Mississippi Burning

            “Mississippi Burning” is a movie during 1988 that portrayed the background story of Mississippi in 1964. It was an era and a place that prejudice and discrimination against African Americans are all over the place. But how does these prejudice formed? Like Mrs. Pell in the movie has said, “Hatred isn't something you're born with. It gets taught. At school, they said segregation what's said in the Bible... Genesis 9, Verse 27. At 7 years of age, you get told it enough times, you believe it. You believe the hatred. You live it... you breathe it. You marry it.” This sounds kind of pathetic but yet so true. We would be thinking like, “Don’t they know?” nor “Can’t they be smart enough to know that what was being taught was not always right?” Sadly, people sometimes underestimate the power of conditioning. Everything becomes sort of “common”, even with discrimination. The power may not be strong at first, but the collective power influences people, and just like Mrs. Pell said, we grew to believe in the hate. From the movie when the Whites are being interviewed, majority of them have no idea about the discrimination and killing going around. This shows the diffusion of responsibility of people. Everyone only heard of rumors of discriminating and no one dare to stand out and voice out, always waiting for someone else to do it.

            The part of the movie where it touches my heart the most is when the Ku Klux Klan members waited to bash the Blacks that came out of the church. It hurts me the most when they starts to beat up everyone, including women and children. It hurts me as I wonder how can hatred that came out of nowhere can blinded people’s eyes to commit such actions. The scene heated as one of the members of the Ku Klux Klan kicked and bashed a Black kid who was praying.

            Of course the movie ended with the killers receives their punishments. Although all things seem justice, but the damage has been done. Some damages are unable to be undone. Thus let us look inside ourselves and hope that we are not the people that create this damage.