AN ANALYSIS OF RACIAL PRACTICES IN THE FILM
MISSISSIPPI BURNING
BY ALAN PARKER
A Thesis
Submitted to Letters and Humanities Faculty in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Strata I Degree
Mustika Dendy No. 102026024567
ENGLISH LETTERS DEPARTMENT
LETTERS AND HUMANITIES FACULTY
STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY
SYARIF HIDAYATULLAH
APPROVEMENT
AN ANALYSIS OF RACIAL PRACTICES IN THE FILM
MISSISSIPPI BURNING
BY ALAN PARKER
A Thesis
Submitted to Letters and Humanities Faculty in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Strata I Degree
Mustika Dendy No. 102026024567
Approved by Advisor
Elve Oktafiyani, SS. M.Hum. NIP. 150 317 725
ENGLISH LETTERS DEPARTMENT
LETTERS AND HUMANITIES FACULTY
STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY
SYARIF HIDAYATULLAH
DECLARATION
I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of
my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by
another person nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the
award of any other degree or diploma of the university or the other institute of higher
learning, Except where due acknowledgment has been made in the text.
Jakarta, December, 2009
LEGALIZATION
The thesis entitled “An Analysis of Racist Practices in the Film “Mississippi
Burning by Alan Parker” has been defended before the Letters and Humanities
Faculty’s Examination committee on December, 2009. The thesis has already been
accepted as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the strata I degree.
Jakarta, December, 2009
Examination Committee
Chair Person, Secretary,
Dr. Muhammad Farkhan, M.Pd. Drs. A. Saefuddin, M.Pd.
NIP. 150 299 480 NIP. 150 261 902
Members:
Examiner I Examiner II
Innayatul Chusna, M.Hum. Drs. Abdul Hamid, M.Ed
ABSTRACT
MUSTIKA DENDY, an Analysis of Racial Practices in the Film Mississippi Burning by Alan Parker. English Letters Department, Faculty of Letters and Humanities, Syarif Hidayatulllah State Islamic University, Jakarta 2009.
This research is aimed to know, the Racial Practices in Mississippi Burning Film, especially in how racial discrimination most heated during 60’s in daily American life. The writer uses qualitative method and uses descriptive analysis, where he describes per scene that related to racial practices. To support the analysis, the writer uses James M. Blaut theory to explain the scene.
The result of this study is the author knew that acts of racial practices since long bloom occurred on American soil, especially in the southern part of Mississippi. Hostility between the white and colored very thick in southern areas of Mississippi that many people-oppressed people of color.
As the conclusion, the writer finds the scenes that describe the including of discrimination like: violence, burning, kidnapping, lynching, and intimidation in
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The writer would like to thank to Allah the one for divine gift of grace. He
alone we ask for help, for guidance and everything. He has given the writer many
favors and he has allowed the writer to finish this thesis. Praise and peace be upon the
Master of the Messengers, the prophet Muhammad SAW. May we always he in
straight way until the end of the world.
The writer also absolutely deserves to thank to his advisor, Elve Oktafiyani,
SS. M.Hum for guiding him by counseling and advising the writer until this thesis
finished. Without her guidance, this thesis will never be completed.
The writer also wants to thank to:
1. Dr. Abdul Chair, MA, the Dean of Faculty of Adab and Humanities.
2. Dr. Muhammad Farkhan, M.Pd, the Head of English Letters Department.
3. Drs. A. Saefuddin, M.Pd, the Secretary of English Letters Department.
4. Best regarded must be expressed to his beloved parents (Kasman. T & Evi
Ziarni), they have supported him much morally and materially, their merits and
sacrifice will never paid.
5. All of lecturers in English Department for having taught and educated him during
6. All staff of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Main library, all staff of
English Department library, all staff of Cultural Science Faculty of Indonesia
University library, and all staff of Atmajaya library, South Jakarta.
Finally, the writer hopes this thesis will be useful for the writer himself and
for those who are interested in literary research.
Jakarta, December, 2009
TABLE OF CONTENTS
APPROVEMENT………...…….. i
DECLARATION……….. ii
LEGALIZATION……….……… iii
ABSTRACT……….. iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENT……….. v
TABLE OF CONTENTS... vii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of Study……… 1
B. Focus of Study……….. 5
C. Research Question……… 5
D. Significance of the Research……… 5
E. Research Methodology………. 6
1. Objective of the Research………. 6
2. Method of the Research………. 6
3. Data Analysis………. 6
4. Unit of Data Analysis………. 6
CHAPTER II THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK
A. Definition of Racism………. 8
B. Racism in Mississippi……… 12
1. Historical Racism of Mississippi……….. 12
C. Reflection Theory of Cultural Racism………… 19
CHAPTER III RESEARCH FINDINGS
A. Data Description……… 25
B. Data Analysis………. 27
C. Further discussion of Data Analysis………….... 37
CHAPTER IV CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion………... 41
B. Suggestion……… 43
BIBLIOGRAPHY……….. 44
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of Study
The United States of America was established as a white society, founded
upon the genocide of another race and then the enslavement of colored people. This
enslavement happened for long time ago. In short the history of the United States is
the history of enslavement. From this point of view, we may see how American life,
claimed to be the most democratic country in the world, started his history by
enslavement.
Many historians argue that 1451 as the starting date for Atlantic slave trade,
for that was when substantial numbers of African slaves, perhaps 700 to 800 a year,
began to reach Portugal. The Atlantic slave trade therefore was generally seen as
running from 1451 to 1870, roughly the effective end of the slave trade to American.1 In 1619, the first Africans arrived at Jameskrwn, Virginia, consisting of twenty
people with the status of “indentured” servants with the growth of slavery, many
thousand of Negroes were brought to the cogaporelonies.2
1
David M Brownstone and M, Frank Irene, Facts about America Immigration. (New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 2001), p. 321.
2
For a long time period, American slavery under the white supremacist must
go on until the end of 19 century. Finally, slavery period disappeared when Abraham
Lincoln’s Emancipation proclaimed, but the end of slavery came only with Union
victory in the Civil War. In reality, however, Negro families were under white
people’s shadows. For many years forward, the black people’s lives have to become
under the shadow of white people.
This subordination makes the fate of Black people into racial discrimination
in every field of life such as in education, political, social life, occupation, etc. There
is no right for black people to get equality as well as white people get. But the time
change and the fate of black people also change. In the early of 20 century African
American has little chance to gain their dream. One by one Black society has the
raising stars just for his community in every formal or informal field such as
preacher, politician, labor, literary figures, etc. They born not to be slave anymore
but born to be fighter against intimidation, hatred, cruelty of white people in America.
Slowly but sure during 1960s they were able to make American history more colorful
with their mob most well known by the Civil Rights Movement.
The struggle of African Americans for equality reached its climax in the
mid-1960s. During this time, the Civil Right movements spread in the rest of America
soil, especially in the South, the bases of African American stay in. Since that time
groups that previously had been submerged or subordinate began more forcefully and
white ethnic offspring of the "new immigration," and Latinos. Much of the support
they received came from a young population larger than ever. They realize their
future by making the mob possible through a college and university system, street
long march, community gathering in various place and etc. They presented the
"countercultural" life styles and radical politics, many of the young people of the
World War II generation emerged as advocates of a new America characterized by a
cultural and ethnic pluralism that their parents often viewed with discomfort.
According to Leon E. Wynter, essayist and columnist for the Wall Street
Journal, that the 1950s set up the social political and technological disorders of the
1960s and 1970s. This decade also became much more representative of the
long-term pattern of American identity formation and thus perhaps is more important in
understanding the meaning of the 1980s.3
But America still remains the same before. Racial practices such as prejudice,
discrimination, and personal abuse still haunted the colored people. In short, racism
as cultural practice of white people became dominant theme during American history
even today. Richard T. Ford, the George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford
Law School, argue that the day-to-day manifestations of group difference – folk
beliefs, stories, and narratives, subjective identifications, outward expression of group
affiliation and performances of “group culture” – are not reflections of intrinsic
3
human differences but rather are effects of social, political and legal institutions that
produces and group difference.4
The explanations above give us understanding what racial practices actually
are happened in America history. Thus, from the study above, the writer is interested
to make study about it as far as reflected in the movie Mississippi Burning, a movie
by Alan Parker, outline the disappearances of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner,
three young civil rights workers who were part of a voter registration drive in
Mississippi. And then this case tries to reveal by two FBI Agents: Willem Defoe as
Alan Ward and Gene Hackman as Rupert Anderson starred in this movie. Both of
them met some difficulties while searching some clues and asking information from
civilian whether the white or the black people.
In fact, this investigation makes Jessup County’s public life most exposed by
the news and television. For some group of white young men the fanatic’s followers
of Ku Klux Klan of this county feel not comfortable. They intimidated who ever give
information to two FBI agents. It is not surprisingly if they take any effort to make
both of the agent go away from Jessup County. They are creating terror, burning
house, making horrible kidnapping, vandalism etc.
The majority of the movie takes place during 1964 in towns, exactly Jessup
County of Mississippi. This movie surveys the geography of racism, segregation;
discrimination, social hatred, bullying, etc., which caused the victim of three human
4
right workers. In addition, this movie was inspired by actual events which took place
in the South during the 1960’s. The characters, however, are fictitious and do not
depict real people either living or dead.
B. Focus of Study
In doing the research, the writer would like to limit the discussion on the
racial practices which happened in the movie Mississippi Burning. The research is
referred to the theory of cultural racism of James M. Blaut and other relevant theory
to the study.
C. Research Question
Due to the focus of study above, the research question is formulated as follow:
• What kinds of Racial Practices are showed in the Mississippi Burning film?
D. Significance of the Research
The writer hopes the result of the research will be advantageous to him
specifically and the reader generally, in order to know how racial discrimination most
heated during 60’s in daily American life.
In addition, the writer hopes that this research give more or less contribution
Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. Many things can be found in this research that racial
practices could happen to everyone: whether white of non-white people. The last, the
writer hopes the results of this research make us deeply consciousness on that issue.
E. Research Methodology
1. Objective of the Research
The objectives of the research are to find out the kinds of racial practices
as reflected in the movie Mississippi Burning.
2. Method of the Research
This research applies qualitative method and descriptive analysis about the
Mississippi Burning. Of course this research also discusses the main theme of the
movie about racial practices happened to colored people in the Mississippi
Burning.
3. Data Analysis
The writer analyzes the data using descriptive analysis technique. The
collected data such as the script, whether it is dialogue (conversation among
characters), monologue (broadly speech by one person), or the actions of its
characters will be analyzed to find out the events or cases that show the theory of
description, the writer notes and explains the relevant data related to the research
object.
4. Unit of Data Analysis
The study is conducted by analyzing the movie script of Mississippi
Burning directed by Alan Parker which published premier was on December 9,
1988 and released by Orion Pictures, USA.
5. Research Instrument
The instrument of this research is the writer himself by watching the movie
Mississippi Burning, reading the movie script, and signing the intended data
related to racial practices that support of the research correlated with the relevant
theory. In addition, American history references in 1960s, and other racial
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
A. The Definitions of Racism
Before discussing about racial practices it is better to know what racism really
is. For that study this chapter will describe the definition of racism, racism in
Mississippi, and reflection theory of racism point by point. This division used to
make comprehensive understanding about the Mississippi Burning movie discussed
in the next chapter. For every section the writer will give general explanation about
the point below with no detail.
In general, racism has many definitions. The most common view of racism
widely accepted as the belief that humans are divided into more than one race, with
members of some races being intrinsically superior or inferior to members of other
races. The term of racism it self has much definition. In so far there is no definitely
term of racism. It is due to many people with variety and different background who
see racism as something bias to concept about. There is no one single term for this
racism.
For the most common view explain that racism always refers to race-based
prejudice, discrimination, violence, or oppression. Racialism is a related term
Dictionary,5 racism is a belief or ideology that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially to distinguish it as being
either superior or inferior to another race or races. The Merriam-Webster's Webster's
Dictionary6 defines racism as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a
particular race, and that it is also the prejudice based on such a belief. The Macquarie
Dictionary7 defines racism thus: the belief that human races have distinctive characteristics which determine their respective cultures, usually involving the idea
that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule or dominate others.
Racism not only local problem but also has rooted for long time ago as old as
human history. That is why racism considered as one of the most important issues in
twentieth century. In 1966 United Nations held world conventions discussed about
racism. As the result, this forum makes good comprehension about the term of racism
as follow.
“The term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life."8
5 Oxford English Dictionary. 6
The Merriam-Webster's Webster's Dictionary. 7
Macquarie Dictionary. 8
This legal definition does not make any difference between prosecutions
based on ethnicity and race, in part because the distinction between the ethnicity and
race remains debatable among anthropologists. According to British law, racial
group means "any group of people who are defined by reference to their race, color,
nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origin".9
Racism as practices happened in society also become interest of social
scientist or sociologist. Some sociologists have defined racism as a system of group
privilege. According to David Wellman, American sociology, in his book Portraits of
White Racism has defined racism as culturally sanctioned beliefs, which, regardless of
intentions involved, defend the advantages whites have because of the subordinated
position of racial minorities.10
Sociologist and former American Sociological Association president Joe
Feagin argues that the United States can be characterized as a "total racist society"
because racism is used to organize every social institution.11 More recently, Feagin has articulated a comprehensive theory of racial oppression in the U.S. in his book
Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression. Feagin examines how major institutions
have been built upon racial oppression which was not an accident of history, but was
9
http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/rrpbcrbook.html accessed on December 20, 2008.
10
David T. Wellman, Portraits of White Racism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. x.
11
created intentionally by white Americans.12 This example can be traced in court practice as the black people prohibited become jury or witness.
In Feagin's view, white Americans labored hard to create a system of racial
oppression in the 17th century and have worked diligently to maintain the system
ever since. While Feagin acknowledges that changes have occurred in this racist
system over the centuries, he contends that key and fundamental elements have been
reproduced over nearly four centuries, and that U.S. institutions today reflect the
racialized hierarchy created in the 17th century. Today, as in the past, racial oppression is not just a surface-level feature of this society, but rather pervades,
permeates, and interconnects all major social groups, networks, and institutions
across the society. Feagin's definition stands in sharp contrast to psychological
definitions that assume racism is an "attitude" or an irrational form of bigotry that
exists apart from the organization of social structure.
From many explanation about racism viewed by many scholar give us rich
understanding that racism consist of belief, organized system of race-based group
privilege that at every level of society and is held together by a sophisticated ideology
of color race supremacy. According to Cazenave and Maddern, American sociologist,
12
those racist systems include, but cannot be reduced to, racial bigotry.13 And we know better at glance that slavery as the rooted of racism existed in the United States.
B. Racism in Mississippi
1. Historical Racism of Mississippi
There is plus minus between north State and South state in America. For the
northern states, economically grow up by establishment of center of American
industry. And socially they are more open and more liberal in daily life. The north’s
also become the center of American political activity. The most of the north states
such as New York and Washington D.C.
In contrary, the South State most well known as the center of American
agricultural economy. The south’s also export big commodity for US consumption in
agriculture. But socially, almost the south states fulfilled hatred and racial
discrimination by white people to the colored people. The sentiment of race also
happened in political activity which supported by government powered by the white.
In this region white supremacist is the rule.
Mississippi is one of the South States that have bad reputation on racism. This
problem has rooted when the white people lose their benefit from the new system on
cotton sharing benefit. As we know that Mississippi's major crop, became highly
profitable in the 19th century, with steamboats as the principal means of shipping.
The bank of the Mississippi filled rapidly with river towns and luxurious plantation
homes. The cotton economy was based on the use of slave labor. When the conflict
over slavery came to a crisis, Mississippi was the second state to secede from the
Union (January, 1861). Jefferson Davis, Mississippi soldier-statesman became
President of the Confederate States.14
But this situation comes to change in the twentieth century when the
sharecropping system applied and practiced to all white landlords. Since that time
cotton no longer made Mississippi prosperous. In the hill country the white farmers,
derisively called “rednecks" or “peckerwoods," became as impoverished as the black
sharecroppers. In addition, in the early 1900's more than half of Mississippi's
population was black, but blacks were denied the vote by rigid application of a
literacy-test requirement in the 1890 constitution.
By mid twentieth, exactly in the early 1960s, Mississippi was the poorest state
in the nation. 86% of all non-white families lived below the national poverty line.15 In addition, the state had a terrible record of black voting rights violations. In the 1950s,
Mississippi was 45% black, but only 5% of voting age blacks were registered to
vote.16 Some counties did not have a single registered black voter. Whites insisted
14
http://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/history-of-mississippi.htm accessed on December 25, 2008.
15
Steven Kasher, The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954-68 (New York: Abbeville Press, 1996), pp. 132-135.
16
that blacks did not want to vote, but this was not true. Many blacks wanted to vote,
but they worried, and rightfully so, that they might lose their job.
In 1962, over 260 blacks in Madison County overcame this fear and waited in
line to register. 50 more came the next day. Only seven got in to take the test over the
two days, walking past a sticker on the registrar's office door that bore a Confederate
battle flag next to the message "Support Your Citizens' Council."17 Once they got in, they had to take a test designed to prevent them from becoming registered. In 1954, in
response to increasing literacy among blacks, the test, which originally asked
applicants to "read or interpret" a section of the state constitution, was changed to ask
applicants to "read and interpret" that document.18 This allowed white registrars to decide whether or not a person passed the test. Most blacks, even those with doctoral
degrees, "failed." In contrast, most whites passed, no matter what their education
level.
By 1960 blacks no longer made up the majority of adults of voting age, but a
movement to register blacks for voting met with uniform resistance. In 1962 a federal
court ordered the University of Mississippi to enroll James Meredith as its first black
student. Defiance of the order was led by Governor Ross Barnett, and serious rioting
broke out at the university. Federal troops were needed to help Meredith enter the
17
Anthony Lewis, Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution (New York: Random House, 1964), p. 135.
18
university. Other racial violence included the murder in 1963 of civil rights leader
Medgar Evers, and in 1964 of three civil rights workers.19
In the mid-1960's, the participation of blacks in politics increased. In 1969
Charles Evers, Medgar's brother, was elected mayor of Fayette - the first black mayor
of a biracial Mississippi town since Reconstruction. Also in the late 1960's, white
opposition to public school integration led to racial disturbances. By the early 1970's,
court-ordered desegregation of public schools at all levels was under way.
During sixties the black people faced some serious difficulty to determine
their life for social economy domain as well as in political participation. It is not
surprisingly if black people make a mob to demand their civil right as well as the
whites. Approximately, there are 5.000 of black people of Mississippi out of the list
of register to vote. The white people, who joined in some community based color like
Ku Klux Klan, fraternal organization, make intimidation, kidnapping, and lynching
the black who try to register.
For this reason NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of
Coloured People) went to Mississippi in an effort to register more blacks in the late
1950s. Amzie Moore, a local NAACP leader in Mississippi, met with SNCC (Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) worker Robert Parris Moses when Moses
19
traveled through the state in July 1960, recruiting people for a SNCC conference.
Moore encouraged Moses to bring more SNCC workers to the state, and the
following summer he did, beginning a month-long voter registration campaign in the
town of McComb, in conjunction with C.C. Bryant of the NAACP. SNCC organized
a voter registration education program, teaching a weekly class that showed people
how to register.20
SNCC worker Marion Barry arrived on August 18 and started workshops to
teach young blacks nonviolent protest methods. Many of the blacks, too young to
vote, jumped at the opportunity to join the movement. They began holding sit-ins.
Some were arrested and expelled from school. More were expelled when they held a
protest march after the murder of Herbert Lee, who had helped SNCC workers, on
September 25. In response to these expulsions, Moses and Chuck McDew started
Nonviolent High School to teach the expelled students. They were arrested and
sentenced to four months in jail for "contributing to the delinquency of minors."21 Other protests by blacks were met with violence. At sit-ins which began on
May 28, 1963, participants were sprayed with paint and had peppered thrown in their
eyes. Students who sang movement songs during lunch after the bombing of NAACP
field director Medgar Evers' home were beaten. Evers himself was the most visible
target for violence. He was a native of Mississippi and World War II veteran who was
20
http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/missippi.html accessed on December, 25, 2008.
21
greeted by a mob of gun-wielding whites when he attempted to register after the war
in his hometown of Decatur. He later said, "We fought during the war for America,
Mississippi included. Now, after the Germans and Japanese hadn't killed us, it looked
as though the white Mississippians would." After he was denied admission to the
University of Mississippi law school, he went to work for the NAACP. By 1963,
Evers was aware that, in the words of his wife Myrlie Evers,
. . . Medgar was a target because he was the leader. The whole mood of white Mississippi was that if Medgar Evers were eliminated, the problem would be solved. . . . And we came to realize, in those last few days, last few months that our time was short; it was simply in the air. You knew that something was going to happen, and the logical person for it to happen to was Medgar.22
In next program, after succeed for Freedom Vote, SNCC also decided to send
volunteers into Mississippi during the summer of 1964, a presidential election year,
for a voter registration drive. It became known as Freedom Summer. Bob Moses
outlined the goals of Freedom Summer to prospective volunteers at Stanford
University: (1). to expand black voter registration in the state; (2). to organize a
legally constituted "Freedom Democratic Party" that would challenge the whites-only
Mississippi Democratic party; (3). to establish "freedom schools" to teach reading
and math to black children; (4). to open community centers where indigent blacks
could obtain legal and medical assistance.23
800 students gathered for a week-long orientation session at Western College
for Women in Oxford, Ohio, that June. They were mostly white and young, with an
22
The murder of Medgar Ever was filmed by some American director. The Ghost of Mississippi by Rob Reiner is one of the film describe a courtroom drama.
23
average age of 21. They were also from well-to-do families, as the volunteers had to
bring $500 for bail as well as money for living expenses, medical bills, and
transportation home. SNCC's James Forman told them to be prepared for death. "I
may be killed. You may be killed. The whole staff may go." He also told them to go
quietly to jail if arrested, because "Mississippi is not the place to start conducting
constitutional law classes for the policemen, many of whom don't have a fifth-grade
education."24
On June 21, the day after the first 200 recruits left for Mississippi from Ohio,
three workers, including one volunteer, disappeared. Michael Schwerner, Andrew
Goodman, and James Chaney had been taken to jail for speeding charges but were
later released. What happened next is not known. Local police were called when the
men failed to perform a required check-in with Freedom Summer headquarters, but
Sheriff Lawrence Rainey was convinced the men were hiding to gain publicity. The
FBI did not get involved for a full day. During the search for the missing workers, the
FBI uncovered the bodies of three lynched blacks who had been missing for some
time. The black community noted wryly that these murders received nowhere near the
same nationwide media attention as the murders of the three workers, two of whom
were white.
The murder case of three workers above for more detail wills discuses in the
following chapter.
24
C. Reflection Theory of Cultural Racism
The movie script of Mississippi Burning by Alan Parker describes the
Mississippian social life fulfilled by segregation, racial discrimination and etc. during
1964. Before discussing the movie the writer will discuses the theory of cultural
racism. This theory used to analyze and explain about racism happened in the
Mississippi Burning movie. It is important for the writer to give perspective more
colorful.
There is the essential difference between racist theory and racist practice.
According to James M. Blaut racism most fundamentally is practice: the practice of
discrimination, at all levels, from personal abuse to colonial oppression. Racism is a
form of practice which has been tremendously important in European society for
several hundred years, important in the sense that it is an essential part of the way the
European capitalist system maintains itself.25
Racist practice, like all practice, is cognized, rationalized, justified, by a
theory, a belief system about the nature of reality and the behavior which is
appropriate to this cognized reality. Since racism as practice, that is discrimination, is
an essential part of the system, we should not be surprised to discover that it has been
supported by a historical sequence of different theories, each consistent with the
25
intellectual environment of a given era. Nor should we be surprised to find that the
sequent theories are so different from one another that the racist theory of one epoch
is in part a refutation of the racist theory of the preceding epoch.
Blaut is not special one who gives comprehensive theory of cultural racism. It
was already noted by W.E.B. DuBois, Africa American scholar, that in making the
difference between races, it is not race that we think about, but culture: “…a common
history, common laws and religion, similar habits of thought and a conscious striving
together for certain ideals of life.”26 But DuBois didn’t make culture comprehensively as theory used to explain racism.
There were preceding intellectual and scholar offered the theory of racism.
The dominant racist theory of the early nineteenth century was a biblical argument,
grounded in religion; the dominant racist theory of the period from about 1850 to
1950 was a biological argument, grounded in natural science; the racist theory of
today is mainly a historical argument, grounded in the idea of culture history or
simply culture. Today's racism is cultural racism. For the purpose of the research, the
writer only discusses the last three theory of cultural racism. The one and the second
theory, the writer just explains it at glance.
What make culture so important to explain racism it is due to that cultural
racism substitutes the cultural category "European" for the racial category "white."
Samir Amin gives us understanding that we no longer have a superior race; we have,
26
instead, a superior culture. It is "European culture," or "Western culture," "the
West".27 What counts is culture, not color.
The term of Eurocentrism is as well as and ideology of Europeans that denote
to their cultural superiority over the other culture. The rest of cultures absolutely
nothing and this is not a new one. This notion existed in the beginning of the 19th
century, where Europeans considered themselves to be superior because they are
Christians and a Christian god must naturally favor His own followers, particularly
those who worship Him according to the proper sacrament. He will take care of such
matters as hereditary abilities, thus making it easier for His followers to thrive,
multiply, progress, conquer the world. In a word: it was believed that the people of
Europe, traditional Christendom, possess cultural superiority, biological superiority,
even environmental superiority, but all of this flows from a supernatural cause. This
was the theory which, in the period up to roughly the middle of the 19th century,
underlay most racist practice.28
But the end of the 19th century, the theological argument replaced by
naturalistic arguments in most scholarly discourse. But it should not be thought that
religious racism as theory had entirely disappeared. In many contexts thereafter, this
theory was and still is used to justify racist practice in which people of one religion
oppress people of another on grounds of this or some very similar, theory.
27
Samir Amin, “Eurocentrism,” in Monthly Review Press, 1989. This article quoted by James M. Blaut in Theory of Cultural Racism.
28
It is important to note that even the theological argument considered as
continuation basis for biological argument set for biological theory of racism.
Religious racism had already established the causality by which God gives better
heredity to Christians, and this argument could now be adapted to assert the genetic
superiority of the so-called white race. The genetic superiority of the so-called white
race was now believed in axiomatically by nearly all social theorists. Cultural
superiority was mainly, though not entirely, considered to be an effect of racial
superiority.
Like the religious theory of racism, the genetic theory of racism is over and
obsolete in scholarly communities discourse. As the growth of intellectual progress
who give better comprehensive theory use the culture as the foundation of theory
(e.g., Boas, Radin), psychological theory (e.g., Lewin), philosophies grounded in
experience rather than the Cartesian-Kantian a priori (e.g., Dewey, Whitehead,
Mead). In addition, there are two reason why either theological or biological theory of
racism out of mode. Firstly, the rise of egalitarian values, notably socialism, which
counter attacked against theories of innate superiority and inferiority. Secondly, there
is a very powerful one, was opposition to Nazism, which almost necessarily meant
opposition to doctrines of biological superiority and inferiority.29
Cultural racism, as a theory, needs to prove the superiority of Europeans, and
needs to do so without recourse to the older arguments from religion and from
29
biology. How does it do this? According to Blaut what we need is by recourse to
history - by constructing a characteristic theory of cultural (and intellectual) history.30 The claim is simply made that nearly all of the important cultural innovations which
historically generate cultural progress occurred first in Europe, then, later, diffused to
the non-European peoples.31
Therefore, at each moment in history Europeans are more advanced than non-
Europeans in overall cultural development (though not necessarily in each particular
culture trait), and they are more progressive than non-Europeans. This is asserted as a
great bundle of apparently empirical facts about invention and innovation, not only of
material and technological traits but of political and social traits like the state, the
market, the family. The tellers of this tale saturate history with European inventions,
European progressiveness, and European progress.
This massive package of supposedly empirical, factual statements was woven
together by means of a modern form of the 19th-century theory of Eurocentric
diffusionism.32 This theory evolved as a justification and rationalization for classical colonialism. It asserted, in essence, the following propositions about the world as a
whole and throughout all of history. (1) The world has a permanent center, or core,
and a permanent periphery. The center is Greater Europe, that is, the continent of
30
Ibid, p. 293.
James M. Blaut, Fourteen Ninety-Two, in Political Geography Quarterly, 1992, vol. 11, no. 3.
32
Europe plus, for ancient times, the Bible Lands and, for modern times, the countries
of European settlement overseas. The core sector, Greater Europe, is naturally
inventive, innovative, and progressive. (2) The periphery, the non-European world,
naturally remains traditional, culturally sluggish or stagnant. (3) The basic reason
why Europe is progressive, innovative, etc. is some quality of mind or spirit, some
"rationality," peculiar to Europeans. (4) Progress occurs in the periphery as a result of
the diffusion, the outward spread, of new and innovative traits from the core to the
periphery.
Modern diffusionism therefore describes a world in which Europeans have
always been the most progressive people, and non-Europeans are backward, and
permanently the recipients of progressive ideas, things, and people from Europe. It
follows that progress for the periphery, today as always in the past, must consist of
the continued diffusion of European "rationality" and institutions, European culture
and control. The periphery, today, includes the Third World, along with Third World
minorities embedded in the European-dominated countries like the United States, in
ghettos, reservations, prisons, migrant-labor camps.
All American whites are the origin of European white who theologically
puritan; biologically superior race and culturally more progressive than color people
such Africa America, native people, Hispanic people, Asians, Arabic and etc., This
belief culminated in their consciousness as well as practices. That is why cultural
CHAPTER III
RESEARCH FINDINGS
In this chapter, the writer will discuss the racial practices in Mississippi
Burning. The discussion will be divided into several descriptions based on the event
that shows racial practices in the film Mississippi Burning. The writer uses pictures,
dialogues and the discussion that refer to racial practices. This chapter consists of
Data Description and Data Analysis.
A. Data Description
The selected data will be tabulated as follow:
The table of Racial Practices in the film “Mississippi Burning”.
Racial practices Explain the situation Picture
• Burning In the beginning of the film, a burning church
showed by the activists of Ku Klux Klan
1
• Intimidation In the middle of night, three civil right
workers, two young Jews and one Negro, go
out of the police office. While driving the car,
they followed by the Activist of Ku Klux
Klan and interrogated by.
• Violence to the
black people
In the middle of pig cage.
The activists of Ku Klux Klan caught, stroke
and threaten the black kid.
4 - 5
• Violence to the
black people
Out of the church. 6 - 7
• Discrimination
and
unfair-treatment
In the court. The judge helped the activists of
Ku Klux Klan who did burning the ghetto of a
blacks’ home.
8
• Racialist Clayton Townley interview. 9 - 10
• Lynching and
Burning
The Ku Klux Klan activists burn a black
home who gives some information to the FBI
agents. One of their extreme actions was
lynching the black on the tree.
B. Data Analysis
For detail explanation of the table above, the writer will analysis and elaborate
the data with further discussion.
B1. Analysis
• Burning
In the beginning of the film, a burning church showed by the activists of Ku
Klux Klan
Picture 1
The opening scenes of the movie were some of the most traumatic ever seen
in any film of the 1980s. An Apostolic church was the first building seen in the film,
burn with the Ku Klux Klan because they hatred to the blacks people. In the
Mississippi Burning Film, the blacks’ people are just quite and receive what the
• Intimidation
In the middle of night, three civil right workers, two young Jews and one
Negro, go out of the police office. While driving the car, they followed by the
Activist of KKK and interrogated by.
Picture 2 Picture 3
Frank (K. K. K) :Y'all think you can drive any speed you want around here?
Jew boy :You had us scared to death, man.
Frank :Don't you call me "man", Jew-boy.
Jew boy :No, sir. What should I call you?
Frank :You don't call me nothin', nigger-lovin' Jew-boy. You
just listen.
Jew boy :Yes, sir.
Frank :Hell, you even startin' to smell like a nigger, Jew-boy.
Jew boy :Take it easy. We'll be all right.
Frank :Sure you will, nigger-Iover.
Deputy Pell (K. K. K) :He's seen your face. That ain't good. You don't want him seein' your face.
Frank :Oh, it don't make no difference no more. [shooting the civil rights workers]
Deputy Pell :Whoa, shit! We into it now, boys.
You only left me a nigger, but at least I shot me a nigger.
After describing the pictures of the racial practices in Mississippi Burning
Film, the writer knows the factors why American white people did the discrimination
towards the blacks and other ethnics like Jews, Turks, Mongols, Tartars, Orientals nor
Negroes. In the history, the oppressing towards the color ethnics especially to the
blacks had been exist as slave since 17 century, and written in the bible of Christian.
In the middle of 1960s, America will be facing the president election. But
not all the citizen of America follows the election. Like the Blacks people in the
south. To solve this problem the government sent three Civil Right Workers to select
the Blacks rights in the south in giving their contribution in president election. The
three Civil Right Workers are two Jews boy and one of them was black.
But, the coming of the Civil Right Workers to Mississippi county smelled
by KKK activists who the Anglo-Saxon followers. They don’t want the Blacks get
their rights in presidential election. The KKK activists try everything to protect their
democracy even that by intimidation and murdered.
The dialogue above happened when the three Civil Right Workers stopped
their car because the KKK activists caught and ordered them to stop their car. The
KKK activists interrogated them didn’t let them out from their car. That time, the
KKK activists oppress the Civil Right Workers (Y'all think you can drive any speed
you want around here?). They talk rough to the Civil Right Workers with “Jew boy
and nigger”. This is a form of racism.
The dialogue above shows that the KKK activists didn’t want the Civil
everything to block and do the intimidation to their enemies. The KKK are the
followers of Anglo-Saxon democracy and they didn’t want other races reject their
democracy and their superiority.
The white people, who joined in some community based color like Ku Klux
Klan, fraternal organization, make intimidation, kidnapping, and lynching the black
who try to register. This case related with the theory which the writer choose for. The
intimidation was one of KKK way to scare and to threaten the African-American.
Based on the dialogue above, the writer concludes that there is the deep
hatred to the color races. Combining between white American race and colored race
will make their superiority in threatened. They believe the white American race is
more superiority than colored people.
• Violence
In the middle of pig stable
The violence, intimidation and kidnapping show in picture 5 and 6. Begin
when two FBI agents came to a restaurant which has segregation. The separation
chairs between white American race and colored race. When they into the restaurant
they saw there is no an empty chair except in color side. One of them get the empty
chair then began talk with a Negro child.
After the agent get closer and ask some questions to him, the black boy look
around him to the white’s chair then they look to him with unlike scene. The white
thought that the black boy talked and give the FBI agent the information about the
Civil Right Workers.
At night, the KKK activists came to the black’s home. They caught until the
pig cage, stroked, and did the violence to him. After finished with their toy (the black
boy) they intimidated him and talked” We better not catch you talkin' to the FBI. Or
you'll be dead, boy. Real dead”. Afterward they brought him to cotton cage and get
him in (picture 4), until the morning they throw the black in the middle of town.
Based on the dialogue and the pictures above, the writer find the
• Violence to the black people
Out of the black church
Picture 6 Picture 7
The hatred has been root in the heart of white people. The discrimination
toward black people continues this time. This event can be seen in picture 5 and
picture 6. There is a lot of Klan activists came to the church. They waited until the
blacks finished their pray. After the blacks finish, all the Ku Klux Klan members
directly rush upon the blacks, kicked and stroked them. On the pictures above we can
see a child was attacked and stroked by one of the KKK members.
Religious racism had already established the causality by which God gives
better heredity to Christians, and this argument could now be adapted to assert the
genetic superiority of the so-called white race. The genetic superiority of the so-called
white race was now believed in axiomatically by nearly all social theorists. The
cultural superiority of Europeans white automatically consists of. Cultural superiority
These racial violence acts based on the blacks reported what they did to the
blacks who burned the ghetto of the blacks until the FBI agents got and brought them
to the court session. They hated very much to the black people even though the blacks
did not do anything to them.
• Discrimination and unfair treatment
In the court
Picture 8
Judge : But I want you to know that the court understands... that the crimes you have committed have been, to some extent at least... brought about by... outside influences. Outsiders have come into Jessup County... and they've
been people of low morality... and unhygienic.
And their presence here has provoked a lot of people. So the court understands... without condoning them,
mind you... that the crimes to which you men have pled guilty... were, to some extent at least, provoked by these outside influences.
So, with all this, I'm gonna make your punishment light. I'm gonna sentence you each to five years'
imprisonment.
The dialogue took in the court session when the defendants of burning the
ghetto of the blacks found by help of a child who saw the event. After burning the
ghetto of the black people, the defendants who mixed up in the burning are caught
with the FBI agents, and then, they were got to the court session. Because the judge
was a member of Ku Klux Klan, of course the defendants got the protection from the
judge. The judge gave the punishment to the defendants with five years in jail, but he
suspends the sentences.
After heard the decision form the judge the blacks who show the court
session just quiet and sat on the balcony without do their equal to ask the justice from
the court. The blacks who sat on the balcony because the white people don’t want to
sit in the same row with the black. They don’t want because the blacks are not in
same level with them, and it can make down their superiority. So, in the court the
practice discrimination and unfair-treatment to the black people go on even it in the
court.
• Racialist
Clayton Townley Interview
Clayton Townley :I am sick and tired of the way many of us Mississippians...are havin' our views distorted by your newspapers and on TV.
So let's get this straight.
We do not accept Jews because they reject Christ. Their control of the international banking cartels are at the root of communism.
We do not accept Papists because they bow to a Roman dictator.
We do not accept Turks, Mongols, Tartars, Orientals nor Negroes... because we're here to protect Anglo-Saxon democracy...and the American way.
Picture 7 and 8 shows us Clayton Townley as the Ku Klux Klan activist
interviewed when out from his office. He talked his feeling why he didn’t accept Jews
because they reject Christ, they control of the international banking cartels are at the
root of communism. And why he didn’t accept Papists because they bow to a Roman
dictator, and he said he didn’t accept Turks, Mongols, Tartars, Orientals, nor Negroes
because he wants to protect Anglo-Saxon democracy and the American way.
These countries which Townley said are not believe in Anglo-Saxon
democracy and the countries will be supposed to falling down the superiority of white
American.
• Lynching
The KKK activists burn a black home who gives some information to the
FBI agents. One of their extreme actions was lynching the black on the tree.
Picture 11
The picture 9 shows us how the violence towards the blacks continues this
time, combustion and lynching toward the black until death. The happened took in
the outside of a black’s home when they were sleeping; suddenly from the outside of
their home the KKK activists burned their animal’s cage and home. The father who
knows this event ordered his son to evacuate their family to the save place. The father
out from his home with a gun then got some kicks and strikes. The KKK activists did
some violence to the father then bind him until him dead.
According to the writer this violence was a great action than the others. The
C. Further Discussion of Data Analysis
After describing the scenes of the racial practices in Mississippi Burning
Film, the writer knows the factors why American white people did the discrimination
towards the blacks and other ethnics like Jews, Turks, Mongols, Tartars, Orientals nor
Negroes. In the history, the oppressing towards the color ethnics especially to the
blacks had been exist as slave since 17 century, and written in the bible of Christian.
The first scene is talked about intimidation by KKK activists toward the
Civil Rights Workers when they finished their job to collect the data of Blacks for
President Election. On the road, the KKK activists tried to stop the Civil Rights
Workers. They intimidated the Civil Rights Workers on their car without let them out
from their car. The intimidation continues and the Klan doesn’t want the Civil Rights
Workers see their face then shot them all.
The white people, who joined in some community based color like Ku Klux
Klan, fraternal organization, make intimidation, kidnapping, and lynching the black
who try to register. This case related with the theory which the writer choose for. The
intimidation was one of KKK way to scare and to threaten the African-American.
The second scene is showed the intimidation and violence towards a Negro
kid by the Klan activists. The Klan caught, kicked and threatens the kid because the
Klan guesses he give the information to the FBI agent which sat with him in the
The third scene shows us the racial practice continues toward a kid. The
violence can get in everywhere, even that in front of the church. In picture 5 and 6 we
can see the Klan activists attacked the Negroes when they out from the church. All
people get the violence even a kid. But the kid just shows his patient and prays God
when he got some kicks from a Klan.
Religious racism had already established the causality by which God gives
better heredity to Christians, and this argument could now be adapted to assert the
genetic superiority of the so-called white race. The genetic superiority of the so-called
white race was now believed in axiomatically by nearly all social theorists. The
cultural superiority of Europeans white automatically consists of. Cultural superiority
was mainly, though not entirely, considered to be an effect of racial superiority.
The fourth scene shows us the atmosphere in the court session. Three of
KKK activists who mixed up of the burning the Blacks ghetto arrested and sit on the
court. But the defendants got protected from the judge because he guesses this all
because of the provoked by outside influences. And the judge punishes them with
five years in jail, but the judge will suspend the sentences. From this case the
discrimination seen in this scene, because the judge help the white race even them did
wrong, and ignore the Blacks who wants the justice from the court.
The next scene showed the interview with Clayton Townley as the
entrepreneur and the chief of KKK. He hated Jews because they reject Christ. The
mean of the first sentence, is Jews and other colored ethnics reject the Anglo-Saxon
said: God had created white people, in a region which Europeans considered to be
their own cultural hearth: the "Bible Lands.”
And these countries which Townley said are not believe in Anglo-Saxon
democracy and the countries will be supposed to falling down the superiority of white
American as Anglo-Saxon followers.
After a brief scuffle with Ward, the two FBI agree that they will work together
and bring down the Klan using both men's approach to the investigation. The ending
shows several scenes of the takedown of the Klan heads:
• The new tactics begin when an African American man abducts the mayor. The
abductor threatens the mayor with castration and tells a story about a man
who was castrated by the Klan for the color of his skin. Using information
from the mayor, the agents get more detailed information on the murders. It is
revealed that the African American abductor is a special operative for the FBI.
• Next, Anderson pays a visit to the barber shop and gives the Deputy Sheriff
an enormous beating and thereby punishes him for abusing his wife.
• Following this, some FBI members disguise themselves as Klan members and
chase another Klan head, before cornering him and pretending to lynch him.
The FBI suddenly shows up and "chases" them away, before offering the head
protection from the Klan if he co-operates.
Related with the scenes above, in the scene sixth is the last scene and the
writer thinks this is the extreme action than the others. Lynching till the dead. From
the picture 9 above we can see a people lynch on the tree with the KKK activists.
This case related with the James M. Blaut Theory, Cultural Racism.
Racist practice, like all practice, is cognized, rationalized, justified, by a
theory, a belief system about the nature of reality and the behavior which is
appropriate to this cognized reality. Since racism as practice, that is discrimination, is
an essential part of the system, we should not be surprised to discover that it has been
supported by a historical sequence of different theories, each consistent with the
intellectual environment of a given era.
CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion
The writer concludes that film Mississippi Burning is the story about violence
discrimination in Mississippi Jessup County and the struggle to equal in law of Blacks rights. The film
backgrounds take setting in Mississippi Jessup County, South America in 1964. The
great racial acts in Mississippi Burning film in 1964 in which politic, and culture are
important things looked here.
In the beginning of the film the writer sees the three boys (Civil Rights
Workers) who drive a car down a long road, they are chased of what they think are
the police. But in reality it’s some members of the Ku Klux Klan and the deputy, who
also is a member of the KKK. The boys are stopped out on a field and the men kill
the three young boys and hide their bodies.
Two FBI agents are sent down to Jessup County where the boys were helping
the colored people to vote. The Sheriff’s office does not helping the FBI agents. They
say they think that the civil right workers have just played them a trick and are sitting
up in New York laughing of them, although they know that they are dead. One of the
FBI agents is an older man from the south (Mr. Anderson), and the other one is a
working to solve the case. The young boy is a doctrinaire and wants to follow bureau
procedure, but the older man wants to follow his own rules.
Mr. Ward gets over a hundred men down helping him solve the case. They
combed the swamps but found nothing. After a while Mr. Ward realizes that his
methods aren’t working out and that they don’t help on the black people’s situation.
It’s just making bad matters worse so he agrees to try out Mr. Anderson’s tactic. Mr.
Anderson gets on a good dialog with the deputy’s wife and he understands that she is
the key to the mystery. She tells Mr. Anderson, despite that she is married to the
deputy, where the bodies are. The FBI finds the dead bodies in a big mound out on a
farm. All of the suspects were condemned except from the sheriff who became
acquitted, but later on hang himself in the basement because of quilt.
This is a film which brings out strong feelings. The writer sees the situation
for the blacks in the 1960’s, how they are depressed and treated like dogs. This is a
subject which always will be inflamed. The maker of this movie wants to inform the
viewers about how the situation was for the colored people in the South in the 60’s,
and tell us that it is important to remember the past so the people of the future want
do the same mistakes. The writer can feels how detail their hatred feels to the racists
in this movie, how it replaces other entertainments, how it compensates for their
B. Suggestion
Mississippi Burning film is an interesting subject to be studied or analyzed.
Racial practices with all of their points also become exciting subject to be explored
especially in the Mississippi Burning Film. The writer suggests to the reader to
concern on Racial Practices in the Mississippi Burning Film. The suggestion issue
has been analyzing in this paper and the writer hopes next researcher can eliminate
the weakness of this paper and find another interest issues that emerges in this film.
He believes, by focusing on this studying it will help the readers to do the similar
