Class Reflection

The speaker I found most informative, inspiring, and challenging was Kristen Kopp from the German Department at the University of Missouri. Her presentation covered black racism in Germany. She showed the film, Schwarzfahre meaning Black Rider, to provide a glimpse of racism in the German culture. This film is a short drama about a young black man being harassed by an older white woman on a streetcar and the passengers remained silent. 

Ms. Kopp pointed out that the young man that entered the streetcar brought out this lady’s ideology of racism against the black people. If the man didn’t get on the train, people wouldn’t have seen and/or heard of this woman’s thoughts about black people.

This film portrayed a sense of injustice and justice. Injustice was portrayed through the streetcar because not a single passenger on the streetcar stood up for the man that was being harassed by the woman. The streetcar continued on down the street while the woman rambled about how the blacks are taking over this country and they should return to their hometown. [In the 1960’s West Germany went to Turkey to get workers since they didn’t have enough and majority of the workers were black.] During one of the stops, a police officer entered the streetcar and asked to see their tickets. The black man grabbed the older woman’s ticket and ate the ticket. The police officer didn’t believe the older woman when she proceeded to tell the officer that the man ate her ticket. Also, the black man didn’t confess to the officer. The officer then guided the woman off the streetcar since she didn’t have a ticket. It seemed that justice prevailed because the women needed to be removed from the train before it traveled onto the future.

An interesting aspect that Ms. Kopp pointed out was that no one mentioned to the police officer that the man did eat her ticket. In this case, injustice was portrayed in this scene because it’s against the law to not have a ticket but she did have a ticket. For me what was challenging about this short film was wondering what I would have done in this same circumstance. Another challenging aspect was that if someone mentioned something to the lady about the racist comment but didn’t mention something to the officer that the man did eat her ticket, then injustice would still be shown.

Lastly, Kristen Kopp informed the class that at the end of WWII, the United States brought over black troops to indirectly demonstrate that blacks can belong in society and they are just like anyone else. This indirect political act remained successful and helped bring the German people together. An irony during this time was that the United States struggled to find an peaceful way of life between the blacks and whites and still to this day, the United States struggles to find this.

An aspect that I thoroughly enjoyed in this class was selecting a country and addressing the current issues taking place. The country I chose was the country of Colombia. Before this class, I only knew that Colombia was located in South America and Spanish is the main language spoken but didn’t know anything else about the country. During this time of following and researching Colombia, I have learned that the country is struggling to stop guerrilla groups, especially the most popular group called FARC. FARC holds a large but complicated involvement in the Colombian society. Thousands of crimes, kidnappings and killings, which have taken place, are committed by the guerrilla group, FARC, and the Colombian government lacks proper strategies to stop these crimes or the guerrilla groups. FARC controls the drug trafficking scene of cocaine in Colombia. In order to increase the production of cocaine, the amount of cocoa beans grown must increase which drives the demand for land. The lack of land results in deforestation of the Amazon Forest and majority of farmers growing coca beans must report back to FARC. FARC knows majority of everything that is taking place in Colombia.

The United States government has provided billions of dollars over the past 30 years to the Colombian government to help stop drug trafficking. Colombia’s main issue of dealing with FARC and the presence of drug trafficking is an example of globalization. FARC is a direct threat to the security of Colombian citizens along with surrounding countries because the Colombian government has had a hard time dealing and stopping the FARC guerrilla group.

In addition, drug trafficking affects the security of the world. The United States believes that drug trafficking affects and hinders the world. As a result, the United States have contributed to stop drug trafficked out of Colombia. Researching the country of Colombia has shown me how quickly one country’s problem of guerrilla groups can affect surrounding countries along with countries much farther away.