The film did well to demonstrate the duality in discrimination. How one group, discriminated against in one country, can come to America and rise in class through discriminating against the communities that are at the “bottom of the food chain.” I had an enormous problem with the fact that Indians could come to America, be a minority when its convenient (for exploitation), and rise to white status and exclusivity when it comes to the essentials of life. In the film these two dynamics are juxtaposed often in dialogue and aggressions. Sticking together as minorities when convincing Demetrius to not press charges to turning around and forbidding him from their daughters and thus entering the community. Yet, as shown with (the main character, I forgot her name)’s easy integration into the Black community, this effect is not seen in the reverse. While we do see Ben’s initial inhibition to Demetrius dating an Indian woman, it’s justified. She was initially welcomed until her community ensured the ruin of Demetrius’ life. To add, this occurrence is common in the Black community. There is a rational fear of white women because of the surrounding intolerability from the white community/onlookers. In all of this, however, Demetrius has no breakdown. He, as pushed by the writer/director, is supposed to be able to shake it off and continue without too much emotion. This is, in my opinion, pushing a negative dynamic: the normalization of the destruction of Black success and of Black persistence in the face of purposed, manufactured, and insurmountable challenge (along with the toxic masculine standard of suppressing emotion).
One of the things I noticed at some point when watching the film is that there is no redeeming Black character aside from Demetrius. Demetrius’ brother is unemployed and proposed as unintelligent, his brother’s friends are ‘hood,’ his partner is obsessed with the sexualization of women and doesn’t appear to be of normal intelligence, his ex left her roots and community in the pursuit of fame and contributes to the exclusion of others from the Black community, and his father professionally serves privileged white people in his old age. Out of all of those characters (all of Black characters) Demetrius is the only one to seriously go for an Indian women and the only one who is represented as decent. That could mean to say that decent Black men only go for those outside of the community/in the Indian community or it could serve as a testament to the standard/expectation/perception of Black character.
