To the Editor:
Having just returned from Thursday night's screening of John Singleton's "Higher Learning," I found that I was not nearly so disturbed by this poignant (albeit heavy-handed) film as I was by the reaction of the audience -- a group made up of my friends and classmates.
Throughout the movie, which focused on issues surrounding the understanding (or lack thereof) of differences on America's college campuses, a small but vocal group of those in attendance saw fit to make public their reactions to it. These reactions included decrying an intimate relationship between an African-American man and a Caucasian woman, applauding at the suicide of a deranged, homicidal white-supremacist and awestruck gasps as a woman attempted to explore her sexuality. The crowning glory of this lack of tolerance (not to mention understanding -- the very subject of the film), which was expressed much more powerfully and disturbingly among some of the audience members than through the screenplay itself, was performed by the gentleman who yelled "What?" just as the picture ended with the message "unlearn."
Was this message, made so painstakingly clear by the film (or so I thought), lost on the closed ears and minds of those who are supposed to be among America's best and brightest? If that is the case, then Mr. Singleton's work has, despite its seeming-implausibility, come, perhaps come closer to paralleling reality than we would like to think. Perhaps the sad truth is that getting schooled does not necessarily mean getting smart.
