I've never seen
Crash, nor do I plan to. From what I know about the film, it represents the worst of the multiculturalist ideology, which I hold is the philosophical equivalent of a shrieking baby on a plane. Happily, and a bit surprisingly, the
Atlantic's Te-Nehisi Coates
agrees:
Before we go any further, I need to admit that several people who I love and respect actually like Crash. I need let them know that I don't hold this against them, and I still love and respect them--though, with Crash in mind, more the former than the latter.
With that said, I don't think there's a single human being in Crash. Instead you have arguments and propaganda violently bumping into each other, impressed with their own quirkiness. ("Hey look, I'm a black carjacker who resents being stereotyped.") But more than a bad film, Crash, which won an Oscar (!), is the apotheosis of a kind of unthinking, incurious, nihilistic, multiculturalism. To be blunt, nothing tempers my extremism more than watching a fellow liberal exhort the virtues of Crash.
If you're angry about race, but not particularly interested in understanding why, you probably like Crash. If you're black and believe in the curative qualities of yet another "dialogue around race," you probably liked Crash. If you're white and voted for Barack Obama strictly because he was black, you probably liked Crash. If you've ever used the term "post-racial" or "post-black" in a serious conversation, without a hint of irony, you probably liked Crash.
And I swear if any of you defend the film, I'm going to ban you. Not just from this site, not just from the Internet, but from all public life. Don't test me. My armies are legion.
In this sense only, consider me one of Coates' foot soldiers.
I've never seen Crash, nor do I plan to. From what I know about the film, it represents the worst of the multiculturalist ideology, which I hold is the philosophical equivalent of a shrieking baby on a plane. Happily, and a bit surprisingly, the Atlantic's Te-Nehisi Coates agrees: