When Jamal was given an opportunity to attend a prestigious private school (Mailor) the school said it would not hurt if he joined the basketball team. On his way to the private school on the subway the scene was very awkward; Jamal was the only African American male on the train among a sea of white middle aged professionals. There were many racial aspects to the movie.
I thought the movie did a good job with having Jamal connect with the girl at school. Her background story was that her father had gotten elected to the board and changed the rules at Mailor that initially was an all-male school, so his daughter could attend. She and Jamal could connect and relate on being outsiders in the private “2-comma” boys club.
I liked the comment that Jamal made
to William about how Mailor did not want him there because he was not a 2-comma
kid. Jamal meant he did not come from a family worth over a million (or
2-commas in the number). That was another very authentic topic that is related
to providing gifted programs. Gifted students are assumed to be from white
affluent families. In one of the lines in the movie Professor Crawford stated
that Jamal could not possibly have written his submission for the writing
competition. Professor Crawford said that a basketball player from the Bronx
could not be that good of a writer. The movie’s climax was when Jamal’s future at Mailor was left up to his ability to will the basketball championship for the school and then the board could forgive his lying and allow him to continue attending on scholarship. They (the board and Professor Crawford)just want the best for the school. The game comes down to a final set of foul shots that Jamal needs to make to win the game, he looks at his girlfriend and then at Professor Crawford and misses the shot. I interpreted this as Jamal’s statement that he will not be their pawn, he did nothing wrong and did not want to give the school the easy way out to “forgive” him for indiscretions that he did not do.
This is the perfect time of year to
discuss this topic also being the ending of March Madness. As a country we do
not offer many gifted services to the urban inner city schools, we spend a lot
of time and resources on sports and many young African American men think that
it their only way out of the inner city and many times poverty If they are
intellectual many do not see that as being an asset and try to hide their
intellect like Jamal did in the movie. With the current scandal at UNC with their
student athletes either not being able to read or reading at a 4th
grade level. There are no colleges that would admit a student into their program
that read at a 4th grade level or less. We, as a country, need to
work on the role models for our young. We need to make intelligence look
glamorous and cool and just because a kid is a basketball protégé, give him a
college scholarship. There are many intelligent basketball players that balance
intelligence and athleticism. We could
then possibly see a shift in younger inner city kids to try to make the grade
and the hoops instead of sacrificing the grades for the hoops. This then could
begin to break the stereotypical image of an inner city African American
athlete. This movie also is a great starting point to talk about how to get academically gifted programs in to the city schools. Most people assume that inner city kids are average to low on the intelligence and testing scale. This image is reinforced by peers at the school, media, and celebrities in the movies. You very rarely hear about inner city schools achieving high scores on standardized tests or producing academically gifted students. If you hear positive stories coming from the inner city schools it is probably related to sports or art (music, acting). Finding Forrester breaks that stereotype and gets its audience to realize that intelligence is colorblind and does not care how much money you have. You may be extremely rich, but not have the intelligence or extremely poor and very intelligent. Unfortunately wealth and race will be the deciding factor on if your intelligence will be nurtured. We need to change that. Everyone that has the ability should have the opportunity.
Picture References:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Finding_Forrester_logo.jpg
https://www.flickr.com/photos/aadl/6923807319/
http://pixabay.com/en/basketball-sports-teams-players-95607/
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