Racism In The Butler

Following the story of Cecil Gaines, a black man who went from a slave to a butler in the White House, Lee Daniels’ The Butler was a very exceptional film that depicted the hard truth of racism from the mid 1900’s to the early 2000’s. When Cecil went in for the interview at the White House he was told, “You hear nothing, you see nothing, you only serve.” I felt this was a really interesting position to put a black man in at the time. He was probably told for his whole life to just ignore whats going on around him and to do only what he was told. Then he was placed in a position where he would overhear conversations about politics that related to the lives of black people. He was in the room when Ronald Reagan decided to veto the bill that …show more content…
The first one was the scene at the diner, where a group of black people sat in the whites only section as a way to protest unfair treatment. The white customers ended up verbally and physically attacking the protesters. From the viewpoint of someone growing up in the 2000’s I find myself flabbergasted that his kind of behavior was considered acceptable. I was just as shocked when there was no punishment on the white attackers, but the black protesters got sentenced to 30 days in jail. There was another scene where the Freedom Bus was attacked and blown up by the KKK and other racist people. I hardly have words for this scene. I can’t imagine the fear that black people of this time must have gone through being alive in a world that puts no value on their lives. Its ridiculous how white people would consider black people lesser citizens while they were the ones attacking people for no reason other than their skin color. From just watching black people try to live white people turned into the violent animals that they depicted black people as. Cecil has a conversation with the president, John F. Kennedy, very soon after the attacks. Kennedy tells Cecil that he never really understood what black people went through until he saw the attack on the news. I think this was a really interesting point in the movie as Cecil is able to experience sympathy from a white man who would actually be able to help improve the lives of black