The film I want to go over is Race which tells the story of Jesse Owens. Jesse Owens was a very poor African American that was able to attend the Ohio State University and eventually went on to become a track star. The movie highlighted the hardships and discrimination that he had to experience. One of the common experiences he faced was the white football team that demanded to have priority to showers based off skin color. On top of this, the Olympics he attended was the one in Germany when Hitler was in control. This raised lots of questions due to the racist and discriminatory environment Hitler had created. In one of his first competitions, he was booed and had slurs thrown his way, but he blocked it out and set world records left and right. In the Olympics, he ignores anything pressuring him circulating around Hitler and the situation at hand and scores four gold medals and sets out records.
While training for Olympics, Jesse Owens is treated as an “other” due to the racism and discrimination he would face especially since Caucasians typically dominated many fields including athletics. There were also many other issues he would have to deal with outside of discrimination that not many people knew. On top of trying to compete, he would have to work jobs to support his family. This highlights how people would glance at Owens and see him as a black athlete and instantly discredit without understanding his aspirations and hardships. The main takeaway the film tries to provide is the bravery that Owens was able to showcase even though he was constantly pressured and put in disadvantaged positions, he pushed through and became a historical legend. Because of his experiences, it was able to create a good template for “othering” and experiencing injustices of being an African American trying to change the world.
