“This is going to be a powerful experience for those of you who haven’t seen it,” said Latino Community Program Coordinator and anti-racism team member Jorge Zeballos as he introduced guests Victor Louis and Hugh Vasquez of the film “The Color of Fear.” Louis and Vasquez briefly spoke about their experience in making the film, but were ultimately more focused on creating an open and accepting place for discussion on the film itself. “We have been taught from birth, and some of us from conception, to be divided against one another,” Louis said, prepping the audience for the film.

He invited the members of the audience to “provide a space of amnesty” for their peers as they began to dig into the complicated topic of race.

“There is an unknown with what we’re going to dig in with,” Vasquez said, echoing Louis.

Vasquez continued to emphasize the importance of being open and honest during the conversation, so that genuine change could take place.

In “The Color of Fear,” which came out in 1994, eight men from North America (two African Americans, two Latinos, two Asian Americans, and two Caucasians) are brought together by director Lee Mun Wah to have a dialogue about the state of race relations in the USA. Many people value the film because it puts the problem right out there in highly visible ways.

The film primarily focuses around how these individuals felt (or didn’t feel) the presence of institutionalized racism in their lives.

A lot of the discussion centered on David (one of the Caucasians in the film) and his lack of comprehension about the problems with institutionalized racism in America.

“The film was made without any preparation, without any script; we’re not actors,” said Vasquez, re-emphasizing the genuine nature of the film and the experience.

After the film, the audience broke into pairs and told each other how they felt about the experience, what it meant to them, what conflicts they had with the differing views expressed, and how they felt the film reflected the world around them, before moving into a larger group discussion. Strangely enough, the conversation remained either very abstract, or grounded in the individual’s experience. No one talked much about the state of race relations in Greensboro, or even at Guilford. Mostly the group was accepting of each other’s faults, but there were a couple of times that people tensed or felt the need to respond directly to something which they disagreed with.

“I don’t want to be the cliché where I sit around and complain,” said Audrey Henneman, a first-year who was fairly vocal during the post-movie discussion, “I feel like this is something I need to (act on).”

Sophomore Grady Gamble, vice president of Blacks Unifying Society (BUS) and member of the Multicultural Leadership Scholars Program, said that he “thought the presentation was excellent because it brought out a lot of emotions that it needed to bring out.” However, Gamble also expressed caution in his optimism. “I want to know if people are bringing out all these emotions but no … action,” he said, noting the difference between talking about social change and really getting out there to do it.

The discussion of “The Color of Fear” may not have been a one-stop fix for all the problems that the film brings up, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction.