Tag Archives: Rize

“We are not all football players” (nor do we want to be)

Another interesting point that came up in the movie Rize is the idea that in the inner city the one thing you can always seem to find is a sports team. Maybe is one of those catch-22 types of things, but the truth is that a lot of do-gooders come into an inner city neighborhood and start sports teams. This makes some sense because there are a lot of kids that want to play sports, and thus we have our little catch-22 (I could be using the term all wrong, sorry).
But there are plenty of youth in the inner city that have no desire to play sports and would love to have other outlets. In the movie they mention the lack of performing arts schools and studios which is very true from what I know. There is a definite need for more of these things in the inner city.
If you have tons of sports options available to youth, you’ll continue to hear plenty of “rise out of poverty to sports star fame” types of stories. If you make performing arts more available, and good education available, you’ll eventually hear many more, “rise out of poverty to” broadway renown, ballet all-star, symphony elite, science genius, and the list goes on.

The sweet beauty of healthy race relations

Eventually, someones going to figure out that I am fairly emotional (i.e. I cry very easily). I was watching Rize today (I’ll write more about it later), and a quick 30 second scene brought a tear to my eye.
The movie is a documentary about a dance culture in the African-American community. In the one scene there is a party happening and you see an elderly white couple watching from their driveway. Three girls from the party (all three black) come up to the couple and do a little dance for them and then give them a balloon animal. The couple claps for them.
The scene isn’t really crucial to the rest of the film, it’s just a snippet during a music and dance segment. The part that touches me about it and other occasions, is the sweet beauty there is in healthy communication and interaction between people of different races. I see, hear and know of so many injustices and racism that occurs that you just long to see more and more relationships that are healthy.

Maybe I’m alone in that, but maybe not.

[IfeelWhenYou]
[Rize]