Al's reflection on whitewash

There are a couple of ways to talk about this film: one is in the context of using it as a facilitation video to bring forward discussions from a group of people, and another is my own thoughts as I watched the film and what I got out of it personally. It's my personal thoughts that I am going to blog about.

The film has many layers. In the beginning, I thought it was a film about teachers "whitewashing" their duties and not putting enough empathy and feelings into their jobs. They are robotic in their delivery and don't really care whether their students get it or not. They do their job mechanically, tiresome, and wishing the day was over. The students "whitewashed" their opportunities to learn and don't take their classes seriously. Except for one child (I think it was Angel) who volunteered to answer the teacher's question, no one cared. She didn't give the right answer but the twinkle in her eye showed that she was eager to learn and to participate, for that she should have been complemented but instead she was dismissed out of her hand for giving the wrong answer -- that's "whitewashing" in in its own way. Anytime we don't notice someone's effort, we are dismissing their worth.

Then came the twist of the plot and the violent attack on Angel and her brother. I discovered it was not about passivity of teachers and students. The emotional part of the film, as well as the obvious, was the action of the bullies, how the press reported the news and how the city officials handled the incident. David in his blog talked about it quite well.

Below the surface message of injustice, violence, hate and commercial exploitation, there is a more subtle quality about the film. I noticed some of the bullies had reservations about the gang leader's action. Some of them wanted him to stop. But peer pressure or lack of personal courage had caused them to become willing witnesses. In my youth, I could easily have been one of them. Though those acts might not be have been as violent or hateful, they were nonetheless intended to hurt, and my own non-action or going-along still haunts me. My work now is to work on my own will power, courage and integrity to stand up. I have not been tested too servilely yet to stand up. My hope is that I will choose integrity when I do get tested and not be whitewashing in my actions.

I also noticed that the brother was also quite conflicted in how he had handled the situation. He has to live with guilt (did I do enough), feeling neglected (grandma didn't pay much heed to his wound) and his anger about being slighted in his mind by the city official. There are a lot of feelings being "whitewashed", painted over and suppressed.

At the end, the story is about hope. It's about kids rising up to do something positive for one of their own. It's about moving on. And it's that optimism and hope that I hope to bring to the DC workshop. Every one of us can make a difference and there will be a tipping point that the goodness in us become the persistent mass of the planet -- where the color of rainbow and not whitewash is the guiding consciousness of the human race.