Hamilton 1 Becca Hamilton Dr. Hannah Social Psychology 19 March 2013 A Change of Heart ‘What is one of the most insulting things someone could call a person here in America? Though many choice words come to mind, the one that prevails is to be called a racist. To be called a racist basically says that they are a hateful, politically incorrect, bigot who can’t function respectfully in society. Yet with such terrible and drastic consequences for acting with racist tendencies, why and how would a person develop these attitudes and behaviors? Janet Helm wondered about this same question and came up with the White Racial Identity Model, which demonstrates the development of white supremacy and racism in a person. She created 6 stages including: contact, disintegration, reintegration, pseudoindependence, immersion/emersion, and autonomy, to reveal how a person cognitively rationalizes racism. This model can be applied to societal members or a character in a movie, for instance Walt Kowalski in “Gran Torino”. Walt follows Helm’s model by developing through the stages of reintegration, pseudoindependence, and immersion/emersion as seen through his aggressive acts and the emotional affects of his behaviors. As the movie begins, Kowalski is found in the middle of Helm’s model, having developed out of contact and disintegration stages in childhood, leaving him now in reintegration. In this state of intolerance towards minority groups, Kowalski exhibits his reintegration mindset through his active-expression behaviors. Kowalski first slams his frontHamilton 2 door in the face of Thao, the son of his new Hmong neighbors, when all he asked for were some jumper cables. Not only does he shut out the boy, but he also goes as far as to point his gun at many different gang members of the same race as Thao. Once he feels like he has beaten down the minority people that surround him, Kowalski also excludes them by building up his ideal of white dominion to establish and solidify his “privilege”. He achieves this by saying to his son who drives a foreign built car, “Would it kill ya to buy American?” (Kowalski). All of these actively aggressive behaviors are clear indicators of Kowalski’s deeply imbedded white privilege that had developed out of his youthY’Though these actions were wrong, they do stem from an understandable source: dissonance. Specifically, Kowalski demonstrates a sort of effort justification dissonance. As we found out in the middle of the movie, Kowalski fought in the Korean War and experienced terrible suffering during those times. Kowalski is demonstrating reintegration because of the dissonance he experiences between what he remembers of the sufferings and great trauma he went through in Korea and now as he is encountering this people group again but in a different context. The extreme amount of effort exerted for the American cause during the war has influenced Kowalski to become overly loyal to America and white people, even if that means being a racist. Not knowing how to cope with this dissonance, Kowalski actively lashes out through his rude and aggressive behaviors and his prideful comments about America. Sadly, the affects of his actively aggressive behavior are of Kowalski feeling anger and fear towards minorities during this stage of reintegration. These emotions can be seen through his comment made when he spits in his neighbor's yard when the gang tries to take Thao. He says, “Damn barbarians” through grinding teeth and clenched jaw.These strong and angry words solely result as affects of Kowalski’s past behaviors. When he pointed his gunHamilton 3 at the Hmong gang, he established how he felt about them, yet now he is seeing the affects of these actions through increased anger as seen through these words. If Kowalski could remove his racist hermeneutic, then he would have probably felt more sad and protective of the poor teen than angry. Kowalski’s actions, though stemming from experience of dissonance, were shocking and wrong, while the affects of his actions brought on anger and fear in his state of reintegration. As the movie continues, Kowalski begins to progress into Helm’s next stage of pseudoindependence as he experiences a drastic and painful encounter with the Hmong people. ‘Thao, being manipulated and threatened by the Hmong gang, tries to steal Kowalski’s prized Gran Torino as an initiation into the gang. Yet Kowalski catches him in the act with gun in hand and scares the gang members away, eventually saving Thao as well, Because of Kowalski’s actions, the entire Hmong community thanks him by bringing gifts to his doorstep and Thao even comes over to apologize. Though Kowalski’s attitude has not completely shifted, intellectually he begins to act more positively towards the Hmong after this situation. He allows Thao to work for him as repayment for attempted robbery and eventually accepts the gifts of the people, even if he doesn’t want them. As these small steps are taken to loosen the grip on Kowalski’s white privilege tendencies, room is finally made for questioning to occur. Though still not fully convinced that the Hmong people are acceptable, Sue, the daughter of his neighbors, convinces Kowalski to come over to a party they were hosting. Out of his element and clearly uncomfortable, Kowalski’s behaviors demonstrate a shift from that terrible encounter with the gang. He comments, “You people are nuts, but the food smells good!”. Kowalski isn’t yet ready to completely abandon his notions of white privilege, but by loosening up slightly and attending the party he is able to intellectually shift from completely hating everything about the HmongHamilton 4 people, to seeing good in small aspects of their culture. With these newfound attitudes and actions, Kowalski also comes across the affects of this behavioral shift by feeling conflicted in his white privilege beliefs versus his developing comradery and sympathy for his Hmong neighbors. There is a moment when Kowalski is at the cook out were he allows the “witch doctor” to “read” him. After hearing what he has to say, Kowalski goes to the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror. With an expression of confusion seen in the reflection, one can see the affect of Kowalski’s behaviors. He wants to connect with these Hmong people, but he is, conflicted because his ideas of white privilege are holding him back and telling him that he has crossed a line. Though Kowalski still has a long way to go, he demonstrates a development to pseudoindependence by shifting his behaviors after the emotional and dramatic encounter with the gang initiation, while feeling the affects of this shift by taking a moment of self-reflection to figure out why he feels so torn. (/ By the end of the movie, Kowalski eventually finds himself developing in the next stage in Helm’s process, immersion and emersion. With the help of a loving relationship between Thao and himself, and the kindness shown by Sue, Kowalski is able to see the entirety of the faults in his white privilege beliefs and searches to find change. Many subtle comments and behaviors reveal how Kowalski shifts his focus from no longer resisting minority groups to questioning his own white privilege status. In conversation with his neighbors the comments were made, “Yeah, but you're an American” and “ ‘He’s the white devill” Kowalski: “Yeah, I am’”. Kowalski fully immerses himself in the lives and cultures of his Hmong neighbors, in a way abandoning his white pride attitude at home. With them, he is able to acknowledge that he misjudged these people, and can in fact be a good friend to all of them. By Thao poking fun at him by calling him the “white devil”, Kowalski allows what would have been a touchy subject to become a vehicleHamilton $ to show his changed beliefs. His answer of “Yeah, I am”, begins to become a testament to how he is changing and how he actually does question the idea of white people being correct about everything. Furthermore, the affect of this complete behavior shift is one of catharsis and of dealing with emotions he had stuffed deep inside himself in the past. Even if he was preparing to die because he knew he was going to go and confront the gang members after horribly raping poor Sue, Kowalski’s trip to confession reveals his desire to deal with his past. By confessing and acknowledging how racist he was towards non-whites because of the war, and how messed up he had acted once he got back, Kowalski releases all the frustration and emotion he had been wrestling with since he met the Hmong family next door. He wants to make things right again, ft since he earlier recognized to his neighbors that he was in fact the “white devil”, showing his {> distrust of white privilege ideals. Though he never reached the end stage of autonomy in Helm’s ” model, were he would see to ending the oppression and become proactive in uniting wink should, communities, he did in fact break his own personal barriers by cathartically confessing how he a ipheg e chang felt from his past until that moment, Kowalski’s brave steps of acknowledging his past white F ee privilege ideals and not acting on minority prejudice then resulted in the affect of the releasing in jo. hor a church confession all the pent up emotions he had been dealing with from his past i eth oT wht Overall, Kowalsk's journey of development from aracist man toarighteousman oes Me? follows Helm’s model of White Radical Identity through the stages of reintegration, pseudoindependence, and then immersion/emersion as seen through his behaviors and affects. His behaviors began as extremely aggressive, but shifted towards accepting and understanding. ‘The affects of these behaviors correlated in that they also shifted from more aggressive anger to proactivity towards making things right emotionally inside his mind. Whether exemplified in a movie character, seen in a friend or even in one’s own mind, understanding Helm’ s model helpsHamilton 6 to change these socially constructed ideas of racism. As the old saying goes, knowledge is power; and with this power, change is very possible. Taking the knowledge of our behaviors and affects of these behaviors can transform our culture, one person at a time.Name: Vecca Ham [fon WRITING ASSIGNMENT 1-OPTION C GRADING SHEET Points assigned 1. Contact Stage a. Behavioral component b. Affective component 2. Disintegration Stage a. Behavioral component b. Affective component 3. Reintegration Stage a. Behavioral component b. Affective component 4. Pseudoindependence Stage a. Behavioral component b, Affective component 5. Immersion/Emersion Stage a. Behavioral component b. Affective component 6. Autonomy Stage a. Behavioral component b, Affective component 7. Structural/ grammatical considerations rorat: 4 out of 50 pts. | | 6 | Possible points ) 6 pts. 1pt. 6 pts. lpt. 6 pts. Ipt. 6 pts. Ipt. 6 pts. 1 pt. 6 pts. 1 pt. 8 pts.