CHAPTER III RESEARCH FINDINGS
In this chapter, the writer will discuss the racial practices in Mississippi Burning. The discussion will be divided into several descriptions based on the event
that shows racial practices in the film Mississippi Burning. The writer uses pictures, dialogues and the discussion that refer to racial practices. This chapter consists of
Data Description and Data Analysis.
A. Data Description
The selected data will be tabulated as follow:
The table of Racial Practices in the film “Mississippi Burning”. Racial practices
Explain the situation Picture
• Burning In the beginning of the film, a burning church
showed by the activists of Ku Klux Klan 1
• Intimidation In the middle of night, three civil right
workers, two young Jews and one Negro, go out of the police office. While driving the car,
they followed by the Activist of Ku Klux Klan and interrogated by.
2 - 3
• Violence to the black people
In the middle of pig cage. The activists of Ku Klux Klan caught, stroke
and threaten the black kid. 4 - 5
• Violence to the black people
Out of the church. 6 - 7
• Discrimination and unfair-
treatment In the court. The judge helped the activists of
Ku Klux Klan who did burning the ghetto of a blacks’ home.
8
• Racialist Clayton Townley interview.
9 - 10 • Lynching and
Burning The Ku Klux Klan activists burn a black
home who gives some information to the FBI agents. One of their extreme actions was
lynching the black on the tree. 11
B. Data Analysis
For detail explanation of the table above, the writer will analysis and elaborate the data with further discussion.
B1. Analysis • Burning
In the beginning of the film, a burning church showed by the activists of Ku Klux Klan
Picture 1 The opening scenes of the movie were some of the most traumatic ever seen
in any film of the 1980s. An Apostolic church was the first building seen in the film, burn with the Ku Klux Klan because they hatred to the blacks people. In the
Mississippi Burning Film, the blacks’ people are just quite and receive what the activists of KKK done.
• Intimidation In the middle of night, three civil right workers, two young Jews and one
Negro, go out of the police office. While driving the car, they followed by the Activist of KKK and interrogated by.
Picture 2 Picture 3
Frank K. K. K :Yall think you can drive any speed you want around
here?
Jew boy
:You had us scared to death, man.
Frank :Dont you call me man, Jew-boy.
Jew boy :No, sir. What should I call you?
Frank :You dont call me nothin, nigger-lovin Jew-boy. You
just listen.
Jew boy :Yes, sir.
Frank
:Hell, you even startin to smell like a nigger, Jew-boy.
Jew boy :Take it easy. Well be all right.
Frank :Sure you will, nigger-Iover.
Deputy Pell K. K. K :Hes seen your face. That aint good.
You dont want him seein your face.
Frank :Oh, it dont make no difference no more. [shooting the
civil rights workers]
Deputy Pell :Whoa, shit We into it now, boys.
You only left me a nigger, but at least I shot me a nigger.
Frank
:Yes, indeed.
After describing the pictures of the racial practices in Mississippi Burning Film, the writer knows the factors why American white people did the discrimination
towards the blacks and other ethnics like Jews, Turks, Mongols, Tartars, Orientals nor Negroes. In the history, the oppressing towards the color ethnics especially to the
blacks had been exist as slave since 17 century, and written in the bible of Christian. In the middle of 1960s, America will be facing the president election. But
not all the citizen of America follows the election. Like the Blacks people in the south. To solve this problem the government sent three Civil Right Workers to select
the Blacks rights in the south in giving their contribution in president election. The three Civil Right Workers are two Jews boy and one of them was black.
But, the coming of the Civil Right Workers to Mississippi county smelled by KKK activists who the Anglo-Saxon followers. They don’t want the Blacks get
their rights in presidential election. The KKK activists try everything to protect their democracy even that by intimidation and murdered.
The dialogue above happened when the three Civil Right Workers stopped their car because the KKK activists caught and ordered them to stop their car. The
KKK activists interrogated them didn’t let them out from their car. That time, the KKK activists oppress the Civil Right Workers Yall think you can drive any speed
you want around here? . They talk rough to the Civil Right Workers with “Jew boy
and nigger”. This is a form of racism. The dialogue above shows that the KKK activists didn’t want the Civil
Right Workers done something they didn’t like in their county. They will do
everything to block and do the intimidation to their enemies. The KKK are the followers of Anglo-Saxon democracy and they didn’t want other races reject their
democracy and their superiority. The white people, who joined in some community based color like Ku Klux
Klan, fraternal organization, make intimidation, kidnapping
,
and lynching the black who try to register. This case related with the theory which the writer choose for. The
intimidation was one of KKK way to scare and to threaten the African-American. Based on the dialogue above, the writer concludes that there is the deep
hatred to the color races. Combining between white American race and colored race will make their superiority in threatened. They believe the white American race is
more superiority than colored people.
• Violence In the middle of pig stable
Picture 4 Picture 5
The violence, intimidation and kidnapping show in picture 5 and 6. Begin when two FBI agents came to a restaurant which has segregation. The separation
chairs between white American race and colored race. When they into the restaurant they saw there is no an empty chair except in color side. One of them get the empty
chair then began talk with a Negro child. After the agent get closer and ask some questions to him, the black boy look
around him to the white’s chair then they look to him with unlike scene. The white thought that the black boy talked and give the FBI agent the information about the
Civil Right Workers. At night, the KKK activists came to the black’s home. They caught until the
pig cage, stroked, and did the violence to him. After finished with their toy the black boy they intimidated him and talked” We better not catch you talkin to the FBI. Or
youll be dead, boy. Real dead”. Afterward they brought him to cotton cage and get
him in picture 4, until the morning they throw the black in the middle of town. Based on the dialogue and the pictures above, the writer find the
discrimination and the violence that referred to James M. Blaut theory on this scene.
• Violence to the black people Out of the black church
Picture 6 Picture 7
The hatred has been root in the heart of white people. The discrimination toward black people continues this time. This event can be seen in picture 5 and
picture 6. There is a lot of Klan activists came to the church. They waited until the blacks finished their pray. After the blacks finish, all the Ku Klux Klan members
directly rush upon the blacks, kicked and stroked them. On the pictures above we can see a child was attacked and stroked by one of the KKK members.
Religious racism had already established the causality by which God gives better heredity to Christians, and this argument could now be adapted to assert the
genetic superiority of the so-called white race. The genetic superiority of the so-called white race was now believed in axiomatically by nearly all social theorists. The
cultural superiority of Europeans white automatically consists of. Cultural superiority was mainly, though not entirely, considered to be an effect of racial superiority.
These racial violence acts based on the blacks reported what they did to the blacks who burned the ghetto of the blacks until the FBI agents got and brought them
to the court session. They hated very much to the black people even though the blacks did not do anything to them.
• Discrimination and unfair treatment In the court
Picture 8 Judge
: But I want you to know that the court understands... that the crimes you have committed have been, to some
extent at least... brought about by... outside influences. Outsiders have come into Jessup County... and theyve
been people of low morality... and unhygienic. And their presence here has provoked a lot of people.
So the court understands... without condoning them, mind you... that the crimes to which you men have pled
guilty... were, to some extent at least, provoked by these outside influences.
So, with all this, Im gonna make your punishment light. Im gonna sentence you each to five years
imprisonment. But Im gonna suspend these sentences.
The dialogue took in the court session when the defendants of burning the ghetto of the blacks found by help of a child who saw the event. After burning the
ghetto of the black people, the defendants who mixed up in the burning are caught with the FBI agents, and then, they were got to the court session. Because the judge
was a member of Ku Klux Klan, of course the defendants got the protection from the judge. The judge gave the punishment to the defendants with five years in jail, but he
suspends the sentences. After heard the decision form the judge the blacks who show the court
session just quiet and sat on the balcony without do their equal to ask the justice from the court. The blacks who sat on the balcony because the white people don’t want to
sit in the same row with the black. They don’t want because the blacks are not in same level with them, and it can make down their superiority. So, in the court the
practice discrimination and unfair-treatment to the black people go on even it in the court.
• Racialist Clayton Townley Interview
Picture 9 Picture 10
Clayton Townley
:I am sick and tired of the way many of us Mississippians...are havin our views distorted by your
newspapers and on TV. So lets get this straight.
We do not accept Jews because they reject Christ. Their control of the international banking cartels are at
the root of communism. We do not accept Papists because they bow to a Roman
dictator. We do not accept Turks, Mongols, Tartars, Orientals
nor Negroes... because were here to protect Anglo- Saxon democracy...and the American way.
Picture 7 and 8 shows us Clayton Townley as the Ku Klux Klan activist interviewed when out from his office. He talked his feeling why he didn’t accept Jews
because they reject Christ, they control of the international banking cartels are at the root of communism. And why he didn’t accept Papists because they bow to a Roman
dictator, and he said he didn’t accept Turks, Mongols, Tartars, Orientals, nor Negroes because he wants to protect Anglo-Saxon democracy and the American way.
These countries which Townley said are not believe in Anglo-Saxon democracy and the countries will be supposed to falling down the superiority of white
American.
• Lynching The KKK activists burn a black home who gives some information to the
FBI agents. One of their extreme actions was lynching the black on the tree.
Picture 11 The picture 9 shows us how the violence towards the blacks continues this
time, combustion and lynching toward the black until death. The happened took in the outside of a black’s home when they were sleeping; suddenly from the outside of
their home the KKK activists burned their animal’s cage and home. The father who knows this event ordered his son to evacuate their family to the save place. The father
out from his home with a gun then got some kicks and strikes. The KKK activists did some violence to the father then bind him until him dead.
According to the writer this violence was a great action than the others. The murdered is the end of everything.
C. Further Discussion of Data Analysis