Didn't explore race relations deeply enough

Rating: 3/10 (5 March 2006)

Before you ask what I know about race... I was born & raised near East Saint Louis (ever hear of that place?) - in a very racially tense area, many 'displaced' white people who moved out of ESL after the '68 riots. I went to college with classes of 60% students from Chicago's south side. I've been to 32 states, and most major cities in our country, staying in budget to 4 star hotels (mostly budget, though, I'm still a student). I worked with the homeless in STL, and met with racist anti-black-homeless protesters.
Having said that, I've never seen such flat, blatant, open, stereotypical, after-school-special racism in my experiences as were depicted in this "film". Racism in the scenarios depicted in the movie (e.g., work) is often hidden, festering inside, and more explicit in structural ways - hiring patterns, public policies, disenfranchising, etc. Or random things yelled from cars or across streets. To me, the movie didn't explore racial issues (beyond the level of "a very special episode of Full House") deeply. It showed them in the most basic, flat-affect way possible. Race relations are deeper than "don't judge a book by its cover", which is all the insight this movie offers. It's about as sophisticated as saying that the Vietnam War was "icky".
Political sociology, economics, African-American history, centuries of oppression, and the psychology of prejudice cannot be summed up by blatantly racist characters saying blatantly racist lines and acting in overtly racist ways. This is the horrible, but superficial side of racism. Race relations run through to the core of culture in America, not just on the surface and in our 'first impressions'.
I'm left with no new understanding - just "racism is bad", "people shouldn't be so racist". That doesn't impress me. WHY are people racist? WHY are there inequalities in our society? HOW are misconceptions formed so quickly? The movie doesn't care. It just shows us the end product.
As if I wasn't aware there was a lot of racism in America.
That this won best picture and especially best original writing was a joke. This is a 7th grade essay on race relations, and was bogged down by stereotypes when real, round characters would have made a much better point.
I thought that there was more insight in Topher Grace's few lines in "Traffic" than there was in this whole film. I think that Dave Chappelle offers more race-relation insight in 5 minutes of standup than this whole film. I think that an episode of "The Boondocks" offers more insight, the average true hip-hop album offers more resolution, the average Jet magazine offers more race-relation lessons than this turd of a film.