categorization happens in the process where the divide of 'them' and 'us' known as in-group and out-group. In the movie, Ku Klux Klan was the example of a social group of white people who discriminate the other out-group member, black people to show their superiority of abilities and enhance their self image which eventually incur the racial prejudice and discrimination showed in the movie. 

On side note, I viewed racial prejudice and discrimination can only be countered and abolished by creating a mutual beneficial goals or having a mutual enemy to fight against which we can see nowadays in sports where people tend to only belong to the larger social identity group, the nation instead of their own race and ethnicity.