My mom is watching “Hotel Rwanda” right now.
I’ve only seen it once or twice, but it’s always really powerful for me, because at the part where the UN evacuates the white people and then just leaves everyone else to live or die as they will…
It was the first time I ever felt ashamed to be white. I don’t mean that it was the first time I acknowledged my privilege. I remember feeling physically ill thinking about what was going on in the movie…
I don’t have the strength to watch movies like that sometimes, not because of feeling ashamed of being white, but just because they’re so emotional. I can’t do any movies about WWII or the Holocaust either. I am not good with viewing other people’s suffering. I get seriously uncomfortable and upset. We had to watch a clip from a Holocaust movie during one of my English classes (after reading “Night” by Elie Wiesel). They showed a scene where they put these people in the gas chambers…. I literally ran from the room and got sick. Which I guess is a good thing. I don’t think I’d want to be the kind of person who can watch things like that and not bat an eye.
